If you want super payload and range, buy Rafale. If you want super speed and altitude, buy Typhoon. You want little risk and less money than either of those, there’s the F/A-18.

If you want guaranteed weights (or anything else) from anybody, you get those when you sign a contract and put money down.

Also, the fact that the published weight has gone up since the project commenced does not mean that the jet does not meet the KPPs offered to Brazil – indeed, we don’t know what those are.

Nic,

Nice conspiracy theory. However, what was actually happening was that Saab was pushing the US content as a sales point for Nato target customers.

If the US really wanted to subsidize Gripen they’d offer to pay for the F414 Enhanced.

Interesting – but the OEW increase is presumably accounted for by a larger engine, AESA, IRST and comprehensive internal EW. The weight should therefore be compared with an F-16 Block 60.

Spud – I am going to have to call you “Mr-Not-Scott” rather than “Mr Potato Head”, because of your ability to alter the laws of physics.

Good IRST is likely effective in the 50-100 km range, having frequently been described as compatible with AMRAAM intercepts.

DIRCM doesn’t need to jam the missile far out in order to cause an effective miss. 500 m – 1 km or so.

Two orders of magnitude – so your laser-versus-IRST has 1/10000th the energy on target in W/cm2, for the same power. And, by the way, you may be jamming one IRST but unless your optics are perfect you are lighting yourself up for his wingman.

I’m well aware of the Skunk Works study in 2010, as I am aware of the fact that we have heard Jack **** about it since then. The fact that the Navy sees AIM-9X-III as a way to get six BVR shots suggests that the results of the SW study were unpromising, as does the appearance of the Cuda.

LM has openly stated that 2xAIM-120 per bay is just what the USAF/USN/USMC contracted for, and that an upgrade to 4xAIM-120 and 2xAIM-9X per bay is just a matter of paying for integration and clearance trials, having been “designed in” when the bay shapes were designed.

2xAIM-120 + 2xAIM-9X + 2×1,000lb JDAM per bay is also on LM’s “can do” list.

That is so incredibly inaccurate that I don’t really know where to start. The ability to carry six AIM-120 internally has been discussed on and off, but never gone beyond the “we are thinking about it” stage. It has not emerged in any serious context for several years. Nobody has ever suggested 2 x JDAM per bay.

Other points relevant here: the SH pod can carry a lot of stuff because it was designed to. It does not have the constraints of wrapping bays between the engine tunnel and the LO-driven OML.

AIM-9X Block III is largely driven by the need to have six BVR shots (4 x internal AIM-120, 2 x external AIM-9X-III) on the F-35C, so that it can actually make some kind of a fist of the “fighter” part of the strike-fighter mission. It’s not SH-related specifically.

How many DIRCM-equipped aircraft have been engaged successfully by Manpads? If there is a significant Manpads threat, why can’t A-10 carry DIRCM?

Lukos – I believe that is known among historiographers as the “and if my auntie had a **** she’d be my uncle” school of history.