One further comment from me...
I think it would be true to say that throughout more recent history military aircraft have taken so long to develop that by the time they hit the shelves so to speak they are either outdated or not suited to the job they need to perform at the time they hit those shelves. It would also seem that these days this country, like many others, no longer has the ability (or perhaps skill set) to stand on it's own two feet and develop it's own defence equipment. During the early days of the Cold War we made some cracking aircraft, they may not have all been perfect, and true enough some weren't as good as others, but they were ours, and they pretty much did what they said on the tin. We have now reached an age where technology rules the roost, and developments take 10s of years rather than maybe 5, and therefore the associated costs are huge, and do we ever really get what we want during thes elong development times.
Is there an answer to the multitude of problems discussed in the article and amongst these comments? Well if there is it will surely lie in sorting out the mess behind the scenes, cleaning up the procurement process, actually reading contracts before they're signed and coming up with proper forward looking specifications for equipment before any development orders are issued. As someone quite rightly said here one of the things that does the most damage in terms of cost is the change of specification part way through. It's like ordering a Mini and then deciding you need a Mondeo!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
