Cliff BarnesSaab performance in prior sales does not guarantee success in future sales.
No but it gives them the upperhand in this case.
It is a buyer’s market and Norway chose to use a rigorous evaluation process that assessed perceived risk.
I’d rather say hilarious instead of rigorous. If Saab would have given Norway 48 fighters – they still would have found JSF as a cheaper solution. Does that sound credible? Hardly.
For example, Gripen was evidently rated low based on attrition due to accidents. How many Gripens have been lost and what is that historical accident rate in crashes per flight hour?
From top of my head, Saab claims to have data for 120 000 flight hours and there have been 3 crashes for operational fighters. So the fact is that Gripen is one of the safest fighters in the world.
JSF didn’t win because of technical or economical merits. It won by politics. That won’t be forgotten in the country of Sweden for sure and I do believe that the Eurofighter nations are pretty much up for some sour grapes as well.
Cliff BarnesFirst flight delayed until second quarter 2009. Sigh. Why oh why did they have to call it dreamliner…
Cliff BarnesIts called politics……………Regardless, the Gripen as a platform is no better than the F-16’s that Norway already operate. Clearly, the F-35 is the superior product.
Ah yes. The F-35 is so superior that they had to adjust the economical evaluation so that even if Saab would have given Norway 48 Gripen NG aircraft it still would end up being more expensive than JSF.
On top of this, they’ve managed to perform very exact simulations without any key performance parameters from Saab. Etc.
Cliff BarnesThere seems to be a fair amount of speculation and some accusations in this thread. People are free to think and say almost whatever they want, of course, but I don’t see why some people have the need to come up with unfounded accusations.
Internal and external evaluations confirm that the F-35 is the only aircraft which meets the requirements set by Norway. RNoAF fighter pilots seem to be very pleased with the choice. I trust these people. Blame me as much as you want.
The question here is – are the accusations unfounded? You think so and I beg to disagree.
A) When the swedish government calculates operational costs based on expericence of 120 000 logged flight hours of their Gripens and the norwegian government comes up with operational costs 250% higher than – this you get confused.
B) When you add the fact that Eurofighter team left the tender because they thought it was biased in favor of the winner JSF – you get even more interested.
C) On top of this experts from for example Jane’s thought that Gripen NG suited Norwegian needs better than JSF.
Don’t get me wrong. Norway has all the rights to choose whatever fighter you want. But if you want to go for a political choice rather than a fair tender – tell your neighbours and friends – and stand up for that decision.
Cliff BarnesNorway says: 195 billion. Sweden says: 55 billion. 140 billion is the difference between the estimate of what a Swedish fighter aircraft would cost us.
Jeeesuz. It will be very interesting to hear the norwegian government explain this.
Cliff BarnesEuropean aviation industry has failed… Being better than SU-35 and F15/16/18 does not cut it in the future.
European industry has not failed. They are producing cost effective fighter solutions for countries that needs to fund more than just an air force. For US, funding isn’t a problem but for a country such as Sweden an expensive fighter means that something else needs to be rejected; may it be artillery, next generation IFV or armed patrol cars destinated for Afghanistan. With Gripen, the grunts does not need to worry about road side bombs or lack of CAS. They get it all.
Secondly, Gripen, Eurofighter and Rafale have all had an upperhand to F-15/F-16/F-18 the last years and will continue to have for 10 years to come. By that they have been succesful. If they don’t manage to meet their rivals (F-35 and F-22) when these get mature and are on the market – there surely are other projects going on.
Cliff BarnesIf there is any mistake, it should be European countries’ (except Russia) giving up for developing 5th Gen stealth fighter. …
So, the history of F-16’s overwhelming victory over F-1E and JA37 in the international market is happening once again.
My main problem with your comment is that you are suggesting that these tenders are all about technical merits. They aren’t. European countries are mostly loosing out because their governments can’t apply the same political pressure as US or Russia can. In many tenders you go for either an american solution (read Poland) or an european solution (read Austria). Clearly, there is a strong bias towards US – to maintain strong relations with them. Adding more stealth functions to the Rafale won’t changes this a bit…
Cliff BarnesDoes anybody have any information about what LM has included in the price?
I must say that I am very impressed if Lockheed can sell 48 JSF fighters, including engine, spares and service at a price 25 % cheaper than Saab offers Gripen NG. Frankly, it seems too good to be true…
Regards,
Cliff
Cliff BarnesCliff, another detail: The F-16 uses the flying boom refuelling system, not the probe & drogue like all others do.
I stand corrected. That is a problem, but on the other hand, USA shares the same pain.
Cliff BarnesCliff-
Not all Rafales are carrier capable. You probably don’t want to have to discard the non-carrier capable Rafales, right? That effectively gives you another heavy weight fighter; there are still enough Tornadoes, Mig-29’s, and F-4’s in the member inventories to lump them in, too. For lightweight fighters you didn’t put Hawk, A-7, F-5/T-38, MiG-21, L-29/39/159, Alphajet, MB-339/346, and AMX in the mix? You also lumped a lot of Mirage versions into one generic category; there are quite a few older F1’s out there.
You’re absolutely right about the Rafales. When it comes to the other fighters (Mig-21, Alphajet, AMX) I think an EU force could do without them.
The numbers would be quite large even if the types are limited.
Cliff BarnesThe Austrians for the music.
And Spanish Jesuits to do the spying.An EUforce! They can’t even do their “Battlegroups”!
No EUforce with homogenous equipment in our lifetimes.
Well does the EUforce need to be homogenous? For just a couple of years ago USA had F-14, F-15, F-16, F-18, F-117 etc…
Looking at EU you could have
For lightweight fighters: F-16, Gripen, Mirage
Hevyweight fighters: F-18, Eurofighter
Carrier: Rafale
All Nato compatible and all use the same type of refuelling system. Heck, when I come to think of it, thats even more homogenous than those Amerikanski fighters.
Regards,
Cliff
Cliff BarnesUh, no. If one doesn’t like the noise one shouldn’t live by an airbase. What next, “You can’t fly because I demand a clear sky”? :rolleyes:
To some extent I agree with you – to some I don’t. There are regulations of how much noise an airport is supposed to create – and how frequent. This you would have to accept when you move into the area. But if the airport wants to expand the noise levels or frequency of flights they will have to pay for that. May it be a military or civilian airport.
I can give you as many examples as you like. One obvious being Stockholm Bromma airport where the flight path is over central Stockholm – which has been up for discussion at least once a year. Everyone living below the flight path have to accept the fact that there is noise. But what if they start flying during nights? Or changing the Bae 146 low noise aircraft to MD 80s or 737s?
You could sure as hell expect a reaction from 1 million people living in this area.
Cliff BarnesDoes it matter in military terms?
Indirectly – yes.
Most western (if not all?) countries ought to have limitations of how much noise residential zones should be exposed to. If you switch to a noisier fighter on an air force base like Bodoe in Norway, which is situated very close to the city, you might get fewer allowed take-offs and landings per year. You might also need to install noise reduction kits on surrounding houses which usually means paying for three or four glass windows etc.
Thing is, this is not cheap and therefore it will add to the cost of introducing a new fighter.
Regards,
Cliff
Cliff BarnesNaah. Take the Vulcan airframe, rebuild it using modern materials & stress calculations, with four OTS bizjet engines (e.g. the BR715) & a two-man crew (don’t need the extra 3 with modern avionics), thus saving a great deal of weight & internal space.
One word would prevent the brits from doing such a thing: Nimrod.
Cliff BarnesI think Maskirovka has a valid point in saying that a country’s population isn’t that important when it comes to capability in building an advanced fighter jet. Someone meant that since Israel and Sweden have smaller populations than Netherlands, Netherlands would be capable of building a fighter jet. This does not hold.
Eventhough Israel and Sweden have skilled and well educated engineers, just as the Netherlands, there is a very basic difference in mentality over the past. Israel and Sweden have practically been on their own from the birth of the state Israel 50 years ago and since world war II for 75 years ago in the case of Sweden (due to its neutrality). Netherlands has been able to rely upon Nato and hence didn’t have the need for developing their own fighter jets over the last 50 years. They could buy western fighter jets of the shelf.
So to sum things up: the availability of skilled engineers, advanced aerospace companies, money and a need for fighters is not enough. You need time to gain experience. But to answer the question: Can the Netherlands build fighter jets? Yes I believe they could – but it would take a long time and a lot of money for them to pull off such a thing.
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