VnomadThe most effective route to a United Europe would be the rise of another Napoleon in France.
To unite Europe under him or against him? 😀
VnomadIf you already know that regardless of the outcome of the tests the aircraft will remain the same, then why bother testing, at all?
Simply declare them as operational and there you go..
There will still be a little hardware modification required. Given that retrofit costs average less than $6M per unit, they’re clearly not significant. However, the software is still under development and is the only real stumbling block here. The production cost on the other hand will remain unaffected, being dependent only on hardware; tooling, training, assembly etc all remaining the same.
VnomadI’ll try to keep the political-social part very short. Basically right now we’re mere vassal of US interests through traitorous and corrupt politicians, and we are increasingly drifting towards a hideously orwellian, US controlled future. Our only hope is to stand TOGETHER and free ourselves from these shackles, becoming truly independent and controlling our own destiny, and able to built a society based on true european values. Backward currents like ultranationalism and xenophobia should have no place and no say in creating a true, United Europe (no, that does mean eliminating countries and identities, but just joining TOGETHER and working TOGETHER to build a better home for all of us).
Assumption being that most of Europe is on the same page as far as foreign policy is concerned, and differs greatly from the US on the matter. Hardly true. And for evidence you need look no further than the Libyan campaign where Germany (a NATO member and EU lynch-pin) stayed out while (non-NATO) Sweden and (non-EU) Norway were both active participants.
Our biggest deficiencies now are lack of a heavy 5th gen program, lack of a light 5th gen, and lack of a global LRS-class platform, plus dependency on US AEW designs, PLUS the dependence of UK deterence arsenal on US missiles.
I envision that in the initial and transitional period (say 2015-2025), each UEAF country will contribute to the whole with what is realistically (and economically) feasible, one of the biggest changes being the consolidation of primary and advanced training in 3 or 4 regional centres (i know a few countries are doing it jointly already), thus avoiding the duplication of such efforts in almost every country.
Europe doesn’t face any military threats anymore. Not since the Russians started buying French weapons and developing others with the Italians. If you could somehow get the Russia to join the European Union, you may solve all remaining defence challenges and achieve true European togetherness.
A total of 6 fleet carriers by 2030 will be a formidable naval force, assuring superiority in the Atlantic (the USN will have to face not only us, but also China and Russia’s naval forces, by that time also formidable- likely 4 or 5 chinese carriers and 2-4 russian).
Superiority over the USN in the Atlantic? Relations set to be that bad, huh?
Divided we fall. Together we stand. Long live United Europe.
Not counting the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, the last time Europe was invaded was in the 13th century (by the Mongols). I doubt Europeans need fear ‘falling’ to any outsider today.
VnomadThe problem is that the suppliers will have to spend more billions for new tools and redefining their processes as they have spent their money on production tooling for an untested and unproven bird which still has some redesign underway.. How is that even possible I’m really failing to grasp.
Physically the final production aircraft will be almost the same as the aircraft currently being built under the SDD. No new tooling required. It would have been different if the LRIPs were prototypes or pre-production variants.
VnomadNo, that’s in base year (2000) dollars. Add 13 years of inflation and the average recurring flyaway cost for 552 Super Hornets is what I said, about $75 mil.
That fair, don’t know how I missed that.
All in all, the Super Hornet and Rafale economics don’t seem that different, which says a lot about Rafale given that Super Hornet is considered by all to be a very cost-effective benchmark.
More or less. I do remember reading though that Dassault was able to achieve substantial savings by running Falcon and Rafale productions concurrently (alternating workers and so forth). ??
VnomadYeah. The F-16 was an economic option done right. Build your baseline, keep it simple, make it useable, then incrementally add capability.
YF-16 first flight…. 1974. IOC (proper IOC, not F-35 *******ized version) 1980. 6 years.
X-35 first flight… 2000. IOC…. *shrugs*… who knows.
In the 40s they were fielding an entirely new fighter in a year’s time. Took a little more time in the 50s. Yet more in the 60s. And so on.
We can hardly expect to develop a fifth generation aircraft in the F-16’s time-frame. Nor is it feasible to regularly upgrade its avionics hardware, let alone components like the engine. And this is true even for the latest 4th gen aircraft like the Rafale and EF.
VnomadYou do realise your quoting a man formerly President of Lockheed?
His opinion can be read with the appropriate degree of reservation. But he’s certainly not inventing the facts about the F-16’s production; 500 delivered in the first seven years. It clearly did not go through an LRIP phase.
VnomadConsidering a) R-27 variants are still the main armament of all upgraded Su-27s and even Su-35… b) PAK-FA will desingned to be compatible to fire R-27 externally c) Even though there ara newer missiles, R-27 is still in production; the question arises: If R-27 is such a bad missile, WHY?
I’d imagine the R-27 today would be a very different missile today. ?? Not unlike the Sidewinder which has evolved from a largely unreliable missile to the arguably best-in-class Aim-9X Block II.
VnomadAlso worth noting that the Super Hornet’s average flyaway cost is ~$75 mn, under the same conditions (2013 prices, 2% DOD standard inflation escalation). The Super Hornet benefits from a 2x larger production run, so the Rafale is certainly cost-competitive!
The recurring flyaway cost is about $60 million.
VnomadWhat is interesting, in 1978, after more than 1,600 F-16A/Bs have already been ordered by USAF and export orders for 422 aircraft have been signed with Belgium, Norway, Netherlands, Denmark and Pakistan, there was still not a slightest sign of any price drop effect visible. One would expect the economy in scale effects playing a vital role in the price development given the huge amounts of aircraft produced (the FY 1977 order alone was for staggering 1,388 airframes) but it was simply not the case.
I am quite sure that they had LRIP at that time, too. It was just not accounted for as it is today and certainly not used as an argument to demonstrate artificial future price promises. For all intents and purposes, the F-35s will likely never be cheaper than they are today.. The economy in scale can dampen the price increase a bit but that is pretty much all.
I’m afraid your post says nothing at all about the aircraft’s delivery rate, which is the most critical element of the equation.
I was heavily involved in both programs, to include industry and government, and here are my observations — and some lessons learned from the F-16 — that could be helpful for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program.
.
.
They intend to keep F-35 production at very low and costly production rates until at or near full specification performance is demonstrated. For the F-35, final testing is not scheduled for completion until 2017.
By contrast, from the start, the F-16 went to high-rate production; 352 airplanes were on firm order within four years and three years later, more than 500 had been delivered worldwide.
.
.
The decision to keep production at very low rates carries other cost penalties. The OSD decision to delay full-rate F-35 production occurred after suppliers had already spent billions of dollars defining and automating their manufacturing processes to meet expected early, large-volume production. These costs are now amortized over far lower upfront quantities.
.
.
When comparing concurrent production, however, the F-35 is being artificially confined to low production rates at a point when the F-16 was already roaring ahead.
http://www.defensenews.com/article/20120507/DEFFEAT05/305070006/Change-Course-Protect-F-35
VnomadAny firm sources regarding HAL supplying fins, canards and stabs for the SM?
Just an assumption, given the fact that HAL delivered them for the MKMs that were otherwise built and assembled by IAPO.
VnomadIIRC during the competition the projected MMRCA deal value was reported to be $10.4 billion for 126 aircraft.
To be fair, the MMRCA evolved out of a proposal to acquire Mirage production line (around 2003 IIRC). I think this figure was a just a brief stop on the ceaseless journey upwards.
Setting weapons, ToT, licensing aside, the package you describe more or less doubles that figure. Add in the extra cost due to currency movement and the cost in rupees for 126 aircraft + support looks to be more than 2.5 times the projected cost that had been reported. An increase of that magnitude may be well be queried by the bean counters.
Currency movement will not affect the price of the aircraft in EUR. The pressure from a depreciating rupee will be over and above any inflation in the aircraft’s cost.
VnomadAnyway, it shows that HAL is at least theoretically capable to build aircraft significantly cheaper than Russians, let alone French. I would take the article with a grain of salt until we know exactly which numbers were compared.
Eventually, yes. But note that the first 40 or so aircraft delivered by HAL had been assembled from SKD/CKDs. But with over 100 units on order, the economics favoured local production. For the Rafale on the other hand, there will be less than 50 deliveries pending, once production has been indigenized.
You’re mistaken. Su-30SM is largely based on Malaysian MKM, not Indian MKI. The architecture of the avionics of the SM is also completely devoid of Israeli equipment, everything is sourced from Thales, except few bits made by Samtel.
I was referring to the composite content in the airframe. Its unlikely that the replacement of the HMDS & LDP would significantly change the cost (mission computer and MFDs being the same). But if HAL has modified only IAF airframes then that certainly would result in higher unit cost. That said, HAL also supplies fins, canards and stabilizers for the MKM & SM, so its the IAPO built fuselages and wings that need a closer look.
Vnomader, $60-65 million for a flyaway cost is just ridiculous.. early 2012 that would mean about 40 million euros, which is nowhere near the price of the Rafale. That sounds a lot like a desperate try to discredit the people negotiating the deal right now… a such price may eventually be considered viable once you removed the all the offsets benefits from the price of the aircraft (say, for a $120 million aircraft, if you have 50% offsets, you may consider it costs you 60 million…) but then, that would mean only that now, they quote the full price without counting the offsets anymore
Looks pretty obvious that that article is just hot air, nothing else
The $65M figure for the Rafale does seem dodgy. Perhaps it was the projected price at a boosted production rate – from 11/yr to 20/yr+ (even though assembly would only partially be in Merignac). With recent cuts that would have been impacted, but yes, I’m skeptical too.
The total contract value on the other hand seems to be well in line with what the article suggests. Between the flyaway cost (of say $100M), spares, training, support and local production, it’ll start closing in on $20 billion. Add in licensing, ToT & offsets, and it’ll shoot well past that figure. Finally, compute the cost of a Rafale-specific munitions package – MICAs, AASMs, Meteors…. it’ll be nothing less than $5-6 billion (just MICAs for 50 Mirages costed $1.25 billion @ 5 missiles/aircraft).
A final bill for $28-30 billion would be on the higher side, but not very surprising.
Vnomad– mais one milliard de dollar, est-ce que c’est vrai ? ( But one billion $, is that true ?)
That would have been ‘un milliard’ if that were the case. It doesn’t make sense to abruptly use an English word in the middle of a conversation in French. Not to mention, $1 billion for MMRCA deal is quite ridiculous, especially for an interviewer who sounds otherwise well-informed.
Sign In
