Indeed not, which is why I wrote this –

I think you missed this –

It was my understanding that the majority of conscripts in Turkey, Israel and Singapore serve in the army rather than the air force or navy (unlike Norway). So the RNAF staff costs (3,600 professionals reinforced with conscripts) should still be less than half that of the Singapore or Turkey.

The Norwegian army too with a standing strength equivalent to 1/5 that of Singapore and 1/7 that of Turkey shouldn’t cost that much to maintain with 2/3rds or 1/2 the budget (even assuming their input costs are 2.5-3 times higher).

Depends to a large extent on who you’re asking. The responses on this thread for example are quite predictable. Russians love the the PAK FA. Americans prefer the YF-23. The Chinese might even prefer the J-20’s somewhat bland looks. The F-35 & J-31 are definitely uninspiring while the X-32 is downright ugly.

But show these aircraft to an outsider, someone who has no idea what country the aircraft belongs to or what exact function the fighter performs, and I’ll bet you the F-22 will always come out on top.

Trouble is, we’ve seen so many pictures and videos and movie cameos that it looks quite ‘boring’ to the average aviation enthusiast. Plus the F-22 is also too conventional a choice nowadays.

But fact is, despite its (relatively) low production numbers it will remain the definitive aircraft of its generation when it comes to looks and public perception. For good reason.

Its a pity we can’t go back to when we saw it for the first time.

The Norwegians figure they can afford to operate a dozen (12),
why would Dk want to buy 30 ?

I really like to understand the maths behind that estimate.

12 F-35A x $40,000/hr x 180 hours = $87 million.

Is $87 million all that the Norwegians can afford to spare out of their budget of $7.2 billion?

Israel spends a little over twice as much and operates hundreds of aircraft (including AWACS) to be joined by several squadrons of F-35s. Similarly, I’ve never heard it said that Singapore with its $12 bn budget can only operate a grand total 18 F-35s (in addition to all its F-15/16s).

There are no AESA in Chinese service, either. Although I am sure these will come soon as upgrades for the J-10/J-11 series. Russians have lost much time developing a wide array of PESA radars of which many will never see service…

The J-10B & J-11D/J-16 are both in service. And being produced at impressive rates (approx 30/yr for each IIRC).

What more do you need?

They’ve delivered a greater variant of ESAs (not all of which necessarily more sophisticated than the Captor-M and PS-05/A). Quite a way from there to – ‘..as system integrators.. better off than the whole EU combined’.

Depends on the exchange rate.. The actual number was 490, the actual amount was Rs 6.600 crore which is $1.01 bil. today. Makes $2.06 million each. If we take Greek numbers from 2011 (424 mil EUR for 200 MICA + 56 SCALP-EG), then we get somewhere in the $1.9 mil ballpark for MICA. Still a lot, I am not denying it.

(Yeah that should be 490 thanks. I picked up an older number in a hurry.)

No reason to keep the rupee value fixed. The contract was likely negotiated in dollars, with the figure remaining unchanged for the customer. Of course, thanks a strong dollar and weak Euro*, the dollar price of the missile has fallen from $2.5 mil (as of Jan 2012) to $2.1 mil (today). Still.. quite a bit more than a similarly priced AMRAAM.

*I’m spelling ‘dollar’ in lower case and ‘Euro’ in upper case. For some reason ‘Dollar’ and ‘euro’ feel wrong and I can’t figure out why. :confused:

$1.25 billion for 450 units. $2.7 million each.

Though for a larger heavier missile, you’d expect it to cost more than the MICA. Guess its hard to match the economies of scale the US procurement system can manage.

And how exactly do you achieve that?

Join the EU and NATO. One done. Second.. closer than ever.

Neutral Finland, Russia’s Neighbor, Reserves Right To Join NATO As New Government Takes Power

With Russia none too happy about it.

Russia warns Finland against joining NATO

Well, of course they do.. Finally, both use the same pre-programmed values. You can invite another dozen folks to do the sim and they will come back with the same result. But that still does not say a thing a bout whether the results are in any way representative vis-a-vis the reality.

Not quite.. By that time we could be having true RCS values, as well as more representative detection range figures.

And you believe the figures floating around for the F-35’s RCS (0.001-0.01 sq.m) are vastly overstated?

There is no F-117 physics and F-35 physics, there is only one.. When a protruding rivet on the F-117 plays a major difference while a rivet on the F-35 does not, then there are only two possible explanations: a) either the F-35’s rivet is (almost) radar transparent or b) the RCS of the F-35 is in a ballpark where tiny details like that don’t matter.. which means considerably higher than F-117..

How much is a ‘major difference’? And what in your opinion is the F-117’s RCS like?

I don’t have any data to confirm or disprove that claim.. But neither have you for the detection ranges which would pressume AVERAGE 0.01 sqm RCS..

Well.. perhaps you and Andraxxus are both right and the average RCS is actually north of 0.1 sq.m meaning the aircraft is not really VLO and can be tracked at ranges well exceeding 100 km. In which case they’re probably better of with an upgraded F-15E re-engined with the F119. (The Russians in turn ought to scrap the PAK FA in favour of a Su-35Z.)