http://www.stratpost.com/gripen-operational-cost-lowest-of-all-western-fighters-janes
When it comes to salaries the cost won’t have a large effect in the end. For instance, if you need 10 maintenance hours per flight hour and one AF pays 40$ per hour and another pays 20$ per hour the difference in cost will be a staggering 200$ per hour. If you need 20 hours the difference becomes 400$ in a comparison where the lowest CPFH is 4’700 and the average is around 16’000$.
Its not statistically insignificant but it doesnt change the position of any jet in the chart.
Gripen “wins” a lot from being built with a defensive mindset. It is similar to the MiG 21 in that regard (but with easier maintenance even for the harder tasks like engine replacements). This is how a turnaround looks, its the Gripen A and the time of <10 minutes is probably for refueling and hanging 2 missiles on it, adding heavier and more missiles will probably take longer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49L9BlYQSjw
As pointed out by Obligatory, this is the most normalised comparison so far.
Has the Su-15 obtained a radar lock on the SR-71 btw? If not its pretty clear which is the more capable interceptor. But on the other hand… the MiG 25 is of the same era so its probably a much better interceptor. At least if we look at metrics. Are there any interceptors ever made that perform better in that role than MiG 25 and MiG 31?
And accusations flew about over those incidents until they pulled wreckage. It was a tense period.
I think the Viggen is amongst the “best” jets of that time. Maybe not the best interceptor but it was versitile, had enough power, good handling characteristics and sophisticated avionics for the time.
It was used for pretty much everything, mostly air intercept but also messing around with Soviet battleships (like producing sonic booms over them, doing low passes with full afterburner making a visit on the deck a pretty hot place to be). On one occasion it accidentally dropped 12 blind 125 kg bombs (250lbs concrete + steel) at 1000km/h a few meters from one Soviet ship.
Some pictures when its intercepting submarines, ships and lighthouses.
intercepting a lighthouse (dogfight practice)
And the “kill mark” on a Soviet ship after a Viggen crashed during an unsuccesful interception. Apparantly ships handle water better than supersonic jets…
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_j1ml1fHnXhQ/S9tKLgtlO-I/AAAAAAAAAeA/ymOgA6CLbPs/s1600/viggen.jpg
The problem is that the distance between the hook and rear wheels is about half that on a standard FA18. This makes the landing much harder to perform. The hook itself has been working since day 1 (since the first one was a standard FA18 hook).
The only problemtic thing is how to make the whole assembly fit without messing up the stealth characteristics too much and without going over board with the space restrictions (that have very low tolerances).
The hook problem might need a lot of redesign but its an easy task when compared to the peeling of the coatings, cooling problems and cracks in the bulkheads + engine just to name a few. Here is he chart btw… again.
Sort of shows that the likely problem isnt the hook itself.
Sign In
