§ Mr. HancockTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer of 8 March 1999,Official Report, columns 34–35, on in-service dates for aircraft, what are the reasons for the different definitions of in-service. [77265]
§ Mr. SpellarThe current practice is to define in-service dates as the date by which an equipment, or a specified number of equipments, will contribute to the operational capability of the Service concerned. The in-service date quoted for the Hercules C130J conforms with this practice. The in-service dates for Eurofighter, Merlin HM Mk 1 and Merlin HC Mk3 were defined some years ago when the practice was to take account of a range of operational, production and international factors.