I wonder if UAE and Brazil can make their final decisions for F-X this year.

JASDF official explanation for the reason of choosing F-35A as the final winner of F-X:

http://www.mod.go.jp/j/press/news/2011/12/20a.pdf

1. Fighter’s capability:

* Flying performance, Radar/Fire-Control, EWS, Anti-stealth target capability, and A2G capability: All participants are good enough.

* Multi-sensor and Data fusion capability: F-35A is better than the other two participants.

2. Costs:

* F/A-18E has the cheapest procurement cost.

* Eurofighter has the lowest fuel consumption cost.

* However, only F-35A has the same AAR system as the one that JASDF is using right now ~ Considering the extra AAR revision costs for F/A-18E and Eurofighter, the F-35A shall have the lowest overall cost.

3. Domestic industrial cooperation:

* The offer from Eurofighter Gmbh is the most attractive.

* However, all offers from the three contenders can fit the whole Japanese requirement for domestic industrial cooperation, so Eurofighter Gmbh can’t get higher score than the other two contenders in this field…… 🙁

4. Logistics:

* The three contenders are equal in the most criteriae of this field.

* However, F-35A has the better performance than the other two participants in one criteria of this field.

In a joint “confidential” missive to the Prime Minister sent last week, British PM David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel — along with Italian and Spanish Prime Ministers — have said the EADS’ Eurofighter is an “excellent aircraft that stands on its own merit”.

An excellent aircraft that none of you want to afford its Tranche 3B production and half of you want to get rid of the Tranche 1 fighters ASAP, how persuasive you are…..:diablo:

Was Rafale ever considured in Japan?

Japanese had asked Dassault for Rafale’s RFP at the early stage of its new F-X project, but Dassault refused to offer it then because of the unpleasant experience of Southern Korean F-X competition in 2002.

It’s getting ridiculous in how the Gripen NG is so underrated among some posters here.

Well, the fighters that are so overrated among some posters here have to compete the title of “All Loser the Great of International F-X projects, 2011” right now:D

People of over-optimism, over-confidence, or over-arrogance will always be punished by God.

The financial crisis and the burden of social welfare for France are no less than those for USA, UK, Germen, Italy, and Switzerland etc. If the domestic procurments for F-22, F-35, EF-2000, and Gripen all have to be sacrificed a lot for such crisis and burden, then I see no reason why Rafale can be an exception.

Can’t quite see the huge gap in operating cost between Gripen and the other Eurocanards. I would understand if Gripen had 10.00 and EF/Raf had scores between 6-7.00 (mainly due to twin engines)… but 3.00?

Well, the SAAB has declared that the Gripen NG’s operating cost shall be around 5,000 USDs per flight hour, while the datas of operating cost we know for both Rafale and EF-2000 up to now are no less than 15,000 USDs per flight hour……

Ok, I know SAAB’s estimated operating cost for Gripen NG has many problems and may be proved to be far from the reality one day, but it is still a very good data for Swiss government to choose to believe in order to make the Gripen as the chosen one……:D

The real truth is far from the most important thing when you have already decided your own choice. The real important things are datas, informations, declarations, and advertisements that can make your decision seems wise and reasonable, no matter how absurd they actually are ~ Austria wants EF2K, so the price of Gripen C/D can be less than 3% cheaper than Typhoon accoring to its announcement. Norway likes F-35, so the price of Gripen NG can be even more expensive than JSF according to its study. And now Swiss chooses Gripen NG, and of course it shall choose to believe the datas / informations / advertisements that declare Gripen NG will be much, much, much more cheaper than Rafale, Typhoon, and Super hornet…….:diablo:

I think this incident shows a big problem for high-tech stealthy UAV/UCAV ~ If it is lost during a real military mission (no matter due to the shot-down or the system’s broken-up), it has no pilot to make sure that its critical systems and components will be destroyed completely before the plane is captured by the enemy…..