20 Years Ahead Of Schedule, Why Eurofighter Typhoons Are Being Retired By The Royal Air Force...

[dutchman]

With more than half (60%) of their airframes’ life still remaining, young enough to see extensive service at least for the next two decades, 30 Eurofighter Typhoon jets of the Tranche 1 variant will be axed from the Royal Air Force’s (RAF) fleet by 2025.



This is in line with the Defence Command Paper (DCP) released on March 22 this year. The RAF has a total of 160 Typhoons in service, of which 53 are Tranche 1, 67 are Tranche 2 and 40 are Tranche 3.

The DCP said that the Tranche 1 jets were originally slated for retirement by 2019, but were retained following the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), which recommended 23 Tranche 1 Typhoons be given a life extension to keep them in service until 2040.

This would leave 30 in their original form. Tranche 1 Typhoons will now be retired with their airframes having served only for 2,544.8 hours – just 42% of the 6,000 hours of their full life.

Of the 30 remaining Tranche 1 jets, 20 are in active service and 10 are in storage, according to Under Secretary for Defence James Heappey’s response to a question in Parliament.

The Tranche 1 jets had software limitations that could allow them to be used only for air superiority roles like the Quick Reaction Alerts (QRA) and not multi-role missions that involved ground attack.

QRA, which involves rapid interception of hostile aerial targets, are being met by Typhoons in Romania, Falkland Islands (or the Malvinas the Argentines call them), and Operation Shader, which is the name for Britain’s mission against ISIS in Iraq.

While their presence did free Tranche 2 and 3 jets of air dominance missions, focusing on more complex missions, their maintenance and life-cycle costs were drawing sums that the UK wants to use for on defense programs.

This includes the joint development of the SPEAR air-to-surface missile, the highly advanced Radar 2 system, and an ambitious stealth jet, space, and nuclear rearmament projects.

Interestingly, it’s not only the Trance 1 but also 14 Lockheed Martin C-130J Mk.4 tactical transport, Airbus Puma HC2 helicopters, Gazelle helicopters, CH-47 Chinook heavy-lift helicopter, E-3D Sentry Mk.1 Airborne Early Warning (AEW), and the Hawk T1 trainers, that will also be exited from service.

The C-130J is expected to be replaced by the Airbus A-400M. Except for the Hawk and the Tranche 1 Typhoons, the UK Ministry of Defence also plans to sell all the other equipment through the Defence Equipment Sales Authority (DESA), for which a brochure has been published, and circulated to potential international buyers.

[dutchman]

It's not the first time the RAF has had to scrap perfectly good aircraft in order to pay for new acquisitions which they didn't want in the first place.

One notorious example is when they axed the entire Coventry-built Armstrong-Whitworth Argosy transport fleet in order to pay for 60 new Hercules transports which were only ordered in the first place as part of a botched deal to replace cancelled F-111B pre-orders with McDonnell F4K Phantoms.

Somebody at least will be getting a bargain. There's a good chance Holland will buy some of the Hercules transports as I know my cousin is keen to expand Holland's airlift capability.

If it was up to me (and it isn't) I'd buy the Typhoons too and recreate 322 Squadron which was a wartime Dutch RAF fighter unit.

[rebbonk]

I worked on the Argosy! Whistling wheelbarrow or whistling t*t, depending on the version.

It had its limitations but was a very good general workhorse. I think the last one I saw flying was used by the CAA to calibrate airfield landing systems.

[dutchman]

It wouldn't surprise me if the RAF is forced to repurchase some of the planes to cope with a short term emergency, it has happened before. In 1982 they were forced to lease back three Short Belfast transports as they had no heavy lift capability, they also had to purchase 18 second hand Phantoms due to a chronic shortage of air-superiority fighters. The latter were not ex-RAF Phantoms but a totally different American type.