eagle1gripen fighter jet with unsatisfying grades
Basler Zeitung , Nov 27Two Switzerland ‘s secret evaluation reports advise against purchasing the Swedish Gripen aircraft.
[…]This is shown by two evaluation reports, the Air Force Commander Markus Gygax has signed. The first report was prepared in 2008, immediately after the completion of extensive flight and ground tests of the three candidates, Rafale, and Gripen and Eurofighter. The second report, dated from 2009 and still authoritative, includes the second evaluation phase . The goal of this second evaluation phase was to determine for each of the three aircraft the planned adjustments and improvements needed between the practical flight test phase in 2008 and the planned delivery in 2015.
[…]
According to the 2009 Evaluation Report, the airplane with the lowest price among the providers, namely the Swedish Saab Gripen, failed clearly ,. The report says: “The Rafale is the only aircraft that has met the requirements of the Air Force in all types of applications.”
http://bazonline.ch/schweiz/standard/Kampfjet-Gripen-mit-unbefriedigenden-Noten/story/10934828
eagle1In parallel to the mmrca competition some fresh news from Switzerland Olybrius made a great summary on mp here :
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?137433-Rafale-News/page176
Le temps like the numerous other sources state a rafale lead for the technical evaluation but it is the first time it say the rafale has the higher price :
The Rafale
Le Temps, Nov 25Built by the French Dassault, this jet is definitely the most capable aircraft. It is also the most expensive. Its target price is around 150 million euros [!!?]. But one must put this price into perspective The French offer offset transactions with Swiss small businesses for some 6 billion Swiss francs, a participation in research and development with the French aircraft industry. France provides also supersonic flight areas less than thirty minutes from Payerne, the opening of French bases, exchange and training of technicians and participation in development. Commissioned in 2005, the Rafale has not yet been sold abroad. But it demonstrated its abilities by supporting an important part of the operations during the conflict in Libya. It is the preferred aircraft of the Swiss pilots.
http://www.letemps.ch/Page/Uuid/73fc6cda-16db-11e1-9834-e179a475de07/Le_Rafale
Typhoon and gripen here :
http://www.letemps.ch/Page/SysConfig/WebPortal/letemps/jsp/paywall/error/usersession.jsp
http://www.letemps.ch/Page/SysConfig/WebPortal/letemps/jsp/paywall/error/usersession.jsp
Summary of Olybrius available on mp.net :
In other articles:
– Central Switzerland industrialists (Ruag…) and politicians would favor Gripen , Small businesses and politicians from western Switzerland would prefer Rafale.
– Sweden would have recently launched a strong lobbying campaign aimed especially at Ueli Maurer.
– The Swiss air force fear that the government will choose the lowest bid with the less capable and the less proven combat aircraft.
– Amount of offset: 8 billions francs for Eurofighter, 6 billions for Rafale, 5.5 billions for Gripen.
– Eurofighter: 4 countries, 700 aircrafts, cheaper than Rafale (!?) but Austria is complaining about maintenance costs , training bases in Germany, lacks air-to-ground capacities. With a consortium of 4 manufacturers, Switzerland will struggle to impose its needs.
– Gripen: Cheaper (the Swedes even lowered their price, now < 3 billions), less capable, small size of the manufacturer, uncertain future, part of the development costs to be paid by Switzerland. Best offer for Ruag (more work :development…). Training area in the North.
About the prices : Le Temps says 150 millions Euros for Rafale (!), 80/100 millions for Typhoon and 50 millions for Gripen, but in the main article they write 3 billions for the Saab offer and 4 billions for Dassault and Eurofighter. It seems not coherent and rather fanciful so i have asked the journalist about these prices. His answer:
There is great confusion on prices in the public and even on some supposedly specialized sites [he’s talking of Avianews]. The unit target price I mentioned is an order of magnitude, it does not mean much and it should not be taken into account because each country buys products in various versions and with various weapons and radar – the weapons guidance systems are incredibly expensive -same with pilot training, technical supervision, participation in development, etc.. Then there are great bargains functions of the number of aircrafts or market conditions, etc.. When we talk about 3-4 billion, a figure that I give in my article, this is a budget “all inclusive” estimated in September with the Helvetic specification . Since then, manufacturers have made new offers, and as I mentioned, the prices announced for the Gripen would be half the original price. The surprises would come later with maintenance and especially development.
eagle1The most realistic figures I found to compare rafale and typhoon flight costs per hour was :
-35 000€ for the rafale
-39 000£ for the typhoon
But there is such a variety of different figures which includes so different things that it is hard to find a good comparison.
eagle1Fair analysis Loke and I suscribe to it.
Now sarting from the points your raised above we can only find some “realistic” reasons for the indian MoD to go for one or for another in this tight race.
My “prospective” analysis is that Dassault should normally win due to the four reasons below :
-lower operating costs & and still lower acquisition costs according to rumors (5% difference).
-synergies with the mirage 2000 fleet
-Strategic perspective of operating the same aircraft with the Indian Navy
-Less risky option (more mature and already well known supplier)
One possible reason for the rafale to lose :
-Better offset package from Typhoon Gmbh
Now when I try to weight the pro and the con of an Indian rafale export I am “reasonnably” (not in excess) confident about rafale chances in this competition. But on the other hand a voice tells me “never underestimates Dassault’s ability to lose deals even when they are supposed to be won”:D
eagle1After the indian Mirage 2000 upgrade, after the indian Mica missile deal, after the completion of the new M88-4E tests to dramatically reduce Total Costs of Ownership Snecma is in talks with the DRDO for the new KAVERI engine for the Teja Mk2.
DRDO in talks with SNECMA on JV of Kaveri Engine, IAF clears engine specs
Published November 23, 2011
SOURCE: IDRW NEWS NETWORKIn written reply to Rajya Sabha today. Defence Minister Shri AK Antony ,informed that DRDO is currently negotiating with M/s SNECMA, France for co-development and co-production of Kaveri Aero Engine for the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas Mk-II.
Indian Air Force (lAF) has been consulted at every stage and is part of negotiation for the co-development of Kaveri engine. The draft engine technical specification has been examined and cleared by IAF and has further suggested that the engine design should have minimal impact on the LCA, Tejas airframe for future retro-fitment.
The project proposal will be put up for Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) approval after the completion of price negotiation.
“Indian Air Force (IAF) has been consulted at every stage and is part of negotiation. IAF has cleared the Kaveri engine co-development proposal with M/s Snecma, France. The draft engine technical specification has been examined and cleared by IAF.
eagle1The first HUD picture is taken from a rafale and the second one from a Mirage 2000-5.
eagle1eagle1M88-4E engine program on track
Development of the enhanced M88-4E (formerly designated the “TCO Pack” version), is proceeding very satisfactorily. Following a series of ground tests in an altitude chamber, completed in February 2010, a Rafale fighter powered by the M88-4E engine made its first test flight on March 22, 2010 at the Istres air base in southern France. The M88-4E engine received its flight readiness certificate at the end of 2010, after a total of 70 test flights. The development engines are now undergoing endurance tests, and the delivery of the first production standard M88-4E is scheduled for the end of 2011. The aim of this program is to extend the engine’s service life and time between inspections for several key parts. Upgrades are planned to the high-pressure compressor and high-pressure turbine, and are derived from various technologies tested during the ECO development program*.
With the new cost saving M88 being ready (40% redesign) and the Indians going for mirage 2000 upgrade and micas missiles it seems that the rafale should have some good assets to be the clear L1 over a 40 years period.
The M88 being already the smaller engine, the operating cost gap should normally be quite significant with this improvement.
eagle1Missile Deal This Week, Mirage Upgrade Starts Next Month
Livefist , Nov 21
As revealed by the IAF chief last week, two Indian Air Force Mirage 2000s will leave for France next month to begin the long-delayed Mirage upgrade programme that India signed with Dassault, Thales and HAL in July this year. The Indian upgrade team has been in France for a while now training and absorbing the upgrade routine. A deal for MICA air-to-air missile, which remained unsigned when the Mirage upgrade deal was concluded, is also expected to be cleared this week.
http://livefist.blogspot.com/2011/11/missile-deal-this-week-mirage-upgrade.html
eagle1I’ve read in Air&Cosmos that one of the reason of the slow weapon integrating process with the typhoon is its very unstable design which is not ideal to integrate large loads and asymmetric loads.
Nothing unfeasible but the time spent to open the flight envelop and re-working the FCS is quite significant compared to the rafale that was designed to be a very multirole platform from the beginning and thus having to deal with very diverse weapon set configurations.
This last point was well explained in Peter Collins flight test of the rafale.
eagle1Also from fox three :
Such was the confidence of the
French aircrews in their new
mount that all missions were
conducted without any support
from dedicated electronic warfare
and SEAD (Suppression of Enemy
Air Defences) assets: thanks to its
Spectra state-of-the-art electronic
warfare/self-defence suite, the
Rafale was able to operate at
will in a dangerous environment,
against a dense network of deadly
surface-to-air missile systems.
Even more significant is the fact
that the Rafale was able to accurately
locate enemy air-defence
systems and engage them.”“Such is the quality of the Spectra
electronic warfare suite that the
Rafale literally disappeared from
the radar screens of the Libyan Air
Force while performing ‘soft kills’ on
the enemy radar systems. Spectra
relies on advanced jamming modes
and jamming techniques to defeat
hostile weapon systems and to
hide the progression and whereabouts
of the fighter.”
remember Bill Sweetman article on AC :
Spectra’s active jamming subsystem uses phased-array antennas located at the roots of the canards. Dassault has stated that the EW transmit antennas can produce a pencil beam compatible with the accuracy of the receiver system, concentrating power on the threat while minimizing the chances of detection.
But there is more to Spectra than conventional jamming. Pierre-Yves Chaltiel, a Thales engineer on the Spectra program, remarked in a 1997 interview that Spectra uses “stealthy jamming modes that not only have a saturating effect, but make the aircraft invisible… There are some very specific techniques to obtain the signature of a real LO [low-observable] aircraft.” When asked if he was talking about active cancellation, Chaltiel declined to answer.
Earlier this year, Thales and European missile-builder MBDA disclosed that they were working on active-cancellation technology for cruise missiles and had already tested it on a small unmanned aerial vehicle, using a combination of active and passive techniques to manage radar signature. This revelation makes it considerably more likely that active cancellation is already being developed for Rafale.
Active cancellation is a LO technique in which the aircraft, when painted by a radar, transmits a signal which mimics the echo that the radar will receive – but one half-wavelength out of phase, so that the radar sees no return at all. The advantage of this technique is that it uses very low power, compared with conventional EW, and provides no clues to the aircraft’s presence; the challenge is that it requires very fast processing and that poorly executed active cancellation could make the target more rather than less visible.
The complexity of active cancellation could account for Spectra’s high price tag, estimated in 1997 as “several billion francs” (equivalent to the high hundreds of millions of US dollars) for research and development. One of four Rafale prototypes was dedicated to Spectra tests, along with a Falcon 20 flying testbed. Four new large anechoic chambers were built to support the Spectra project, including one which is large and well equipped enough to operate the complete system in a fully detailed electromagnetic environment.
Spectra’s RF systems are backed up by a laser-warning system, an optical missile-launch-warning system, and a full range of expendable countermeasures. There is no towed decoy system.
eagle1We are hitting the point : perfect transparent information does not exist (especially in this kind of deal) nor the exact “magic” formula that will give you the total lifecycle costs by just pressing the button “compute”. You have to do with limited information (and limited time!!) and establish reasonable hypothesis to do this work.
It is humanly impossible to check everything and to be 100% sure that everything is correct so you do with what you have. As you said it is always like that in the real world with the difference that this deal is very hard to benchmark as it is not a standardize one like in other industry and a lot of the costs over the next 40 years are very hard to assess.
This lifecycle cost exercise is still better than nothing but to say that the results are “scientific” and purely factual is simply untrue whatever the result. The part of the guess work due to the unique aspect of this deal, the horizon time frame of 40 years, the very limited time frame etc makes this cost projection very difficult to achieve.
eagle1I think your analysis is a bit tender hearted.
in an ideal world all suppliers will give their reasonable costs and of course no one will be tempted to make some dumping.
The thing is India will be stuck with its supplier for the next 40 years so just relying on manufacturer data for maintenance would be quite foolish. And that’s true for both manufacturer.
Once one of the manufacturer get the deal if maintenance costs are increasing more than expected it will be too late. Perhaps in some specific case you claim some compensations but that’s rarely always the case.
eagle1I don’t understand the excuse thing as in the end it could go in one way or another if results are close.
I am just saying that this type of deal is not as standardized as many others including airlines and the guess work is necessarily much more important for this one of kind deal.
We are speaking of products that are not yet operational, we are speaking of costs that are difficult to assess (costs of offsets, mid life upgrade).
I am not saying an aircraft should be taken randomly without this type of effort, just that it seems quite unreliable even if it is certainly better than nothing.
At least you have asked yourself so relevant questions that might helped you in your process. But one should take these results with caution whatever the result even if rafale is ratted favorably.
eagle1An airline company can benchmark operating costs because airliners are somewhat standardized product (most of it) in service with many other airlines. So “datas” are more or less known and the guess work is much less important.
Now how will you benchmark the typhoon and rafale on a 40 years basis ? Aircrafts that are not even operational in their marketed form.
Just one example : Typhoon use a repositionner which is an innovation for a fighter aircraft radar. How do you know what will it costs to maintain and to what extent will you believe Selex datas ? And how can you challenge it ?(note that I could find an example for the rafale as well)
It is simply unfeasible (at least in the given time frame) to challenge thousands of datas from both manufacturers.
virtually all/most datas given by Dassault and the typhoon consortium are very hard to challenge if not impossible. At best you can have a rough idea but it will be very hard to put reliable numbers on each parameters.
I am saying that the guess work part will be so important that you can’t achieve something very reliable, especially that with a 40 years projection the slightest gap with your hypothesis will end up in millions $.
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