Badger1968 has it totally spot on! I would also add (as I have already said):

The selected aircraft is a quantum leap in performance over the F-5 they are retiring and it meets the base requirements of their airforce.

What bemuses me in this thread is how people are describing the Gripen (of any variant) as deeply inferior aircraft which it just isn’t. OK their pilots first choice might be the Rafale but they are still going to be extremely impressed with what they are getting in comparison to the old F-5.

They go from a fighter fitted with a ranging radar, wvr missile’s and basic ground attack munitions to an aircraft with AESA, a BVR capability better then Hornet and a full range of smart munitions.

A good majority of whom? Can you point to a single official US source claiming that stealth aircraft were and always would be invincible? That may have been the impression of some newspapermen and aviation enthusiasts who thought that ‘low-observable’ meant ‘no-observable’.

Those involved with the programme knew what the new technology could realistically achieve. The initial goal was not to create an F-117 that would be unconditionally invisible to all forms of enemy radar, but to create an aircraft that could not be successfully intercepted by contemporary air-defence systems.

“It did not bother me if there were brief moments when the plane might be detected.”

Paul Kaminsky – special assistant to US under-secretary of defence Bill Perry.

The existence of techniques to counter low-observable technologies was never a big secret. Kaminski was responsible for setting up the first US counter-stealth teams and later stated that their findings were “useful when setting up our own major programs in counter-stealth”.

I would add to that in saying the most significant (but largly unnoticed by many) development in countering stealth is the availabilty of light, high power, affordable processing and associated storage technology. Even a state of the art radar system of the 70’s like the Westinghouse AN/APY-1 has a fraction of the processing power and memory storage of my current Samsung Galaxy S phone…something I can put in my pocket.

Adding COTS computers with plenty of memory can give a significant performance to old m-scan radar systems let alone new systems due to the improvement in signal processing and analysis.

Well Amiga500 if you had bothered to go back through PhantomII’s 7431 posts you will find he is a USAF pilot. We have all followed his career with great interest from his first post stating he had joined up to the first pictures he posted of his training through to getting his seat on the C130.

Now OK that isn’t the navy or carrier operations but I think we can say he has some clue about military operations.

Frankly I am tired of people getting all misty eyed over the Tomcat…actually until Top Gun came out it was viewed by many in military and public circles as a failure.

The fact is if you want unrefueled range and payload the aircraft that should of been retained is the Grumman A6E Intruder, many went to AMARG with only a tiny fraction of their carrier cycles used being late build models.

Late in its career the F-14 did some amazing things bomb hauling but you can’t get around the fact that it was a maintenance hog in comparison to the Super Hornet. The USN is very happy with the SH for good reason, firstly its cheaper and easier to operate/maintain and secondly its open style avionics architecture makes the intigration of new systems easy.

Now we can talk about the SH and peer rivals but my answer is it would do very well. The SH does not work in isolation, the US armed forces as a whole have so many different force enablers that at the moment it has no peer rivals…at most some near peer but again the sheer size of the US armed forces deals with that.

So yes celebrate the F-14 if you want but don’t turn yourself into the Mike Sparks of the forum over it.

Don’t know if it will be significantly better, Swiss Hornets are very capable A-A birds, but AESA ensures Gripen will be no slouch.
From “leaked reports”, or is it propaganda ;), people seem to have the idea that Gripen is a substandard jet, when in fact, it is very good. It’s just slightly inferior compared to Rafale/Typhoon.

Yes, but I’m not sure if there are actually any conscripts doing maintenance on jets today, or if there will be with the Gripen.
Militia pilots will go, at least that was the plan.

Yeah I agree I was stretching it with the conscript maintenance model but the engine point is utterly fair. They already maintain the GE-F404, the GE-F414 being an evolution will be easier on their maintenance crews.

It isn’t integrated as far as I know but it uses the same rail launcher as AIM-9L/M, ASRAAM and IRIS-T.

Integration should be a minor issue but it might be easier to use their earlier Sidewinder stocks or purchase IRIS-T or ASRAAM. Of course AMRAAM is a non issue as it can fire their already purchased stocks. To be honest I doubt a future METEOR purchase, considering their geography even AMRAAM is overkill.

On a side note in theory ASRAAM can be launched from any aircraft wired for Sidewinder without integration. The missile has a Sidewinder mode that allows it to be fired from any aircraft that can fire legacy winder. Rather clever…

An aside: Look at the number of times the Tiffy seems to have suffered in DACT (WVR) – ATLC, Corsica, at the hands of the PAF F-16s, and now this. They supposedly held up well vs. the MKI in INdradhanush (no mean feat) but then the MKI has a v.large visual sig, putting it at a serious disadvantage WVR.

When you get past the French Air Force exagerations, the outcomes of ATLC was entirely in keeping with what the RAF expected as the Rafales were acting as a training asset for new Typhoon pilots. The RAF squadron envolved was VERY angry how a training exercise with very exacting ROI was spun into something completely different by French Air Force pilots acting as a Dassault marketing mouthpiece! It was simply not cricket:mad: I would also add the the RAF needs to relearn plenty about WVR combat considering its something not exactly trained for since the Hunter/Lightning days.

The PAF never engaged Typhoon at Corsica, it was a totally made up story. Typhoon never engaged the MKI at Indradhanush, they did operate together in mixed packages.

Getting bored correcting this cr@p!

Anyhow this is a thread about Gripen winning in Switzerland…something I think is entirely correct!

Less emphasis on BVR and more on WVR. The SwAF Hornets are equipped with the JHMCS/Aim 9X combo and can carry the ATFLIR as well. The hornet’s low-slo w ability is supposedly v.v.good. Ditto with the Rafale.

It should be noted that both the Gripen and Typhoon have an agile missile option (two in the case of Typhoon) in the form of ASRAAM and IRIS-T. Also both have a HMD sight option unlike Rafale.

Then again I don’t know if the sights were available for the trials.

I agree that the slow WVR conditions might well favour the Swiss Hornets especially with JHMCS/Aim 9X.

Frankly as people keep on forgetting this contest was for an F-5 replacement and the Swiss pending the almost inevitable referendum have made a sensible choice.

Yes but how many of those RUaF planes are actually flying?