In the late 1970s, Saab was confident that India would be able to manufacture the Viggen under licence.

they probably would have.

well, europe seems to be at war 🙂
Please lads know the facts.
Dassault started out Neuron project before Saab and anybody else got onboard, architecture is something you start out with 🙂

And please dont let Netta get what he wants.

That won´t happen imho. A project including Dassault, BAe, EADS – Cassidian, Saab and minor players, will never fly.

There are no means small players, in the sense “they dont manage a project like this”.
The problem will be to overcome the geopolitical factor that can make it so expensive.

All MMRCAs are multi role fighters, but that doesn’t meant they are equally good for all roles. Gripen E/F might load 10% less, but has 33% less thrust too. The main aim for Gripen (no matter which version) is interception, just like LCA and that’s why it overlaps with it way more than any other MMRCA. Also you have to compare the right versions, Gripen C/D with LCA MK1, Gripen E/F with LCA MK2 and by all available infos, the MK2 will be much closer to Gripen.

<30% less because its empty weight is 40% less….Note that NG only have a spec min thust, not actual operational thust in any AF.

Gripen has a good diversity in AtG arms and lower wingloading than falcon. It also takeoff and land shorter with maxload or no load. I dont see your point. Gripens aim was to replace AJ37, JA37, SF37, SK37, SH37 and some J35. This means true multirole, and it exeeds this role today.

The overlap with LCA with gripen would in my opinion be MTOW. Still its loads 30% more, have bigger diversity of weapons is bigger(at least for a long time). The preformance of LCA Mk2 isnt easy compare but time will tell.
But to compare C/D with Mk1 isnt right in any way, not even A/B. What operational status does Mk1 have anyway? Flight envelope? integrated weapons? rolles?

Hi Sign,

Let me attempt to explain.

This is exactly my point. While ADA may look towards SAAB for assistance for overall design & integration, as a third party “audit” to speed things up (by avoiding any mistakes later on into the design process), they may look towards other partners for detailed system design & development expertise.

Coming to stealth, materials and datalinks – won’t type out point by point replies, but i fear you understate the magnitude of the issue. For materials didnt SAAB work with BAE and others, as it did with GEC Marconi for the PS-05 radar, and similarly, for stealth, building test articles for UAVs and UCAVs is a good thing, but the depth of understanding required for an all up, much larger fighter aircraft is an order of magnitude harder.

Similarly, for IRST and radar on the Gripen NG, its not SAAB which is making these items, but is sourcing them from Selex. A stealth optimized radar with LPI (airborne) and fire control functions, would be harder still and something SAAB has not done till date.

Similarly, the TIDLS datalink is good, but its not a stealthy datalink.

What I am pointing to is the fact that while SAAB has decent capabilities in several areas, it is not the best in class in all system functional areas, that makes it the single solution partner. Hence, for a program like the AMCA, it makes more sense for ADA to actually chase down individual companies for “best that meet needs”/”RFP cost effective” solutions.

Consider the LCA MK-2. BAE systems original assistance for speeding up flight testing, well, that job is now EADS’s, where they audit the program & see how many tests are necessary versus good to have versus unnecessary. For the engine, there was a contest between GE & EJ. For the AESA radar, right now, there is a contest between ELTA and EADS (technically, it should be Selex, but reports said Selex was dropped but EADS continues, confusing).

For the Indian AEW&C program, ELTA reportedly served as the consultant for technical design. However, EADS was chosen in specific as the consultant for the mission program architecture & its certification.

So, again, there is no single partner that meets “all” needs & India may have to look for specific partnerships for specific systems.

Hence, my statement:

I see youre point and in generall i agree, but in my opinion you underestimate a contractor to solve problems and take more responsiblity and also the win-win of such projectlayout.
For a project, to envolve multible contractors does derisk in some cases, but can be more costly in total. This is due to the fact involvement takes time and money and things like requirements/verification between diffrent Contractors take more time and money (more detailed requirements and steering).

And some info:
Bae involvment in gripen is overrated. The mainwing box, did they consult on, and in some sales effort (like SAAF) . But thats it.
Saab does make its own radars, and several demostrators, but still no contract.
This is most part for SweAF dont seem to need a AESA upgrade at the moment.
Selex was better in the timeframe for the frontend and also made better offer than Saab EDS did internally on the frontend for BR/IN. Make note that Selex backend did not fit the requirements and was not therefore choosen. This is the big part of “not invented here”. Also making sure of a good price for the customer.
As i said, Saab is only a subconstractor in IRST systems. Selex is better in this field for a total system, but still, they rely on subconstractors 🙂
TIDLS, is any link stealthy? maybe satcom, and it can still be used as TIDLS, but with wider band ;). Its not all about hardware but the protocol and integration into the A/C.

That also explains why the Rafale is the most suited fighter for Indian forces, because it has the size and (empty)weight of the F16 B60 and offers the similar flight performance and load capabilities in A2A and A2G roles, while beeing available in a dedicated carrier version, to fulfill the same roles of the F18 SH for IN as well!

i would say Rafale is probably one of the best performers, but, to expensive to have as a “stopgap” and overlap the SU-30, PAKFA, and AMCA (on paper) a little to much.

to bad not much opinions from the evaluations har leaked so we someting to discuiss 🙂
To me it seems all A/C have more or less passed the evaluations, it should be only lowest bidder (Lifecycle cost inc?) and TOT that counts.

I’m rather surprised by the dihedral canards and . That doesn’t seem ideal for radar stealth.

thats a myth i would say. (an added angle thou, which is not good), also depending on materials..overlap would also be bad.
A close coupled canard often designed this way, for added canard vortex lift (tip of the canard is a level over the mainwing)