Cheap to buy, cheap to fly could be the motto for the Textron Scorpion. <br /><br />Making its international debut at the Farnborough Airshow, it is a “budget” jet aimed at the lower end of the military market.<br /><br />The price tag is around $20 million, just under 15 million euros, making it more affordable its makers say, and if the same for the running costs.<br /><br />Bill Anderson, President of Textron Airland, told euronews: “Extremely great value. If you look at a modern fighter of $18,000 to $20,000 a flight hour and you have a highly reliable machine at $3,000 a flight hour, we think we have entered a really great market space.”<br /><br />Textron, which makes Bell Helicopters and Cessna and Beechcraft business jets, adapted technology from its civilian planes to keep the cost down. <br /><br />The plane on show is a prototype and there are no orders for the plane yet, making Farnborough vital to the company’s aspirations.<br /><br />So can it find buyers? Colin Clark, the editor of Breaking Defense, isn’t sure: “It’s a very, very difficult market these days. Most European governments are spending two percent or less of their funding on defence and that is not a large pie.”<br /><br />In a crowded market,Textron hopes to take advantage of the fact that governments are strapped for cash and would be attracted to a cheaper multi-purpose workhorse that could be used for things like surveillance, reconnaissance and pilot training.<br /><br />The Scorpion should be ready for production in 2016; that’s if they have any buyers.
