Switzerland on Friday kicked off a multibillion-franc competition to replace its ageing fleet of F-5 fighter jets, and older model F/A-18 fighters, inviting five European and U.S. weapons makers to submit bids by January.
The Swiss defence ministry asked for bids from European aerospace group Airbus, France’s Dassault and Sweden’s Saab, as well as Boeing and Lockheed Martin from the United States.
The Swiss procurement agency said it was asking the firms to submit pricing for 30 or 40 planes, including logistics and guided missiles, as well as an assessment of the number of aircraft necessary to fulfil the Swiss Air Force’s needs.
So all the normal candidates (except F/A-18) will be considered. I find it interesting that the OEM’s making the more expensive aircraft will be arguing that while more expensive than Gripen E a smaller number will be needed to do the same job. I see some nice fat profits on the cards for LM, Dassault or Eurofighter if they win.
By: Spitfire9 - 1st March 2019 at 15:12
Fighter test schedule published
BERN — The flight and ground trials with the five fighter aircraft candidates will take place in Payerne from April to June. The aircraft capabilities will be checked at the military airfield there in alphabetical order. The dates for media creators and spotters are also already fixed.
For each candidate, a total of eight missions with one or two combat aircraft will be conducted during four days of flight. The capabilities of the aircraft and the information from the submitted offers are checked. Beforehand, the providers have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with another flight with the specific procedures in the Swiss airspace. One flight will take place at night. For this, the starting times of the season must be adjusted accordingly, with the flights always ending before midnight. During bank holidays, no trial flights will be made.
The candidates are tested in alphabetical order according to the name of the manufacturer:
— Airbus, GER, Eurofighter: in calendar weeks 15 and 16
— Boeing, USA, F / A-18 Super Hornet: in calendar weeks 17 and 18
— Dassault, FRA, Rafale: in calendar weeks 20 and 21
— Lockheed Martin, USA, F-35A: in calendar weeks 23 and 24
— Saab, SWE, Gripen E: in calendar weeks 25 and 26
By: St. John - 10th February 2019 at 13:05
Yes and no, quotations will be done on existing versions, but you cannot help examiners to think about future.
Each party will promise the world for the future though. What’s now is known.
By: halloweene - 10th February 2019 at 11:56
Yes and no, quotations will be done on existing versions, but you cannot help examiners to think about future.
By: St. John - 10th February 2019 at 10:35
That is probably why there will be *Rafale 4.1 (2023) and 4.2 (2025) (first real fork in Rafale program), with funcions available as soon as 2022. Spectra antennas are already AESA. but in fact, they realized that tile architecture of modules was cheaper and already greatly improved signal treatment (co location).GaN modules were expected on F3R standard but will be available finally on Spectra 04T (on fourth tranche Rafale, F4.1). At least that is what i could deduceafter extensive talks with Thales people (not very talkative).
I would have thought they’d be extremely talkative about such progress. Maybe there silence indicates worries. Nevertheless F4.X is irrelevant to this competition.
By: St. John - 10th February 2019 at 10:31
Long wave antennas. do not need to be as precise as Xband.
Still not exactly a sure-fire working solution without a lot of testing and that doesn’t address the loading or cabling issue either. The other problems I see with a 360deg MFA is alerting aircraft on a 360deg sphere as to where you are if used in detection mode.
By: halloweene - 9th February 2019 at 21:14
My favourite bit is the 3 antennae in each of the leading edge slats. We’ll just stick 3 antennae in this moving aerodynamic control surface, it’ll be right. There’ll be no problems due to the movement of the slats with functionality and the extra weight in a moving control surface will have no adverse affects on performance or fatigue and the cabling into the moving slats will work somehow.:eagerness:
Long wave antennas. do not need to be as precise as Xband.
By: halloweene - 9th February 2019 at 21:12
No timescale mentioned there, just says that it’s very ambitious. For GaN transmitter, demonstrator was 2014 (assuming it was on time), and in-service date is 2023. Full MFA demonstrator is currently non-existent, so based on that I’d say sometime after 2030, which is also the opinion shared a French journalist who wrote an article in Combat Aircraft, July 2015, Page 23. The conformal, multiband, multirole antennae development will begin in 2025 for qualification around 2030+. They will get GaN on the existing system first and then begin work on the rest. From a testing perspective it doesn’t even make sense to have the latter interfering with the integration of the former.
That is probably why there will be *Rafale 4.1 (2023) and 4.2 (2025) (first real fork in Rafale program), with funcions available as soon as 2022. Spectra antennas are already AESA. but in fact, they realized that tile architecture of modules was cheaper and already greatly improved signal treatment (co location).GaN modules were expected on F3R standard but will be available finally on Spectra 04T (on fourth tranche Rafale, F4.1). At least that is what i could deduceafter extensive talks with Thales people (not very talkative).
By: Spitfire9 - 8th February 2019 at 15:53
Indeed. We can debate whether this will be complete by 2025 or 2035 but it will not be available for demonstration in the bid and will therefore be assessed with the same merit as the Captor-E in the 2008 RFQ, i.e. not.
Agreed. What post-selection developments are to be undertaken for any of the candidates has little or no bearing to the selection process.
By: St. John - 8th February 2019 at 12:00
Once again the topic of this thread is the Swiss RFQ. I wonder why do we have to burden those discussions here for something that will not be available.
There is a Rafale thread for that.
Indeed. We can debate whether this will be complete by 2025 or 2035 but it will not be available for demonstration in the bid and will therefore be assessed with the same merit as the Captor-E in the 2008 RFQ, i.e. not.
By: St. John - 8th February 2019 at 11:59
Doesn’t the T-50 already have such a system or is intended to be operational ? It seems that this idea is not reserved to the rafale F4. It might also be located behind the slats. And again this chart might not be the final plan, the only thing known is that MFAs are in development for 2025 with the full rafale F4.2 standard. 2025 is the official target (which is contracted). The rest are opinion or speculation with not a lot of worth.
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The Su-57 was designed and developed for that from a clean sheet design. It’s also a much larger aircraft with more space to do such stuff. It will be structurally tested with that in place, the loads and balance and FCS were worked out with that in place. Sometimes contracts get misrepresented in the press.
By: TomcatViP - 8th February 2019 at 11:29
Once again the topic of this thread is the Swiss RFQ. I wonder why do we have to burden those discussions here for something that will not be available.
There is a Rafale thread for that.
By: eagle1 - 8th February 2019 at 10:56
My favourite bit is the 3 antennae in each of the leading edge slats. We’ll just stick 3 antennae in this moving aerodynamic control surface, it’ll be right. There’ll be no problems due to the movement of the slats with functionality and the extra weight in a moving control surface will have no adverse affects on performance or fatigue and the cabling into the moving slats will work somehow.:eagerness:
Doesn’t the T-50 already have such a system or is intended to be operational ? It seems that this idea is not reserved to the rafale F4. It might also be located behind the slats. And again this chart might not be the final plan, the only thing known is that MFAs are in development for 2025 with the full rafale F4.2 standard. 2025 is the official target (which is contracted). The rest are opinion or speculation with not a lot of worth.
[ATTACH=JSON]{“data-align”:”none”,”data-size”:”custom”,”height”:”273″,”title”:”radarButowski.jpg”,”width”:”433″,”data-attachmentid”:3850164}[/ATTACH]
By: St. John - 8th February 2019 at 10:37
That pic is extremely misleading. Brick ASA antennas are NOT 30cm (1ft) thick. That likely refers to an traditional radar antenna (MSA) or just a REALLY bad AESA design :stupid:.
My favourite bit is the 3 antennae in each of the leading edge slats. We’ll just stick 3 antennae in this moving aerodynamic control surface, it’ll be right. There’ll be no problems due to the movement of the slats with functionality and the extra weight in a moving control surface will have no adverse affects on performance or fatigue and the cabling into the moving slats will work somehow.:eagerness:
By: St. John - 8th February 2019 at 10:33
Well that’s an opinion but not the true story. The full F4 standard with MFAs is due to be qualified in 2025. Contract has been offically signed by French Gov for 2,1 billion $ a few days ago. The information about MFAs with the standard F4 is widely shared by Dassault, Thales and French air Force (standard F4.2 in 2025). Unless they are completely deluded which is of course not the case this is the plan.
I will place a bet on 2030+ and possibly never, since by that time, funds will start being fed into SCAF instead.
By: St. John - 8th February 2019 at 10:31
What about the placement of those conformal GaN radar panels? Is the shown configuration on p.27 of that Thales presentation final or just for show? I ask because any ordnance or fuel tanks carried under the wings will block those side radars, at least partially.
On another note, comparing Nimrod MRA4 with Rafale is of course completely ridiculous, that’s almost Scooter level of ridiculousness.
It might seem so at first but the problem there was emergent properties as bits were added and that will be a huge factor with these MFAs too.
By: eagle - 8th February 2019 at 02:04
Even though the picture comes from a Thales presentation, I would not call it definitive but it gives a hint of where could those MFAs be located. I don’t think this picture would be pure random so it gives an idea.
I just thought of the gun on the other side, so I’m guessing it won’t go where it’s on the pic. In front of the intakes below the cockpit would be my guess.
By: SpudmanWP - 7th February 2019 at 21:48
That pic is extremely misleading. Brick ASA antennas are NOT 30cm (1ft) thick. That likely refers to an traditional radar antenna (MSA) or just a REALLY bad AESA design :stupid:.
By: TomcatViP - 7th February 2019 at 20:50
Does it do away with the refueling probe to dodge being called an Unicorn? I guess this is Active cancellation at its best!!!!!
:stupid:
MOD, MOD , MOD! (on the bloody Ma… theme)
By: eagle1 - 7th February 2019 at 20:37
Even though the picture comes from a Thales presentation, I would not call it definitive but it gives a hint of where could those MFAs be located. I don’t think this picture would be pure random so it gives an idea.
http://www.microwave-rf.com/documents/14h00%20DMS_%20V%20DUPUY%20%20Y%20%20MANCUSO.pdf
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By: eagle - 7th February 2019 at 20:18
What about the placement of those conformal GaN radar panels? Is the shown configuration on p.27 of that Thales presentation final or just for show? I ask because any ordnance or fuel tanks carried under the wings will block those side radars, at least partially.
On another note, comparing Nimrod MRA4 with Rafale is of course completely ridiculous, that’s almost Scooter level of ridiculousness.
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July 9, 2018 at 2:34 am