Nice pics… Very nice.

Good place for the C-130J. On the airshow circuit.

Right, Kosovo, and if you like opereations northern and southern watch were flown with F-16. But these missions can be flown with (much cheaper) Gripens as well.

Cheaper in which way? Armed Paveway drops haven’t been done yet. Just captive carry, dead drops, and no press releases saying guided drops have been done. Hang all that crap on a Gripen and it will just spend more time going for the tanker. Add to that using slow basket refueling. Boom refueling with the F-16 goes at about 5000+ lbs per minute. Less time on the jet. Hard to be “cheaper” when there isn’t a complete “apples to apples” ability, especially in the A2G setup which is already known, tested, proven with the F-16.

The Polish got no SEAD stuff ordered for there Vipers, so no difference.

Funny thats mentioned. Do you mean SEAD? Or DEAD? Gripen has No completely checked out Anti-Radiation Missiles ( suppression …. SEAD ). HARM can be outfitted on F-16 in short order ( add to that combat proven ). JSOW and JDAM in fact killed Large and Small SAMs, AAA and network hubs in OIF and OSW and ONW. ( destruction of enemy air defense …. DEAD ). There is no apples to apples comparison here.

The Gripen will get JDAM or something similar. It is already capable of using LGB’s.

As mentioned above, it is currently capable of carrying and dropping Paveways ( guided, unknown via any press releases). It will be real interesting to see when this JDAM ability happens, ( Italy might break the mold on that…. maybe later Germany? ) given the lock we like to have on making sure they drop from U.S. only aircraft. I would say that you might have to go with PAVEWAY IV, ( dual use a la UK ), or SPICE. SPICE has some potential, but only if Israel isn’t boycotted by Europe for some ( pick a reason ) event.

Hungary and Czech Republik are using Gripens. All Western European nations will replace their Vipers with JSF.

“All Western European nations will replace their Vipers with JSF. “…. Will be a real reach with the current atmosphere of weapons spending in Europe. JSF has a lot to prove to get in the air. Not only the engineering, but the potential that the U.S. runs out of defense budget pork projects and ends up canceling it. Leaving the manufacturer and partners holding the bag. Part two of that is not all current JSF partners are happy. Some have it confused with a jobs program, which is not it’s purpose. Vendors will be picked to do work based on “best value”.

Only shortly after the Polish will have declared their Viper squadrons operational. There is no military need for those extra capabilities the Viper provides.

That might be a reach also. Once they have those 48 jets up and qualified, they will be one of the “go to” units for hardcore near all weather strike warfare using inexpensive PGMs. A $500,000 Taurus is not a $20,000 JDAM. Given the anemic level of spending by many other European countries defense departments ( in an age of mass cutting….. look at the news ). The Poland deal will be stood up with 3 colors of U.S. taxpayer giveaways.

Gripen will be the first fighter integrated with the Meteor. No need for AMRAAM C5.

As Glitter already pointed out, mostly European based companies invest in Poland. The Polish thought they could get with the Viper deal additional investments from US based companies.

The offset contract suggested this. By the way, they already produce parts for the Gripen.
The Polish politicians thought they are clever. Additional investments from the US (for example the P&W engine assembly line ) as well as the work-share in the Gripen. A bit to greedy, in my opinion.

“Clever”…. Any NATO country that thinks for themselves has to be reeled in by the oh so knowledgeable senior members? Poland will, even as a NATO partner, probably always be independent in some decisions. They have had the rest of Europe goof them over before in history and will be careful in any decision they make.

There are companies producing products. So what? “Greedy” you mean in a socialist Europe sense that everyone should know their place among their betters and not be industrious?

The Americans have now the problem to find companies that invest in Poland. Very difficult considering the volume of US investments of the past decade.
LM does a good job in my opinion, but it is not very realistic to say they will be able to fulfill their contract.

I am sure it wont be a problem. The stupid U.S. taxpayer always comes through on give away deals like this. In reality the 3.8 ? billion deal works out to be more like 6 billion once all the giveaways ( U.S. taxpayer offsets, are added up). Robbing the U.S. taxpayer is what the military industrial complex in my country is good at. The Polish deal isn’t especially hard to do.

….

Gripen or Mirages are the better deal.

Yeah if you want so-so air to ground. Look at all the first line a2g stuff . The F-16 has no peer from the other contenders in the Polish deal:

The jets will be NVG … CFT…jets spec’d out for precision night strike and all weather strike, with all the good stuff. Add to that they will be handy for any big war type of NATO stuff that comes up ( unexpected ). Far more useful to NATO. An additional nice thing is there won’t be any annoying basket refueling. A whole flight showing up at the tanker doesn’t take long with boom refueling ( a much higher fuel flow )

— some items from the Polish deal —

Also included would be 130 LAU-129 missile launchers, 384 AIM-120C AMRAAMs, six AIM-120C AMRAAM AVIM training rounds, 384 AIM-9M2 Sidewinders and 24 training rounds of this type, later augmented by 178 AIM-9X Sidewinders, along with 24 AIM-9X training rounds. For the air-to-ground role the following weapons would be provided – 816 AGM-65G Maverick missiles, with 65 TGM-65G training rounds, 232 JDAM suites, 280 AGM-154A/C JSOWs, 215 Mk82 GP bombs, 920 Mk83 bombs, 232 Mk84 bombs, 140 CBU-97 WCMDs, 232 GBU-16 LGBs and the same number of GBU-10 modification suites. Additionally there would be 214 GBU-22/24 suites, 384 CBU-87 CEBBs, 340,000 HE 20mm cannon rounds, 36 Pathfinder/Sharpshooter pods, or the same number of Northrop Grumman/Rafael Litening II pods, supplemented and/or partially replaced by 22 Lockheed Martin PANTERA pods. Avionics equipment foreseen for the Polish F-16s would be 48 Rockwell Collins AN/ARC-210 SINCGAR Have Quick II radios, 44 Northrop Grumman AN/ALQ-131 or AN/ALQ-184 ECM pods and six recce pods of unspecified type. Also included are eight AACMI podded systems, 48 CFTs, 48 JHMSs, 48 TADIL/JTIDS Link 16 terminals, 40 integrated AIDEWS self defence suites, 29 NVG sets, 48 Raytheon AN/APX-113 IFF sets and all essential technical documents, software and supplementary training and support equipment. It has been estimated that the implementation of the whole package for Polish Air Force flying units, and some defence industry plants, would require logistics support provided by as many as 24 US defence specialists lasting for a period of at least four years.
—

As for it being a “deal” in the traditional sales sense. It isn’t. Most of it is U.S. taxpayer, give-away = “offsets”.

Back to the topic. Depends what Romania thinks. How “hardcore” do they want to be?

Well given the draw down in Europe, we will see. IMHO. F-22 in England would be a waste of effort, except for the occasional deployment/exercise.

Turkish industry does a lot. They have a lot of partnership deals with a variety of industries. U.S. of course, Israel. A deal was signed recently for several fuselage sections for Airbus 320. F-16 things with them is especially interesting; Most of the F-16s were assembled in Turkey. Not just assembled but many components built there. With the second batch,… so were the engines. ( TEI (Turkish Engine Industries F129 IPE engines) ) ( earlier Blocks were mod’d with General Electric F110-GE-100 engines, which are built under license by TAI Engines at Eskisehir. The Peace Onyx I Block 40 aircraft are fitted with the GPS navigation system (LN-39 INS license-built by ASELSAN)They have in effect their own depot line for F-16s also. So things like “Falcon up” on earlier jets and mods can be done… etc.. etc… Really a lot of stuff done in country. 45 of the 46 Block 40 jets Under Peace Vector IV for Egypt, were built in Turkey. PV V and VI jets for Egypt were built in Ft. Worth.

They could also save some money by putting one of the engines back to idle during training to save gas. :p 😮 ( I am sure some crackwhore in the MOD thought of that one already ). 😉

I have been on the old KC-135As with the dinky turbojets a few times. The very first time you are on one is un-nerving. Loaded and on a hot day your mind starts racing when ( being used to normal airliner take-offs )…

-hmmm kind of a long take-off roll.

-gee this is a real long take-off roll.

– ( concerned ) this thing has been rolling wayyyy to long.

– ( really concerned ) this is going to be an abort…. oh finally the thing limps off of the runway into the air.

– ( relief ) Thank god. ….. then the water from the water-injection runs out with a big drop in noise. ( gulp ) and your first reaction is that all the engines just went back to idle.

Not a fun 60 plus seconds. :p

double post