F22 fighter withdrawn from Paris in spy row

Depressed it may be in the teeth of the worst slump in history but the much-awaited fixture of the aviation industry, the Paris Air Show, took off today amid a Franco-American spying row.

The biennial festival at Le Bourget is this year short of its traditional bank-busting airline deals and was instead ignited by news a F-22 stealth fighter has been withdrawn from the show by the US Air Force.

The Lockheed Martin-built F-22 Raptor has now also been withdrawn from Britain's Royal International Air Tattoo next month.

The aircraft had been due to go through its paces in Paris but was a late withdrawal amid unconfirmed accusations that it had been the target of French ultra-low-frequency, long-range radar tracking.

The official line is it is "imprudent" to fly the supposedly radar-dodging aircraft at Paris as it has an export ban on it to keeps its technology under wraps.