Typhoon (Hansard, 5 December 2002)

§ Lord Bach

Progress towards the entry to service of Typhoon has been reviewed closely since the start. in April 2002, of test flying with the instrumented production aircraft. The process of gathering flight safety and performance data, which is necessary to accept aircraft into service, is taking industry longer than the agreed schedule. The large volume of work to resolve outstanding and arising design issues, although individually minor, has also progressed more slowly than expected. As a result, we have concluded with our international partners and with industry that the evidence required to permit contractual acceptance of the aircraft by the four partner nations will not he complete before the end of March 2003. Allowing for the joint, four-nation acceptance process, aircraft should then be ready for hand-over to the Royal Air Force by the end of June 2003.

In any event following the loss of a development aircraft in Spain on 21 November, it is essential that there is a time allowance for the realignment of test flying tasks. Further delay cannot he ruled out until the causes and implications of the crash are full} understood. This second delay, since the contract was placed with industry, to Typhoon's entry to service is extremely disappointing, but safety remains paramount, and we will only accept aircraft that meet the agreed specification. Every effort will be made to accelerate the entry to service and work-up process to prevent or minimise any delay to the operational employment of Typhoon, scheduled for he second half of the decade. It is this latter date, of course, when the RAF is able to use the aircraft on operations, that is so critical.