Feel free to interfere. People should have fun talking aeroplanes !.

I personally like the centre stick ! don’t know which is better as I am no pilot.

Okay thanks then. 😉 So I’ll go on…

When it comes to the the stick, It’s probably a matter of habits.

Interesting article on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre_stick_vs_side-stick

BTW, here’s one non-French component, & one I’m sure the pilot wouldn’t want to be without –
http://www.martin-baker.com/Products/Ejection-Seats/Mk–16-high-speed/Mk-F16F—Rafale.aspx

Interesting to see that the operating ceiling of the ejection seat is higher for the Rafale than for both Typhoon and F-35 (60,000 ft vs 55,000 & 50,000 respectively). This will please the fanboys out there. 😉

We live and learn!

Apologies for my late reply, but first of all let me thank you J-7 Hotdog, Spitfire9 & Sign for your warm welcome! 🙂

Not many posters here have placed their bet on the Gripen for India’s MMRCA competition (I won’t tell any name :D); others have been rather canny since Indian authorities seem to have put the Swedish fighter aside (source). However I don’t think lack of technology was the very reason for people here not to vote for it, right? Do you think the reason given by India has chances to be false? Anyway, it won’t help selling this plane in the world’s major air forces that often are keen on technology. I even think it’ll soon appear as the first real blow in the Gripen’s career, since it was often presented as a plane offering one of the best EW-capability/price ratio on the market. I agree this point is debatable, though. [EDIT: point already discussed, sorry; took me too much time to write this post. :D]

nice read,Erakis!
Just some comments:

Gripen is taking of at 250m with A/B(80.5kN), wouldnt 700m be sufficient for non-A/B(54kN)?

Your figures seem a bit optimistic. Armasuisse’s official datasheet says 800m without AB (source: french / german). What I failed to mention, though, is that the Rafale isn’t able to succeed a dry take off within 700m either. Figures say that the Typhoon is the one and only contender to get full marks on this particular issue.

But, again, noise is only 3% of overall criteria and it’s not sure that the pilots will have to make short take-offs on a regular basis.

All the Contenders do have HMD:s havent they?

My mistake, I thought the French air force didn’t change its mind (as weird as it may sound, the French air force didn’t want to fund any HMD on its Rafales until recently), but I’ve just read that it’s supposed to use Sagem HMDs since 2006… :p Anyway, I read somewhere (source missing) that Dassault has been offering off-the-shelf HMD solutions to potential buyers for years, so this shouldn’t be an issue for any of the contenders.

The gripen with its 120000-130000 flighthours and even more on the ground have never experienced any engine failure…
So the twin engine safety thingie is a way of the past…

Accidents never occur… till the first one does!

Remember that zero risk doesn’t exist, and from a strictly statistical POV, engine redundancy is very likely to provide more reliability. Here is an example: even if the RM12 is 10 times as reliable as, say, the M88, the likelihood of the plane losing all its thrust is still lower with two M88.

Now you want a proof. Assume that the probability of a perfectly maintained RM12 breaking down during a standard flight is 0.001. If a M88 is 10 times more likely to break down, the corresponding probability for ONE engine breaking down is 0.01. 0.01 is higher than 0.001, but you have two engines so the probability of two engines breaking down during the same flight is 0.01 x 0.01 = 0.0001, i.e. 10 times less than a single RM12.

Of course it’s a bit more complicated (command failures could disable both engines simultaneously), but here’s the idea.

Survivability gains provided by twin engine configuration is said to be one of the main reasons for Canada to choose the Hornet over the F-16. The funny bit is that the Gripen and the Hornet share the same engine base…

Seriosly Gripen has never been in a competion in NL. So why even talk about it as a competition?

Agreed. It’s rather brave from Saab to have kept itself in the running. :rolleyes:

Thanks god, we were warned 🙂

And you know reading English is a piece of cake compared to writing it… 😉

Sorry, but the only pressures from Germany over Switzerland I’m aware of are those about fiscal paradise.

Germany simply is Switzerland’s biggest economic partner, and this logically brings more leverage to the Germans over such a political decision.

About extra national exercices, it seems we enjoy a slight geographical advantage.

Very slight then, not decisive IMO.

Mr Obama is quite focused on the Afghan war, and Pakistan is a key player in that area, so for now, I wouldn’t bet one penny about such a change.

I precisely think the war in Afghanistan is a major opportunity for the USA to change its behaviour towards Pakistan. It’s very unlikely they’ll achieve something in Afghanistan without tracking down Al-Qaida in northern Pakistani mountains. And I don’t see the Pakistani regime giving the ISAF carte blanche to extend the war on their territory that easily, so something will happen between Pakistan and the USA (+ISAF) sometime (if not soon).

Anyone on that forum who would say the opposite would be a liar :p

Glad not to be the only one! 😀

I think that you forget about the Russian toys in Venezuela.

How come could Venezuela be a threat to Brazil in the upcoming future? Chavez is a star in Latin America (strong support from locals, whatever the country), and despite he’s strong on words, he manages to get along with everyone he meets, including Lula and even Uribe. Chavez is a master of provocation but I really don’t see him attacking any country in LA or even starting a military escalation with Brazil.

Yet Brazil will still try to remain the biggest regional power, in a “relaxed” way.

Honnestly:
USA: out of question
Russia: already in bed with Venezuela
China: nothing serious between the two countries for what I know.
UK or Germany: both are quite silent about Brazil (I might be wrong thought)

AND with all those nice offshore oil patch, a modern carrier in the following decade might be an interesting item.
Who could help Brazil ? France, UK and perhaps China.

Again, that would be a real risk to try an “unknown” partner.

Well well well, let’s see what will happen in the close future first 😎

I wouldn’t wipe the US or any other “source” off the list that fast. Brazil is known to operate equipment coming from very diverse countries, namely the USA, Germany, France, the UK, Sweden or Italy.

Today the Brazilian motto seems to be “let’s please as many as we can”, and France has already been given a big piece of the pie.

Dassault – Thales manage to made a AESA ready Rafale which is a good point.

When it comes to the radar, I agree the Rafale must have had a clear lead over the Gripen and Typhoon at Emmen, but how much is Switzerland willing to pay for AESA, unless it was included in the first estimate?

Hi there!

(It’s my 1st post, I hope you won’t find it too long.)

Here are my predictions, and I’ll try to explain them:

Swiss competition: Rafale, Typhoon, Gripen

Certainly the most interesting competition here since Armasuisse announced that they’ll make detailed reports of the evaluation available to the public. Another interesting thing is that an EADS official unveiled the weight granted to each criterion for final decision (partial source here). Too bad Boeing pulled the Super Hornet out…

A common misconception for this contest is that the Gripen would be the best bet since the Swiss people are willing to keep public spending as low as possible; yet the plan is to buy as much capability as possible with a fixed amount of Swiss francs, i.e. about 3 bil CHF, IIRC. So choosing the Gripen wouldn’t lead to less spending but more fighters.

As it’ll be for Tiger replacement, a light fighter would be a sound choice for the Swiss army, and the Gripen does is the lightest of the three. The two other contenders aren’t huge either, yet in the same class as the Hornets the Swiss already own. Size, however, is not even a criterion in the contest, at least not an explicit one. Optimized maintenance costs, especially thank to the single engine layout, are a strong point for the Gripen but for Armasuisse they only account for 4.5% of the criteria. That is particularly low given that maintenance costs are in the same range as the initial cost of the plane itself.

Now the three contenders have been flown in Emmen in front of hundreds of spotters, we have a rough idea of the comparative amount of take-off noise they generate (one of many possible political issues). The problem with the Gripen is that it has to reheat to get in the air within the allowed length (700m IIRC). Due to its much better T/W ratio, the Typhoon doesn’t need AB and thus is much kinder to the ear. One could argue that probably none of those fighters will have to make short take-offs on a regular basis, though, and however strong this issue might be for people living near bases, it only accounts for 3% of Armasuisse’s criteria.

The Rafale seems to fulfil the criteria rather homogeneously, but weapon compatibility is likely to be an issue. Here again this criterion accounts for only 3.75% of all. This, by the way, could mean that Armasuisse wouldn’t mind buying weapons designed for the fighter they choose. The particular strong points of the French airplane are A2G capability and military cooperation (joint training) that account for 12% and 7.5% respectively. Two items where the Gripen isn’t particularly shining. On a side note, it seems to me that the MMI of the Rafale has the edge when it comes to cockpit ergonomics: it’s the only one to feature an F-16-like side stick instead of the traditional central one; the collimated central display (under the HUD) seems to me a good idea, too.

Where the Typhoon should get many points is A2A, which represents a whopping 30% of the TOTAL capability needs. Great T/W ratio and HMD are big assets despite costs significantly higher than the Gripen: I’m not sure at all that the Swiss air force would prefer, say, 3 Gripen over 2 Typhoons, granted these combinations offer the same buying and operating costs (my figures AREN’T significant, could have put 4 Gripens & 3 Typhoons). Back to A2A capability, the main threat to the Typhoon here is the prototype Rafale that has been flown in Emmen to demonstrate the coming AESA radar (leading to a significantly longer test flying time for the Rafale). Anyway, I guess such an upgrade will come at a cost… that I’m not able to estimate.

One shouldn’t think that price, capability, technical issues, ToT and military cooperation are enough to strike the deal. Politics, experience and image issues are important too. More specifically :

1) Sweden and Switzerland share a tradition of political neutrality, that would work in favour of the Gripen. Too bad common training is rather unlikely on a regular basis (1000+ km between both states).

2) Dassault it quite an experienced plane maker and the Swiss air force is experienced with Dassault fighters as they have been operating the Mirage III for decades. The generation gap is huge, though, and people may still feel uncomfortable about the “Mirage affair”. Added to that, discrepancies shown by Dassault’s and DGA’s (the French office that regulates armament exports) respective proposals may wear the Swiss out, as it already happened with other potential buyers before. Selling weapons to Switzerland is (a bit) less controversial than Morocco, though. :p

3) Despite bumpy debut and the fact that the Eurofighter consortium is new at designing fighters, the political pressure over Switzerland is huge with four big European partners (especially Germany) involved in the deal, and three neighbours already using the Typhoon. Great for joint training exercices.

My bet: Eurofighter Typhoon. Runner-up: Dassault Rafale.

Indian MRCA: Rafale, Typhoon, F-16I, F-18E, MiG-35, Gripen

Despite the IAF getting renowned for being a hardcore Russian buyer, this competition seems to be an opportunity to introduce more diversity in military sources, if I’m to believe what I read on Bharat-Rakshak boards. A sensible move, since no-one’s your ally forever. Therefore I’d rule out the MiG-35, as good as this plane might be.

It’s probably true that European birds are less prone than their American counterparts to diplomatic caprices coming from their home countries. Yet it’s times of change, and one couldn’t rule out the possibility of the US getting rid of Pakistan as an ally (especially if they manage to confirm whether Al-Qaida’s real home is there). Moreover, it’s very unlikely that both US and Russia will be opposed to India at the same time: the cold war is over, but both nations still can’t stand each other. :rolleyes: If this stays true in the coming decades, the IAF can be assured to get at least a few squadrons fully operational.

This, however, doesn’t take into account ToT, a primary criterion in this competition. European (and Russian) contenders regain the advantage here, especially Dassault (and Sukhoi) since they offer (nearly ?) full ToT with AESA. The Rafale also benefits from the good image of the Mirages among the IAF staff, but I’ve no idea of the weight of such a factor in the final decision.

Given the size of India and the harsh Himalayan conditions in the North of the country, I’m rather confident that they’ll choose a twin-engined aircraft for security reasons. How fun it’d be to eject over the Everest in the dead of winter… :p

I admit I’m a bit lost in the MMRCA subject. So many varying/political factors…

My bet: Dassault Rafale. Runner-up: Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.

Brazil FX: Rafale, Gripen, F-18

I’ve seen many “Rafale” answers here, I guess because of the multi-billion arms deal that was struck a few weeks ago and the long-lasting military cooperation with the French.

Brazil is a great country, but its surroundings are nowhere near as hostile as India’s. President Lula seems to be in rather good terms with almost every other country in North and Latin America and I don’t see any threat for which a SH or a Rafale wouldn’t be an overkill. IMO, the Gripen offers sufficient capability and it’s not as Brazil could sink gazillions in military expenditures. As for India, I think it would be better for Brazil not to rely on a single country for weaponry, even if I hardly see how and why France could tighten the screws on Brazil…

However, I’ve to admit that the Gripen suffers from political weakness and remains unfairly associated with small powers and armies. Brazil won’t give up its status of regional power and I doubt he’s going to make compromises.

As I wouldn’t want to eject above the Indian Himalayas, I wouldn’t want to eject over the Brazilian Amazon forest either! 😀 Really the only critical technical criterion where the Gripen seems less convincing in front of the two other contenders.

I don’t have any clue about the chances of Boeing’s teen, but it seems that Brazil tends to avoid buying anything American when it comes to military equipment… But “oh the times, they are a-changin'”! 😉

My bet: Dassault Rafale. Runner-up: Saab JAS-39 Gripen.

Libya (they didn’t sign anything final with Russia yet): Flanker, Rafale

I doubt the DGA will let Dassault exporting the Rafale to Libya. Offering the Rafale would hurt the French opinion since Kadafi’s last venue in France ended as one of Sarkozy’s greatest shames (welcomed him as a prince and was despised in return – one could think that he had what he deserved). But hey, when there’s big money… Maybe a seriously watered down version then?

Russia however will have no problem supplying one of Africa’s major figures with no restriction.

My bet: Sukhoi Su-30 Flanker. Runner-up: MiG-29 Fulcrum (?).

Nederlands: F-35, Gripen

Holland has already poured billions in the JSF programme, so I don’t see them withdrawing. They will stick to the F-35 whatever the delay and final price are.

Seriously, the Gripen is a smokescreen, a travesty of competition.

My bet: Lockheed-Martin F-35 Lightning II. Runner-up: nothing.