er… you seem to forget a single little detail, others get their electronic stuff upgraded continuously, are operational and, as of now, the F-35 is pretty much “superior” only to things like the Tucano (mostly because propeller driver stuff can’t catch it).. any operational jet fighter today (even migs 21 and similar stuff) are fast enough to catch the F-35 no matter what it does, and since, as of today, it is pretty much unable to use any real weapon operationally, the F-35 could only try to hide from any armed opponent today, but definitely not fight it.

This is a lazy argument you’re making here, (albeit an oft-repeated one) and I suspect you know that. Yes it isn’t operational today. So what? The Eurofighter doesn’t have an AESA, but nobody has a problem including the E-Scan in its capability matrix. The Rafale doesn’t have an HMDS, but there’s no problem factoring that into its F3R build. The Gripen E is still in the prototype stage, but no one dismissing it. The vast majority of F-35s delivered to the customers will be in the Block 3F configuration with the remainder upgraded shortly after.

Fact still remains, the F-22 has dominated air combat exercises primarily because of its VLO airframe & avionics, and less on account of its agility & supercruise.

so no, if you speak in present (as hopsalot tries to hold on “clear english speaking”), the F-35 isn’t superior to anything even remotely used as a fighter today.

The ‘present’ only applies to aircraft ordered three years ago. But rather than get bogged down in semantics, I’ll rather rephrase – the F-35A ordered today will be better than the competition by the time its delivered, i.e. by 2017. And yes, any air force expecting to employ it in combat before 2017 should look at other options.

then, about considering what’s important for a fighter.. over 90% of operational missions of fighters of any airforce are made of air policing. It consists pretty much of intercepting civilians (from GA props like cessnas to airliners) for any reason they might have (navigation problems, technical problems and so on). If, to intercept a cessna, you might consider as sufficient the flying capabilities of a trainer, nothing bar a supersonic fighter that goes and climbs very fast, will be able to catch a liner cruising at 0.84mach and @ 30000+ ft, especially in the case of small countries you try to sell your flying brick.. that reminds me of a quote from a movie: “with the F-4 the USA have proven to the world that a brick could fly, providing you put enough thrust in it…” , well, the F-35 is a second proof of the same idea… it needs a 20t of thrust engine just to manage comparable performance to a modern 4th gen fighter (which does it with half that power, usually)

The aircraft spends 98% of its life on the ground, so one could extend that logic to argue that the capability to get airborne isn’t essential. And if air policing is your sole concern, there are plenty of cheap light aircraft that are better alternatives than any Eurocanard.

That’s the problem with F-35. It seems to be the view taken by a lot of F-35 proponents that the defence of every country can only be sustained by buying an aircraft whose main virtue lies in its strike capability and which will be far more costly to operate than the aircraft it replaces. Due to the expense goverments will need to

(a) reduce expenditure on non-F-35 defence items

(b) procure F-35 in much smaller numbers than its predecessor

(c) increase the national defence budget by (i) cutting non-defence expenditure (ii) committing to increased taxation or borrowing

or some combination of (a) or (b) or (c)

No the problem is that what you state can describe almost every fighter aircraft in production. All of them are or will be more costly to operate than the aircraft they replaced. Cuts would have been necessary even if the F-35 had been replaced by any of the Eurocanards.

I have to ask: what is so precious about procuring a predominantly strike aircraft to replace predominantly fighter aircraft?

Only the (upgraded) F-22 remains superior to the F-35 at air combat (and in some respects even that may not apply). Every other fighter is either worse than the F-35, or far worse than the F-35. Depending on how it evolves, the PAK FA might be an exception. We’ll have to wait-and-see on the last count.

And if an air policing is all that’s required, they’re are plenty of perfectly valid options available, ranging from the M-346 to the FA-50. But for some reason (that I haven’t been able to nail down), those don’t get a lot of support on the forum and thread as alternatives to the F-35.

F35 is too expensive for the allocated polish budget. So it is out. I dont set their budget.

They’ll inevitably revise their budget. They live next door to Russia, they tend to be more pro-NATO than most, and their economy is expected to fair pretty well over the next half decade.

Switzerland chose Gripen, but didnt agree on the financing. They will buy something in the next 10 years, F35 isnt on the map. Its Rafale or Gripen… or UCAVs.

They agreed perfectly well on financing, the problem was with public support for the deal. There’s no way in hell they’d be able to sell the Rafale to the public. UCAVs capable of air combat are decades away. If they retire the F-5s without replacement, by the time they need to take a call on the F-18 replacement, the F-35 wouldn’t just be on the map, it’ll be the only aircraft on the map.

Greece wont afford the F35. They will choose something else.

They may choose to buy nothing for a long while. But when do get the requisite political and financial capital, the F-35 is bound to be their top choice.

It would have been fascinating, however, if India had procured Draken fighters. Indian Drakens versus Pakistani Starfighters would have been the stories of legends. Besides, Drakens were always way more sexy than Fishbeds.

Well… the Starfighter was widely considered a disappointment (if not a failure). IIRC the PAF retired its F-104s long before it benched its F-86s. The Draken was a far superior aircraft. Better than the MiG-21 as well I’d say.

As well as getting 36 fighters, Brazil is building a production system for 70+ more domestic aircraft, starting the process of learning to become a high-performance fighter prime, getting lead status in the Latin American market and preparing to build a large proportion of every Gripen sold. Brazil is also getting very easy financial terms that it needs to jump-start military modernization. None of this is secret, so you look rather silly when you ignore it.

This is assuming Embraer doesn’t receive any separate contracts from the govt for its work, aside from what was included in the value of the contracts signed with Saab. If not, then Saab is selling the Gripen at a substantial discount to Brazil (vis a vis Switzerland).

In either case, the cost to Switzerland was around $150M each, without (unless it was it was secret) any licensed production. Its silly to assume the Dutch could have bought their (also off-the-shelf) aircraft at half price.

vn – Well, the fact that Sweden, with 55 per cent of the Netherlands’ GDP, can somehow afford 2x as many fighters could be indicative.

Norway with a GDP smaller than both Sweden and Netherlands is buying 52 F-35s. Germany with a GDP twice as large as all three put together will have a mere 110 fighters operational by 2025.

The Cloggies have been operating on a largely fixed budget for their fighter program, to the best of my knowledge. They were shown a fixed-price offer for 85 JAS 39Es for that money, but turned it down. The budget has not been reduced, but now buys 37 JSFs instead of the planned 85.

The 7.1 ton figure for the Gripen E’s weight hasn’t survived six years, I’d be skeptical about the pricing being valid a full decade later.

As for the Swiss deal: Has anyone here ever produced a valid comparison between one nation’s deal and another’s?

One could extrapolate from that, that there’s no evidence of the Gripen E being any cheaper than the F-35. Even the Dutch F-35 deal wasn’t signed with the same exact industrial terms and support agreements as offered by Saab.

The figures for Gripen were so seriously twisted in the assessment that the process bordered on false accounting. All in order to find a way to “show” that F-35 was cheaper. If I recall, to get the cost of Gripen up absurd rates of attrition were used etc etc I don’t recall with certainty but I think that hard data from Sweden on Gripen costs was ignored again because the figures did not the scenario required – that F-35 had to appear to be better value. Some of the background arm twisting from the American embassy was also revealed when a certain person called Snowden revealed thousands of embarrassing pieces of confidential data.

How would you explain the costs quoted to Switzerland for the Gripen E? $3.5bn for just 22 aircraft. The $6bn that the Dutch are spending on the F-35 would buy what.. 45 Gripen Es? Maybe upto 50 aircraft if Saab offers a reduced price.

While they had to engage in some accounting gymnastics to present the F-35 as cheaper, the RNLAF would still prefer 37 F-35s over a moderately larger order of Gripen Es.