JBG31 Eurofighter news update

[frank kramer]

During a base visit at Nörvenich, the following was told by the base press officer:

Nörvenich currently has 2 Eurofighters (or EF's, in Luftwaffe parlance), 30+40 being one. One is used for keeping the present 3 pilots current, the other one for keeping the technical crews current. Neuburg (JG74) has 6 EF's. All other EF's are currently at Laage to speed up pilot conversion. This is now well established and Laage will start to redeploy EF's to Neuburg first in March 2011 and Nörvenich after that. All duals will remain at Laage, however. Nörvenich will initially receive tranche-1 and tranche-2 aircraft (pure fighters) and will later transition to tranche-3 (fighter-bomber) aircraft. The last one of that series is due somewhere in 2017. The wing will receive 35 EF's (down from 48 Tornado's). No decision has been made on the effect of future defence cuts on the location of the EF force; Laage seems safe because of the newly-constructed infrastructure and because of JG73 being the EF-training and conversion unit, Neuburg has its infrastructure in place as well, Nörvenich is well under way but Wittmund and Büchel have not started building yet. The total number of EF's will most likely be reduced to 140, although 185 have been ordered (and paid). This means that not all wings that were previously slated to receive the EF will get them; the question now is which one(s) won't!