The numbers seem to be in line with what’s been reported before with respect to procurement and operating costs, so they seem plausible. Are these numbers from the “leaked” report?

Exactly!

And as far as it has been said all over the place here in Brazil the French apparently failed to present the “requested” 40% discount on their originaly offered price.

Thus remains the massive price difference in favour of the Gripen NG.

Regards,

Hammer

I’m not so sure Brazil could be any worse off using Rafale if Venezuela is using the Su-30. The latter is much more labor intensive. If Brazil is acting as the de facto parts supplier for their own planes then it shouldn’t be all that bad to maintain their own fleet let alone offer export options substantially cheaper than direct from the French.

Why would any potential foreign buyer opt for Brazilian-built Rafales instead of the original French ones? I wouldn’t! Don’t forget the French banks are bigger richer and work with much lower interest rates. the workforce cost is marginal in a high value, high tech item such as the Rafale. On the other hand, financing costs are the real “make or break” item, and there Brazil just cannot compete!

Regards,

Hammer

Your comments seem well informed to me.

Thank you! 🙂

Regarding SAAB’s prospects of Gripen sales, I think they are front runners for an order for a small number from Switzerland to replace F-5’s where I believe the purchase of aircraft will need to be sanctioned by a referendum. I think SAAB also has a good chance of further sales to eastern European countries so I don’t see SAAB leaving the fast jet game just yet. Having said that, securing an order from Brazil would transform the Gripen’s prospects.

From what I undestand, and I haven`t been following this bid so closely, the Swiss are evaluating the C/D version, not the NG… The C/Ds from what I recall are being built from ex-Gripen A/B retired from Swedish Air Force duty. How this would work for the Swiss order I have no clue.

Regarding the Super Hornet, I read today (can’t remember where) that production will probably cease in 2012 unless further orders are secured this year / next year.

If the F-35 cost still maintains its escalating trend the US Navy should buy more SH soon.

Best Regards

Hammer

My friends, please allow me to shed some light on the recent events regarding the F-X2 bid in Brazil:

The government (the president and the Defense Minister specifically here) have repeatedly demontrated the interest to buy the Rafale to further the Brazil-France Strategic partnership initiated with the Scorpene purchase last year.

FAB`s “favorite next gen fighter is openly known to be a much divided opinion.

1) The FAB fighter comunity, for instance, wants the new fighter YESTERDAY and feels deeply hurt from the AMX local development model that cost it a 10-20 year gap on the fighter force, keeping the desired supersonic F-16s out of Brazilian service instead. They believe that it is not in the FABs best interest to focus hard to come by budget dolars on the development and expansion of the national aerospace industry that seems to be doing real fine in the civilian markets by itself. This position efectively highlights Brazilian military and economig might over neigbours and any other would be regional rivals (Venezuela?).

2) The FAB engineering comunity thinks the opposit, we have no significant “enemy at the gate” such as the Pakistani, Indians or Chinese, so the FAB should prioritise the development iof the national aerospace industry in order to be able to acheive true independence in the near future. Independence means new valuable products top be developed and exported to foreign markets in both the military and civilian marketplaces. This means mor jobs and mor hard currency income streams.

The politicians tend to two aspects 1) the geopolitical clout that might come with futher French support for Brazilian desire for a permanent Security Council seat and inside Brazil 2) the material ($$) power of the organized industry syndicates. These have a lot of money to be invested on this year`s make or break presidential campaign…

The current Saab strategy has successfully imitated the Eurocopter EC-725 bid political strategy from two years ago. Dassault on the other hand apparently neglected this and let the powerful FIESP syndicate to join up with Saab instead.

One thing is clear from my point of view: Saab needs this sell much more than Dassault, for this reason they seem to be much more willing to accept Brazilian industrial participation then the French or the Americans.

The big question now is can Lula support the press backlash if he overiding the FAB recomendation ends opting for the most expensive fighter in the bid? The leaking of this document is in line with FAB commands decision NOT TO ACCEPT the Rafale at any cost.They simply were burned by working previously with the French ion the Mirage III, on Eurocopter rotarycraft and on the ever complicating 50 EC-725 negotiation phase…

The French have a very poor post sale image in Brazil.

Time is also crucial since the presidetial elections are set for Octoberand the official government candidate Mrs Rousseff, a technocrat hand picked by Lula himself, untill now seems to be sputtering at the starting gate…

Finally dureng the now infamous Sept 7th meeting with Sarkozy Lula declared quite clearly that he “favoured the Rafale”BUT that the French WOULD HAVE TO CUT THEIR PRICES for Brazil to purchase the Rafale. No cut, no purchase. What has been repeated now over and over is that the French HAVE NOT CUT THEIR COSTS in the second round of the Best and Final Offer request. To their and Sarkozy`s chagrin.

I hope it all makes more sense now.

20% of embraer is owned by the french rafale builder, makes it difficult for swedish , let them leaks this kind of “hoaxy” rumors!

curious that Fab senior gen turned his butt from the fantastic F18 to the swedish krown into such short lap time! bribes?

Let me try to make this issue a lot clearer. I am from Brazil and have been following this bid since a great many years ago.

Inside FAB thgere seems to be a number od “parties” regarding the choice for the next fighter.

a) The “Fighter Mafia” Party: These want the best and most capable fighter. Originally it was they who favoured the Sukhoi Flanker as the next fighter for FAB. in this last round the elimination of the Su-35 made them flock to the combat proven F-18 camp.

b) The “Engineer” Party: These are the people inside FAB connected to the CTA – Aeronautics Tecnology Center in São José dos Campos city. They are fiercely “tech independent” minded folks. They are the ones that support Buying Brazilian and buying from Embraer as a basic concept. Even the AMX program, a major economic failure from any perspective is painted by them as a crucial step that made Embraer ctechologically capable of developing rge ERJ line later down the road. They have always been pro-Gripen even before the F-X2 restarted. To them the Gripen was the only project that had the size and costs that would allow for a easy digestion by the Brazialian high tech industry.

c) The “Logistics” Party: This is a second tier, but still important, group. They are the ones saying that Brazil can buy any fighter as long as it is American built. This is absolutely not any kind of political orientation, but rather, a pragmatical approach since it is so much simpler to purchase spares and support equipment from the USA than it is from any other nation. The US forces pack so many spare parts in its warehouses that it is very easy to request and to receive immediate supplies from them instead of from the original manufacturer. They were the first to back up the F-18 proposals in the F-X2.

Outside the FAB, at the Ministry of Defense, we have still another “party”

d) The “Ministry First” Party: Nelson Jobim is slowly building up the new Defense Ministry. To do this he will have to consolidate multiple redundant areas, now spread out between the three until now independent Military Commands (Army/Navt/Air Force) under his own power in the Ministry. The F-X1 was a full FAB deal, they defined the requirements and they selected the winner, the then Minister no much more then a “crowned” distant observer. During the F-X2 process the Ministry moved in and started to assert its own view as to the direction the program should follow. The President clearly and publicly favors Jobim, the Minister’s will over the Air Force commander (Brig Saito) opinion.

The “industrial card” is played.

Recently Saab followed the exemple of Eurocopter’s bid to sell 50 Super Pumas to the Brazilian Armed Forces and reached out to the important S”ao Paulo State Industrial Federation (FIESP) who started putting pressure on the Governmente to support the Gripen NG proposal. It is still unclear now to determine how much power FIESP really yields on this program. In this direction a number of engineers from Akaer a smallish engineering services house here has beeen sent to Sweden to assist in the detailed design of teh Gripen-NG’s new wing.

Some observers point out that FIESP really caries a big clout and that it’s interference is behind the continued delays in anouncing the nexte fighters identity.

One thing is clear the US ToT track record regarding Brazil in the last 10 years is extremely poor. And this does not help the F-18 at all. This and anti-US leaning people very close to the Brazilian President are working around the clock to make absolutely sure that no US aircraft is purchased for any reason.

This then begs the question: how come againsta all and every odds the Super Hornet made the short-list? I’ve heard that the F-18s presence replaced other riskier potential players (such as the Russian aircraft industry that might make easy disqualification down the road,the same way it happened in the F-X1 where to almost every one’s chagrin the Flanker ended up amongst the 3 best qualified contestants.

On the 7th of September date (at Independence commemorative ball) Lula told the press 2 things:

b) The geostrategical partnership deal with the French was going ahead as planned to everyones satisfaction.

b) That he personally favoured the the Rafal but that it was at thatstage way to expensive The FAB would buy the Rafale (ONLY) IF Dassault fiddeled its prices and regular maintenance costs to the French airforce and navy contractual limits.

So this is the story so far. The delay of the publication of the aircraft selection to the Christmas week sugests that the idea was to drop the bom as everyone is distracted with the Holliday Season, or that a final agreement really had not been reached to date.

So, that senior Brazilian Air Force General (Brig Saito) is currently doing his best to get every one possible on the Gripens boat because he knows that if the fight too hard for the Super Hornet he might end up with nothing at all. As this Government is geting more openly anti-US than ever thought possible. Now we have to wait in order to see how much more push FIESP gives to the Gripen NG proposal specially within Congress, a distraction that may come out being too politicaly expensive for the Lula Administration as we enter a decisive presidential election year for his party.

I hope this long post assited you in understending the complexity of the F-X2 situation in Brazil.

Best Regards

Hammer

Brazil could go the Russian way, ski-jump instead of cats.

The Brazilian shipbuilding industry died 10 to 15 years ago, though. Now South Korea is investing some, but I’m not sure that currently Brazil has either capability nor capacity to build a carrier at home, even one based on commercial standards.

Maybe someone from Brazil would comment?

You ar correct Distiler our naval industry went belly up around the early 1980s because our yards grew lazy out of lack of real competition from top notch foreign yards. The government was at the time distracted with out of control inflation and just looked elsewhere as all our yards went bankrupt. In the last 5 years things have changed radically and Brazilian state owned oil corporation Petrobras is acting as the major incentive for the reconstruction of this industry. Petrobras has given out over 100 ship building contracts to several yards, some of them built from the ground up just to build these ships.

The last Brazilian drydocks were built in the 1920s, now there are some 4-5 MAJOR drydocks being built at the same time in the country. Tere is certainly a ship building revolution going on over here now an the Brazilian Navy is benefiting from it.

Check these sites out:

http://www.estaleiroatlanticosul.com.br/

http://www.prominp.com.br/objects/files/2007-11/1892_03.%20Estaleiro%20Rio%20Grande.pdf

There is also the “Estaleiro da Bahia” and a still unconfirmed mega yard at São Luiz in the North of Brazil.

Regards

Hammer

I can’t believe that the Ucranian designers/builders never thought out the “easy way” to get the engines inside the half-finished hull… It just seems a tad too stupid to close up the hull BEFORE inserting the engines into it. Who knows, they might even resort to installing electric drives/pods to simplify the process, what do you all think?

Regards,

Hammer

I understand where your coming from but for the huge cost of deploying a carrier just for the sake of maintaining carrier doctrine seems like a massive waste to me, especially when there isn’t any plans (that I have heard of anyway) of a new Brazilian carrier on the way in the near future. and im not sure training for harriers carrier ops is more expensive than the constant training required to perform carrier traps?

Hi guys, here’s the scoop on Brazilian Naval Aviation

After last year’s END (Estratégia Nacional de Defesa) was published the Lula Government recognized that it could not reach its large geopolitical goals without a strong and modern military force. To do so required revamping the forces individual and joint doctrines, the current military means and the military industry all at the same time.

The first step is the purchase towards this is the purchase of 50 locally built EC725 helos plus four new locally built Scorpene derivatives.

The “Planos de Equipamento e Articulação” (reorganization and reequipment plans) for each of the armed forces have been sent to the Brazilian president and he has agreed to support most of what’s in it. The Navy will eventualy get (if future presidents agree with this policy!) in the next 30 years two new carriers and 48 brand new fighters to put on them. The END details a major expansion of the surface and submarine forces as well as the creation of a new Fleet to based in the north of the country, close to teh mouth of the Amazon River.

So, if everything goes acording to plan everything will be wildly different.

Coments?

Regards,

Hammer