It basically comes down to two package types, VLO and everything else.

Weapons will be similar with either package.

Without VLO you will be needing ISR, dedicated jammers, escorts, decoy flights, etc (I’ll post a pick below that puts it in perspective).

The exact package Q scenario today? No it wont.

With a VLO package, you have more freedom to pick & chose what you engage and how you do it without a large support package. The F-35 will also be able to automatically detect, locate, classify, and share information about any militarily-relevant target it comes across whether it’s a radar that pops up, a plane taking off, a jammer going active, or a radio starting to broadcast. Obviously the relative times for each will vary. As the radars start to go up, their relevant threat cones are presented to the pilots to give them the greatest chance of egress either by attacking those radars or by locating & evading them on the way out.

As far as a Block 4 F-35, it will add more tools that will make the job easier. Besides SATCOM, ROVER, and advances in radar & other sensor modes, and the Advanced EOTS that was announced this month, we can expect more A2G munitions like JSM, Spear1 (Brimstone2) & hopefully JAGM, JSOW-C1, SDB2, LJDAM, JDAM-ER, etc. MALD-J is also available either naively or through a support assets launched well away from the front lines.

Pick a pair of Tornados (Hornets, Eagles, whatever), four Taurus LFK, shoot them 200 km´s inside Saudi Arabia, go home. Twenty five minutes later, one and a half tons of high explosive arrives at a great big FIXED target outside Baghdad and blows the place to pieces, few minutes later a recon satelite confirms it, the end.
Did i forget to mention that the cost of ATOG PGM´s have been steadily declining for the last three decades?

Cheers

What is the production rate per annum? How many months of production would 28 represent? Any extension of production gives SA and other potential Typhoon Tranche 3 buyers an extension before an ordering decision is required to avoid production disruption and attendant increases in cost.

Warton will build 24 Phoon´s this year, 18 in 2016, 22 in 2017 and 4 in 2018. Twenty eight more airframes would throw the production to “circa 2020”, but i doubt that the final assembly of these Kuwaiti airframes will be done in GB PLC, almost certainly in Turin-Caselle.
Depending on where the final assembly is done and the Kuwaiti Air Force requirements, expect one year and a half to two more years of production, this means anything from “somewhere in late 2019 to begginings of 2021”.

LRS-B Details Emerge: Major Testing, Risk Reduction Complete

:applause:

Sintra … anxiously … waiting … images

I can still remember the enthusiasm of seeing the first (drawn) images of the YF-22 and YF-23 on Air International all those years ago.
This and a helluva lot of new advanced trainers, this is going to be a few entertaining years

So is that 450M in top of 178M$ or all included?
Thx all for the clarification btw.

186 million Euros payed to Portugal for 12 aircrafts, training of nine pilots and 79 suport personel and basic initial logistics plus ~450 million US$ payed to the US FMS for weapons, aditional logistics and a pair of ground Link16 stations.

Cheers

Romania’s deal for 12 third hand, very old F16, with no offset against possibility of more, new, locally assembled and maintained Gripens with 100% offset. Mind boggles!

Those F-16´s are in excelent shape, trust me, i was right beside of one of them a few weeks ago, and when i say “excelent shape” it means precisely that, those airframes have been rebuilt from one point to the other. And for what you are actually going to pay for them (186 million of Euros, the Portuguese MOD detailed the contract, 108,2 millions will be spent with the aircrafts, spare parts and training nine pilots and 79 technicians, the remaining 78 millons will be what the POAF will actually receive), you wouldnt get half of a Gripen built in Romenia.

Yes… everything about that design is veeeeeeery generic.:rolleyes:

NOT.

Berkut, that design looks very similar to severall 1990´s manned BAE FOAS (Pre Replica) concepts.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]240087[/ATTACH]

PS- Just read the “lift fans on the wings” bit. Lift fans? WHAT?!

Cheers

We either do the same as the French & send off a general-purpose PGM (preferably with an imaging seeker) towards the identified location of a SAM system, or hurriedly buy something from someone else if we ever need it.

That MBDA Spear III thingy might have something to do with the RAF decision of not acquiring a direct follow on (AKA “anti radar specialist munition”) replacement for ALARM (that or i am being too optimist and the actual answer is “no money”).

Cheers

Tesla is the unquestioned leader in electric cars and debatably luxury cars in general.

BMW would surely question Tesla´s “leadership” in electric cars technology and Renault/Nissan sells more of them, in terms of “Luxury Cars in general” Tesla is light years away of the top European brands.