I have an acquaintance who flies the Eurofighter for the Luftwaffe and is very impressed by the characteristics of the plane, especially its agility and handling. He flew in quite different environments, according to him the aircraft performed very well in everyone. He flew the Tornado and Phantom before and regards the Eurofighter as a quantum leap, even in comparison with the Tornado.
Heard some about mechanical problems from him and extra inspections/planes grounded. I will ask him next week, if he wants/can share some details with the public.
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Originally Posted by Skybird
They promise too much at too little money. They do it intentionally, do ghet the contract. And when they got it, the bill grows, and the probolems become apparent. But then too much already has been payed as if somebody would want to pull out.
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The biggest problem is the missing accountability. We did not only see a tripling of the costs, but also some stuff where the manufacturer screwed up. Of course nobody gets held accountable for this and gets fired or fined. Neither the political decision makers, nor the contractors. From what I read, some costs raised, due to failure on the manufacturers side. The nonpublic contracts are always watertight by the company's lawyers. So of course the taxpayer has to jump in for the bill.
Remember all the populist talk about Toll Collect, where some politicians promised to get some penalty money back from the manufacturers which didn't manage to start the system in time? Mysteriously they are all very quiete now - nothing hidden in a 17000 pages contract...