SintraThe timespan for US Navy jets, looking at requirement to fleet introduction, has a disturbing trend:
A-4 took 4 years
F-8 took 5 years
F-4 took 6 years
F-14 took 8 years
F/A-18 took 9 years
F-35C will take 15 yearsEach of those jets had some new technology, so you cannot blame technical issues for increased requirement-to-fleet timespans.
Its the procurement system which is broken, adding many years worth of non-value-added tasks to keep an army of .gov bean counters employed.
The Super Hornet being the exception (roughly seven years) that confirm the rule?
The complexity of the design seems to (also) have something to do with it, the AV-8B took 13 years, the Blackburn Buccaneer 11 years, the A3 took 8 years, etc.
Cheers
SintraBrazilian FX-2 decision was announced officialy in September 7th 2009. But 2 days after the decision was reverted. For example, this official annoucement Brazil-France about the Rafale decision for FX-2. Automatic translation here :
What you mean was that Lula announced that Dassault had won the contest while he had Sarkozy on the same room… without informing its own airforce, who went berserk.
But yes, it was “official”, sort off.
Cheers
SintraIn 13 years of competition there were 04 announcements from winners:
2002: Su 35M
2009: Rafale M3
2012: F/A 18 E / F
2013: Gripen NG
There was never an official “announcement from winners” before the oficial announcement that SAAB won it, Lula almost provided one for Dassault, but the SU-35 and the F/A-18E/F “thingy” are entirely your imagination.
And yes, my original language is Portuguese, and i have been following closely the FX and FX2 “Novela”. If you dont believe me, ask Hammer, we have in this board someone who actually was part of the Sukhoi team who tried to sell the SU-35 in Brasil.
Sintrahttp://www.worldheritage.org/articles/AIDC_F-CK-1_Ching-kuo
YES, it also CLEARLY identifies a totally different Name for the Model C/D..
“During the visit to AIDC’s Taichung Shalu factory on March 27, 2007, President Chen Shui-Bian witnessed a test flight of F-CK-1D, and announced that the upgraded IDF will be named Hsiung Ying (Brave Hawk), which signifies that the new fighter would protect the homeland just like the Crested Goshawk.” To me’ that doesn;t sound like an “upgrade program”….but like anything on the internet it is far from “perfect” in it;s format or writing for sure….
The article that I had posted clearly stated that the prototypes flew in display for the President on March 27, 2007…that’s what I went by…being slightly less than 7 years…I find it hard to see “NEW PROTOTYPES of a totally different lettered AND different named aircraft as simply originally thought of as an upgrade…clearly intention was there to continue further…
Please see my post, ( below the picture of the prototypes)…last sentence…I said , never mind…I see that is has become an upgrade , but I had also come across some speculation of an Advanced Defense Fighter…and as I said two posts ago, who knows….where it is, if it ever got to design phase etc…..
The two “prototypes” were existing Ching Kuo´s airframes, which were upgraded in 2006. The last Ching Kuo was rolled out in 1999. Its not on production, AIDC is not offering it commercialy, the ROCAF will not sell its airframes, its not an option, the end.
The South Korean FA-50 offers identical performance and is being built today.
Cheers
SintraPersonally, I kinda think that Argentina is going about this ass backwards…..
Instead of getting into a situation that is going to cause issues for SAAB, and Brazil and hoping for the Gripen….perhaps Argentina would do better to look a tad bit further..
say to the Tiawanese Indigenous Defense Fighter, the AIDC F-CK-1 A/B Ching-kuo ( Upgraded C/D Hsiang Sheng ..Brave Hawk)….the plane has already had a complete update done in 2007, twin engine, affordable, increased range, twin seat or single seat configurations, optional EW package, and if they played it, perhaps the full spectrum of the Tiawanese missiles, anti ship missiles and GPS guided Cluster bombs etc…..certainly as this plane is sitting right now ready to go into production for Taiwan it’;s self…maybe being able to slide into a production run could be worked out……certainly cheaper and easier to get than the Gripen NG development in Brazil….the options are there IF they could convince Taiwan to sell it….the plane by all sources seems to have a capability and performance simular to the Block 50 ‘s F16’s, has twin engines and in the upgrades had an increased fuel capacity of an additional 771kg’s allowing for increased range, can “supercruise” and had more hardpoints added, and new radar, and avionics etc…..
just another reasonable option that might meet the needs……..certainly not an F35, but far more able than what they are playing with now, newer, and likely cheaper than the Gripen project will give them….eventually…
Not an option. The last Ching Kuo rolled out of the production line in 1999.
The entire suplier base was disbanded long time ago and (almost) certainly the production tools won’t be in condition to restart without a fairly big investment. No one is going to restart the production line for the Ching Kuo with an order of 24 airframes.
SintraYep, the Congress indeed. :applause:
Well, Spud nails it, topic can be closed. Move along chaps, nothing to see here.
Sintrawhat parts other than the radar and IRST does the UK build for the Gripen E?
A great big chunk of the EW suite, the Martin Baker thingy on the cockpit, the (GKN) transparency over the cockpit, a few other other bits and bobs on the cockpit, the (BAE) HMDS, part of the landing gear, etc, etc…
In fact, there’s so much British content on the Gripen E that I am, more or less, expecting that Spanish Airbus to try to sell to Argentina Eurofighter Typhoons built in Sevilha.
I’ll get my hat
SintraIf by “remedial work” you are talking about “concurrency” costs, that is to be paid for by LM exclusively… IIRC.
Well that´s new (and jolly good news, by the way)!
In LRIP 6 and 7 the concurrency costs on the airframe and avionics were divided 50/50 by LM and the government (AKA a great big chunk of the non recurring costs, that went sky rocketing this last year).
Cheers
SintraSo that’s the next LRIP batch sorted. Good news. I don’t recall – does the $4 billion include the engines?
No
Any extra remedial update work to then pay for?
Yes
I suppose that what I would like to know is this: what will these 43 frames cost?
Wait for February next year, and you´ll have the exact numbers.
SintraThe Typhoon II has logged NO mission hours during actual combat, the closest it came was post air campaign “patrol” in Libya
Dear Christ…
SintraThe actual pressurized hold length for the KC-390 is just a bit over 12 metres, right about the same as the C-130H.
That’s because there’s a big swing-down internal pressure bulkhead which separates the main hold from the conical tail-and-ramp section.
Not too bad if you’re operating below 10,000 ft ( SAR etc ) but a hindrance for longer higher-altitude flights. A real pity they couldn’t seal the ramp as pressure doors like Lockheed managed 60 years ago :-/
The old Bulkhead on the wooden mockup, you can see it on this photo.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]232707[/ATTACH]
Good news, they could and did seal the ramp doors, the bulkhead was taken out of the design.
In 2011, Embraer and the Brazilian air force offered a rare glimpse to the public of a wooden mock-up showing an early version the KC-390’s cargo compartment.
Inside the full-scale mock-up was a moveable aft pressure bulkhead. It was shown in the retracted position, rolled up into the aft ceiling like a garage door.
Within two years, this novel design feature had been removed, but not before offering a revealing insight into how Embraer was learning to design a feature – a rear cargo door that opens and closes in flight.
The movable pressure bulkhead was necessary because Embraer was not yet comfortable with a design for a pressurised ramp door. The wooden mock-up shown in 2011 featured clamshell doors that were not designed to pressurise the cabin upon closing. Instead of using pressurised doors, Embraer proposed the moveable bulkhead, which would retract to offload cargo or paratroopers in flight.
But Embraer continued searching for a better solution to the problem.
“It was a very complex mechanism and we finally got a way to avoid that,” says Paulo Gastão, Embraer’s vice-president for the KC-390.
The design of the clamshell doors was driven by geometric restrictions for the aft fuselage with a Mach 0.8 cruise speed. At that time, Embraer’s design studies had not found a way to provide for the use of a conventional door with enough clearance for dropping cargo without raising the height of the aft fuselage, Gastão says. The extra height would cause an increase in transonic drag.
But Embraer’s engineers kept working the problem until they found a way to eliminate the clamshell doors and install a conventional ramp and pressurised rear door.
Diagram of the C-390, you can clearly see that the bulkhead disapeared.
http://www.flightglobal.com/assets/getasset.aspx?itemid=56365
Look at page eleven, the configuration with three HMMWV, the third vehicle is over the cargo door.
http://www.engbrasil.eng.br/index_arquivos/avioes/KC390.pdf
Cheers
SintraSo why did one of their military vessels get seized to cover unpaid debts?
Political choices, for more than two decades Argentina´s military budget has been an average 0.8/0.7% of the country´s PIB.
SintraWell it was a genuine question. I wasn’t suggesting there was a problem with Gripen, just trying to more the conversation on from Typhoon and the Falklands.
The JAS 39E is not a classically stealthy aircraft, but the development contract stipulates a significantly lower radar cross-section (RCS) than the JAS 39C.
http://aviationweek.com/awin/new-gripen-aims-low-cost-high-capability
Sintra– What detailed budgetary estimate? The flyaway cost is already down to $110M. Its already within spitting distance of 4.5G aircraft.
Not; the Fly Away Unit Cost in 2013 was 126.859 million US$, for 2014, well i´ll let you see with you own eyes, its a very interesting number. What you call the “flyaway cost” of “$110M” is actually the Unit Recurring Fly Away Cost (take the Non Recurring Costs and the ancillary equipments of the Fly Away Unit Cost and you get that number) for the (yet to be signed) 2015 LRIP9 (and its actually 112.86$ millions)…
I just love when the JPO uses the “URFC” and calls it the “Fly Away”… Or even worse, when they use the LM annual production contract.
Here you go, page 37: http://www.saffm.hq.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-140310-041.pdf
SintraThe server at http://www.saffm.hq.af.mil can’t be found, because the DNS lookup failed.
The link is working fine, if you have problems with DNS resolve, go to the TCP/IP of your connection, make it manual and insert the IP of a DNS server (try an NS look up to google), or call your ISP.
Or you can just Google “Department of Defense Fiscal Year (FY) 2015 Budget Estimates”, or “USAF budget 2015” and select the “Aircraft Procurement, Air Force Vol−1”, page 37
Call it $55M then (do post a link though if you have it). The F-35A still offers better value-for-money assuming they can deliver for under $80M. (BTW does the $55M tag include the cost of an HMDS & LDP?)
An HDMS and a LDP? Thats 1,5 million US$… And yes, those numbers are official, USAF Budget official.
For the SH, here you go:
http://www.finance.hq.navy.mil/fmb/14pres/APN_BA1-4_BOOK.pdf
Page 113, 54.34 million US$ URF for US Navy Super Hornet, US Navy Budget official.
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