Mexico hasn’t unlimited amounts of cash. Therefore, we could either speak of cheap russian/chinese or used western birds.

Now, since russian fighters aren’t exactly dirt cheap to operate, it’s a no show if you actually intend to use them. Better buy used american or european fighters for a low price and get lower operating costs. A couple of examples:

1. Used F-16s. Could come from USA or Belgium (MLU upgraded!).
+ = Possibly MLU upgraded which will ensure having a modern fighter.
– = Number of flight hours is important (because of possible cracks).
2. Used Gripens. Preferably A/B Gripens that are not needed by Swedish armed forces.
+ = Modern fighter with few flight hours and much growth potential. Cheap to operate.
– = Much more of an odd bird than F-16, for example.

And when it comes to this range discussion; both the F-16 and Gripen will do unless Mexico wants to go for expeditionary type of warfare. As an example, Sweden uses their Gripens to control an airspace that stretches more than 1500 km from north to south.

the international monetary committment to the 40 billion dollar developmental effort is somewhere around 12% from all the partners combined..USDOD is still puttin in 88% of the share..

But I suppose they expect to earn a few bucks on JSF export on top of that – or don’t you? :rolleyes:

regards,
Cliff

On a sidenote;

It’s one thing to have all these big fancy colour displays – it’s a completely different ball game to uses them the proper way.

Hey Cliff, how far back does your history knowledge hold? European elites and those with opinions who like to think they are the European intellegencia has always degraded Americans.

– Whats your point with this comment – insulting me? Well be my guest then.

This wasn’t some thing that just happened with Bush. This has happened ever since the US was created. What Clinton did was to pay lip service. What Bush did was to tell it as it is however you disagree. Be it Kyoto, Iraq, etc…Clinton’s style is to tell you what you want to hear. Maybe politically that’s a wiser game. I don’t know, i’m quite sceptical of politicians, but i dislike people like Clinton even more. If you don’t mean it, don’t pretend, such a poser. What did he do with all the major decisions? Defer it to the next president. Maybe Europeans like his inaction so EU can catch-up, but with what? The expense of the Americans?

– Touchy subject that Clinton thing I see. Well, it wasn’t really my intention to get into deep discussions about US presidents so I rest my case on that one.

And the Embraer thing, it was never the Airbus NOR Boeing thing to “lose” that market. They were never in that market. So, that was a bad example. The loser in that case was Canada. they could’ve take and hold the lead instead of losing it.

-Yes, you are correct in saying that Embraer has managed to grow on markets not touched by Airbus and Boeing. But the main problem is that Embraer has managed to grow from time to time until it became quite a competetive commercial airliner manufacturer as of today. We saw ERJ-135 and ERJ-145, later on ERJ-170 and ERJ-190. So it isn’t really a ‘longshot’ to say that we will see ERJ-2XX and so on. Combine this with Embraers links to China which secures low-cost labour. Now, if this isn’t going to have an impact on Airbus and Boeing in the future…

As to the Saab example, the point i was trying to make is what’s the rationale for BAE to come in? Because it has way more clout. Why is that? As for the technical side, why did my memory seems to tell me that it was BAE that contributed significantly to the composite wing of the Griffon. I’m not 100% positive, but someone here probably knows. The ultimate point isn’t what’s 10-20 years ago (this is when the Griffon was developed) but now.

– Gripens first test flight was in 1988 and it became operational in 1996. Bae and Saab signed an agreement for the joint development and marketing of the JAS 39 Gripen export version in 1995. In other words, Bae should help marketing Gripen through ‘Gripen International’ and they should ensure that the export version became Nato-compatible since Sweden is a neutral country.

I’ve also seems to remember that the Swedish government pretty much hinted that no way can they fully fund a future fighter project alone. Now, each EU country is still relatively soverign entities. Name me one single European outside of Russia that has two or more company that can make fighter planes. There isn’t any. So in each country, there are already a HUGE monopoly in the aerospace industry.

– Now this one-aircraft-manufacturer-within-EU thing are being shifted into one-aircraft-manufacturer-within-Luxemburg type of thing or what? If you are trying to compare USA and Luxemburg I would say it’s quite pointless. Better compare EU and USA then.

– You are also saying that Saab won’t produce another fighter on their own though – which is 100% correct. But this is why Dassault+Saab are making that Neuron thing, and since EADS walks their own way into this bright and shiny UCAV future we could speak of two seperate companies/teams/whatever in EU. Not one. Ok?

Cliff Barnes

In my opinion the JSF situation is more evidence that the EU isn’t going to work.

I think you are exaggerating a little bit here SteveO. EU is so much more than just a fighter jet, even if we aviation buffs might have a hard time realizing this. 😮

LM were hiring US ambassador to lobby for F-16s. It ended with upright threatening…

See this link for some further info: http://praguepost.com/P03/2003/Art/1218/news6.php

regards,
Cliff

Not a clue bring-it-on. But what I do know is that the same air force general proclaimed that the airforce wanted Gripens as late as last years fall, so I wouldn’t read to much into his statements. Most likely, they are pitting Lockheed, Saab and Sukhoi against each other to try to get a great deal by this. Now if I’m not completely wrong, I thought that they already operate F-16’s. In that case it would be a good move to get more F-16s instead of getting yet another type of fighter I suppose.

regards,
Cliff

Seems to me that Mr. Barnes is just trying to light some flames…notice how he keeps mentioning the fact that France is a U.S. ally….as if we all didn’t already know that.

– I can assure you PhantomII that it was not my purpose to start a flame war. Reread my posts, and you will get my thoughts. Besides, the very reason to why I wanted to emphasize on the word ally is that I think it should make a difference to how you treat foreign fighters if they are allies or not.

Mr. Barnes I suggest you quit making a mountain out of a mole hill and move on. Nobody crashed, nobody got hurt or killed, the Rafale and Super Etendards got on the ground….end of discussion.

– Firstly, I will post whatever I like, even if that post makes me pro-american or pro-french at the moment. I do expect you to understand that.
Secondly, you can’t blame just one part in this discussion for putting kerosene on the fire. Reread Vortex answer to Kovy to take one example, it includes words such as crap, nonsence and phrases such as what-the-f*ck. Not very dimplomatic if you ask me.

Nevertheless, it’s end of discussion for me.

regards,
Cliff Barnes