I disagree completely.

its part of “bending the truth” to get it the way he wants it to be. He need to kick even more dirt to convince the public. This is normal behavour of journalists and politicians..nothing new.

That’s the FOI paper I am referring to.

I read the paper by Google Translator, and all it said is “Radarmalarea 0,1 m2” was an assumed value for modeling and simulation.

There is no mention at all that a real Gripen flying with realistic weapons and fuel load was actually measured to have that RCS value.

no probably, without ordinance, but i have no clue more than its kind of standard to measure that way.

it wasn’t news. It was simply being stated that Saab had hired some influential people. Which is considered pretty normal in something as competitive as a fighter selection. there was no accusation other than that, and as far as I could make out, no accusation of favouritism.

Brazil may be a different case, but in India, Saab needs to be careful- any action that is construed as being improper, may land them in a soup, going by how many companies have been black-listed, sometimes just on the basis of an accusation that may not be proven for a long time.

their agenda is political for Brazil’s benefit as they see it. if Sweden could’ve been a better political partner than France, it would’ve been their choice. As it stands, France has a seat in the SC, is a nuclear power and a big nuclear industry supplier, has nuclear subs, aircraft carriers, helicopters..you name it France has it.

All the weapons on the Rafale can be French and single country source if Brazil so chooses, or if Brazil wants to integrate its own weapons, France will allow it as will Sweden. here, Boeing may lag behind because they are paranoid about source codes.

so, you see, the Rafale is not being supported just because someone has some devious agenda. Brazilian politicians will look at more than just an equipment buy when they are going to spend billions of $ on a purchase like this. the only drawback for the Rafale is its extremely high cost of acquisition.

In my mind, I have little doubt that its technically and performance wise superior to the Gripen NG and the Super Hornet, but the question is whether Brazil needs something so expensive when its threats are not so real and not so well equipped. Is the political and strategic gain by going for the French fighter worth the extra billions of $ ?

i just hate political agendas, especialy in this case, when a “seminly fair” competition have been held and when FAB and the industry want something else.

Agreed, but if this is the case, then we are talking about a major contradiction in Saab’s promotional rhetoric. They keep saying that the F-35 may be stealth, but it carries an minimal usefull weapons load, and if it carries more externally, then it’s no longer stealth.

The same would apply for the Gripen, no?

Well, there is always the F-16. It has won a few contests against the Gripen and it’s still a major adversary in contests where they both participate. If size is the issue here, even Mirage 2000 is as small too. Though not produced anymore, but it was one of Gripen’s adversaries in Polish contest.

Allthesame, the canards and all those floating wingtips and antennas probably don’t help towards that 0,1 m2 figure…

the wingtips is mostly ECM sensors and transmitters, and they are certanly needed and positioned at the the best possible position for sensing and transmitting, but i have no idea of the rcs penalies for it. Possibly not that bad thou it havent been redesigned even in NG(>0,1m2)

you might want to change your rough calculations. 3500kg + 3500 kg is not 5500 kgs.

valid point. I guess the cost per flight hour would depend on the type of mission and what its profile is (lo-lo, lo-hi-lo, etc.). FAB would need to make its own estimates based on the duration of their average sortie for training and peacetime operation to arrive at their own calculations.

calculations per flight hour is kind of consistent…but alright, they did go for 4000 Usd (what i heard).

Sign, are you saying they do by winking ? could you elaborate further ?

no…as a said.. i cant. im not aloud to.

Is there any evidence about RCS 0.1m2, other than the FOI paper?

The FOI paper seems to say that the Gripen was just assumed to have a RCS figure of 0.1m2 for modeling & simulation purpose only.

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showpost.php?p=1321013&postcount=1

its best summered up in signatorys thread..
it says in swedish:

Jas 39 with a hull where signature reducing measures has been applied has a targetarea of 0,1 m2

this is the gripen A, new measures have been made with C/D and lastly NG.

well, looks like its 90% likely Rafale will win.
disappointed the better aircraft for Brazil’s needs lost
but happy that the better looking aircraft won 😉

the Gripen by all accounts, is boring looking.

i saw a gestimate by a “expert” at 50-75% in todays brazilian press…but why not say 50%-90%

in my opinion both are good-lookers 🙂