National Defence committee  No, there is no formal commitment from any of the nations on in-scan radar. The initial study is being funded by industry, and we have a commitment to make progress on the activity on industry funds for a good part of 2011, when the nations will, I hope, have a common requirement for an in-scan radar capability to be integrated on the Eurofighter Typhoon.

National Defence committee  We are not in a position to comment here, because this is commercially sensitive data.

National Defence committee  The fly-away price? That's far too high.

National Defence committee  Far too high--more than 10%.

National Defence committee  We're talking about the fly-away price, not system price.

National Defence committee  I can respond to that, because in my early days as an engineer I was working on this very subject. The duct is shaped to avoid direct view of the engine. This is one element. We have provisions for allowing the insertion of radar-absorbing material in the duct so we could further reduce the signature of the engine.

National Defence committee  Well, as Chris was saying before, what you really want is the survivability of your aircraft, because of the money costs, because of the life it carries, and all sorts of reasons. The survivability is the result of observability, so low observability, but also the capability to escape once you have been detected.

National Defence committee  Although the design started with a NATO requirement in 1986 and became operational in 2004, the first tranche of aircraft, namely the initial 148 machines, was mainly dedicated to the air-to-air role, with only a limited air-to-service capability. With the second tranche, the current standard that is now being delivered, we have significantly increased the growth capacity, memory capability of the computers, speed of the computers to allow the new air-to-ground capabilities to be embedded and still allow a lot of growth potential for the new weapons and the new sensors that we, together with our co-nations, are planning to integrate.

National Defence committee  If I may add, Chris was correctly reminding me that the largest number of jobs would be in the in-service support field.

National Defence committee  No.

National Defence committee  The exact number would be.... It's 40% of 620, so it's--

National Defence committee  It's over 220. It's 232.

National Defence committee  Oh, yes.

National Defence committee  It is their primary role.

National Defence committee  Thanks for the question. It's very interesting. Of course the core of the production and development of the Eurofighter Typhoon has taken place in Europe, but it's not only within the four core nations. We have several industries that are supporting the Eurofighter Typhoon, including France and other nations outside the core.