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Britain considering buying Italian jet
London, June 08: While Britain is keen to finalise the Hawk deal worth 1 billion pounds with India, its top-gun fighter pilots could soon be honing their skills on an Italian jet in a 12.5 billion pounds deal that has outraged MPs.
London, June 08: While Britain is keen to finalise the Hawk deal worth 1 billion pounds with India, its top-gun fighter pilots could soon be honing their skills on an Italian jet in a 12.5 billion pounds deal that has outraged MPs.
The British Ministry of Defence officials are considering plans to replace the current Hawk jets with the Italian-built Aermacchi M346 - despite being offered a new, upgraded version of the world-beating Hawk, 'Sunday Express' reported today.
Known to millions around the world as the planes flown for over 20 years by the Red Arrows display team, the Hawks are used by more than a dozen countries around the world to train fighter pilots.
British firm BAE Systems is desperate to win orders for the new Hawk 128 and may have to sack 3,000 staff if the RAF contract goes abroad.
The deal could also be crucial to the long-term future of defence giant BAE Systems, formerly British Aerospace.
Failure could leave it open to take-over by a major US defence contractor such as Boeing.
Shadow defence minister Gerald Howarth, MP, said is hard to believe that the government can even countenance equipping the RAF with a foreign aircraft when we have got our own world-beating jet in the Hawk.
"It is astonishing. What message does that send out to the world? If the British government won't buy the new Hawk, then who will?
"This is a multi-billion pound contract and whatever aircraft is chosen for training pilots will inevitably be the airplane to replace the current jets."
Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon is due to decide by the end of this month on a replacement for the current Hawk, which is due to be retired from service in 2007.
Bureau Report
Known to millions around the world as the planes flown for over 20 years by the Red Arrows display team, the Hawks are used by more than a dozen countries around the world to train fighter pilots.
British firm BAE Systems is desperate to win orders for the new Hawk 128 and may have to sack 3,000 staff if the RAF contract goes abroad.
The deal could also be crucial to the long-term future of defence giant BAE Systems, formerly British Aerospace.
Failure could leave it open to take-over by a major US defence contractor such as Boeing.
Shadow defence minister Gerald Howarth, MP, said is hard to believe that the government can even countenance equipping the RAF with a foreign aircraft when we have got our own world-beating jet in the Hawk.
"It is astonishing. What message does that send out to the world? If the British government won't buy the new Hawk, then who will?
"This is a multi-billion pound contract and whatever aircraft is chosen for training pilots will inevitably be the airplane to replace the current jets."
Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon is due to decide by the end of this month on a replacement for the current Hawk, which is due to be retired from service in 2007.
Bureau Report