I fully agree with this assessment. The aircraft they choose will be operational for a few decades. Why not upgrade what they currently have and then invest on the 5th Gen instead of 4 or 4.5 Gen aircraft. There is a lot of money to be invested in this RfP so put it to use in a next generation project instead.

—–JT—–

Exactly what I have been advocating here for a long time. Capability wise and technology wise none of the MMRCA candidates offer anything that the the MKI does not. The entire program should have never been launched and the extra required aircraft split between more MKI and LCA orders.

Let’s back to the F-16. Poland chose F-16 over Gripen because it better suits Polish requirements which were, by the way, much higher than these issued by Czech Republic and Hungary. These countries requested an air-defence fighter to operate over their own territory. Poland has 32 MiG-29 for this purpose. New fighter was to be able to operate outside Poland in air-to-ground missions mainly.

Poland requested a wide range of air-to-ground weapons, NATO datalinks, navigation, EW, reconnaissance etc. suites. We bought 22 AN/AAQ-33 Pantera targeting pods, AN/ALQ-212(v)4 EW suites for 20 aircraft, seven Goodrich DB-110 reconnaissance pods and a large (still classified, so no details) number of AIM-120C-5 and AIM-9X AAMs, AGM-154C JSOW, JDAM, AGM-65G2 Maverick, GBU-12 Paveway II and GBU-24 Paveway III munitions. Is all this tested and available with the Gripen?

And don’t say us about Polish politicians – we have more troubles with them here inside than you outside Poland. Elections in a month…:)

Ridiculous thinking, the Gripen has already been integrated with most of the listed weapons and the others could be done with very little effort. The Gripen is no less interoperable than the F-16. Fact is that the Polish deal was a poorly conceived exercise in US a*se licking. The end result is an at best average aircraft nearing the end of its design life and a set of promised offsets which will likely never be fulfilled.

On the other hand they could have procured the Gripen which would have satisfied both Europe and the US provided all the interoperability and capability of the F-16 whilst being at the beggining of its design life. At the same time they could have joined the Gripen NG program which would have provided more offsets and technology transfer as well as an upgrade for the first tranche of delivered Gripens and a new build fleet compatable type to supplement the first aircraft and replace the last of the Migs over a period of time.

I understood, but I am AGAINST “ein Volk, ein Reich, Ein Fuehrer” thinking.

Economy will be better due to hard work, not money transfers.
dranio

Frm that qoute it seems like you are pro the “workers of the world unite”.:D

Yeah…right.
First it was Israel carying out recon fights.
Then it was Israel trying to test Syrian defence system.
Then came the attack on the convoy en-route to Hizbullah.
The latest news links Syria/Iran/NK in some sort of close nuclear realtionship.

Yet there are definitely other possibilities. May be Israel was simply trying to provoke Syria for one reason or another, or may be Israel was trying to demonstrate to US forces that such an attack is also possible on Iranian facilities (with or without US help)???

As one can see, however, it has been a gradual build up from one thing to another, each more sinister in nature than its predecessor. That is how the build up to Iraq war happened throughout 2002/03…if u remember. Irrespective of numerous precious lives (from many nations) lost in Iraq saga, i dont see many journalists asking the right questions even now, but mere speculations…perhaps we all suffer from short term memory loss.

There is no evidence of a gradual build up, in fact the Israeli prime minister offered the peace talks today.:rolleyes: Seeing as both sides are refusing to say anything about this incident it seems absurd for you to making such ridiculous accusations about Israel trying to provoke some kind of large scale conflict.:rolleyes:

What bothers me is not the lies of leaders but the way media spreads them and public accepts it without the sort of criticism/scrutiny these matters ought to receive in the light of build up to Iraq and resulting saga. Since the on going war in Iraq has claimed so many Iraqi and foreign (troops and other) lives with political leaders pinning a lot of blame vis-a-vis WMD (main justification for the invasion) i would have thought that journalists, especially American, would heavily scruitinise such reports/reports. But alas, i dont really see that happening, and anything about countries like Syria, Iran, North Korea is taken at their face value. With the recent spike in rhetoric vis-a-vis Iran and Syria, i wouldn’t be surprised if we r on the verge of another war, albeit very different from the previous one against Iraq…and general public once again will become too patriotic (blind) to see through real policies.

No one is advocating a war here. This seems to have been a one of intelligence based operation.:rolleyes:

Just take a look at the events prior to the invasion of Iraq by this ‘multi-national coalition led by the US’. A lot of lies were told by people in power and unquestioningly/immorally/unethically spread by many in media…giving rise to today’s Iraq. Yet the wheels seem to be turning again and people seem to be getting ready for another war.

Thats nothing like what is happening here, in fact knowbody seems to be saying anything about this.:rolleyes:

I just registert today, just to show you this picture. What a nice guy i am. :dev2:

Indeed you are, thanks for posting Keksi! I like the RCS reduction measure idea, it certainly has some merit, it would be nice to see this fully integrated (paint etc) into the airframe just to see how good it could look.

“cost benefits aside” – er, well, I don’t think you can really exclude them.

With this system you don’t need a runway. Predators – and even more, Reapers – are expensive, so you’re not going to have many. Operate them continuously, loitering for targets of opportunity, & you fall foul of their high accident rate: one of the costs of UAVs which is often ignored. This thing looks slow, & will take a while to get on station, but it won’t take anywhere near as long as a Reaper coming from a runway a lot further away.

Maybe but I am assuming that this is a one way craft, ie once its launched thats it, at least with a Reaper if it does not find a target it can come home. I would also be intrigued to know how they intend on targetting this thing, if it has its own sensor package it cant be abything special becouse of cost reasons, if it needs a seperate platform then you may as well just have SDB armed Reapers and be done with it. However I would agree this is an interesting concept, if a cheap enough truck portable long endurance ramp launched UAV could be provided which could move with the launch vehicles I certainly think it could have alot of potential. Something like Phoenix for instance or in more secured and prepared areas Watchkeeper.