Er, nothing to do with saboteurs from the inside.

That would be this contract?

http://www.saabgroup.com/en/About-Saab/Newsroom/Press-releases–News/2013—12/Saab-receives-serial-production-order-for-Gripen-E-to-Sweden/#.VJLT1itWoYo

vleugelmoer – The minister was correct. Offering a fixed-price contract is impossible at this time, not to mention illegal (unless the US gets the same terms for the same delivery date).

djc – NSA? Edward Snowden?

BTW, seeing F-35 fans get all excited about OEW changes is amusing.

djc – I think before making such a sweeping statement you might want to consider issues such as U.S. security restrictions, anti-tamper provisions, and the practicality or otherwise of sustaining operations if (for instance) all the operator’s ALIS log-ons were to become invalid.

vn – Well, the fact that Sweden, with 55 per cent of the Netherlands’ GDP, can somehow afford 2x as many fighters could be indicative.

The Cloggies have been operating on a largely fixed budget for their fighter program, to the best of my knowledge. They were shown a fixed-price offer for 85 JAS 39Es for that money, but turned it down. The budget has not been reduced, but now buys 37 JSFs instead of the planned 85.

As for the Swiss deal: Has anyone here ever produced a valid comparison between one nation’s deal and another’s?

The Canadians appear (and I have not yet read the full report) to have twigged something quite important:

Stealth is valuable, but is not equally valuable for every fighter mission.

It is most useful for deep attack (but you can do a lot of that with cruise missiles, and that’s an economic calculus that includes any LCC premium for a stealth aircraft).

It’s potentially useful for air-to-air, to the extent that sensors, weapons and RoE permit you to take advantage of it throughout the kill chain. Otherwise, you’re standing there in a ghillie suit with a super scope and a .38 pistol.

It’s not a lot of use for CAS/BAI…. and so on.

FBW – Again with the “joke” line. You are one funny guy. Actually he’s publishing a late response from the program office.

Spud

1. The EF’s IRST determines range based on a laser range finder which is limited to ~20nm (only good against air targets, not AAMs)

Er, no. IRST can use passive ranging (basically, lock on and wiggle the airplane) or multiship ranging. I believe that EF already has the former, at least.

2. The EF’s IRST would have to be looking at the F-35’s AAM launch when it happened to even get an idea of where it launched from.

Well, yes. On the other hand, the motor would have to complete its initial burn in less time than the IRST takes for a scan to have any chance of evading detection, and that is unlikely.

Double Nope. Post-SDD R&D will be covered by an R&D line item labelled something like “F-35 Squadrons” similar to the “F-22 Squadrons” line today. It is absolutely not written into procurement budgets or contracts. Basic stuff.