If its the early 90's then there's a real possibility that the project continues either as a British only project or with either the Italians and/or Spanish. There was a real determination in Britain to progress with it in some form, from what I remember there was real irritation in the Major Government and the Tory Party at the way the Germans were getting cold feet, apparently even looking for it to be changed to a single engine which would have required a complete redesign of the aircraft.
I can't see the project as a whole being canned if the Germans pull out because of the thousands of job losses it would have meant in Britain, the project would have been delayed several years and cost a lot more but it would have gone ahead in some form.
OK, that would mean that the Typhoon is even more British aircraft...
But would Italians and Spanish be ready to make for Germans, to pay more for development because Germans pulled out?
There was a big lobbying operation mounted by the Major Government to keep the Italians on board, including the lease of Tornado ADV's to replace some of the AMI's Starfighters as a stopgap. The Italians and Spanish would drive a harder bargain if the Germans had quit but they would also be looking at significant job losses if the programme died so I suspect some kind of deal would have been done.
Would there be any traction in trying to get the Saudi's to commit to the aircraft whilst in development and shoulder some of the development costs?Yes, but essentially, someone should pay for that...
British costs of development were about 6,5 billions pounds, German were somewhere around 5,5-6, so that would mean that UK should pay at least 2,5-3 billions more for development and Italy and Spain at least 1,5 and 1 billion respectivly.
Would there be any traction in trying to get the Saudi's to commit to the aircraft whilst in development and shoulder some of the development costs?
it is possible that they would but why would they the typhoon gave the Germans part of the work share.
I'm pretty sure that for pretty big order ( after all Germany did order 180 Typhoons, so somewhere the same numbers ) LM would be willing to have licence production ( or at least assembly ) of F-16 in Germany.
Nor do I, I just wondered if anyone else could think of a reason for them to get involved.I'm not sure why would Saudis do something like that when they can simply buy finished aircraft later as they did OTL?
Nor do I, I just wondered if anyone else could think of a reason for them to get involved.
And if Germany quits, what would they do? Buy F-16 from USA instead?