what is the stealth advantage?
i mean, these components can be built entirely of composites, so aren’t/don’t need to be radar reflecting anyways.

Sure… I was just trying to make sense of the reporting I had seen on the topic of ‘Harfangs are wearing out, what will France replace them with soon…’. Replacing Harfangs with Watchkeepers does sound absurd, but that’s what I consistently saw reported as being considered (‘because it would be fulfilling UK/FR cooperation’) alongside other options, with the only major differences highlighted between the options being industrial/ cooperation concerns. Given that one of the reported options was ‘don’t replace them, and don’t have that capability for a period of time’, the idea of Watchkeeper as ‘replacement’ probably was never of the 1:1 type of replacement, which is absurd. Or WK was only ever considered as an addition to Harfang/whatever, but the reporting didn’t make that distinction.

BTW, I wasn’t suggesting a Watchkeeper replacement for UK in the short term at all, but rather in the longer term a new similar role UAV program… (with WK fielded for it’s normal service life) …That for all the attention being given to Telemos and Taranis/Neuron, pursuing ‘lower tier’ platforms thru cooperative programs makes sense in the longer term picture as well… And those lower tier projects may allow broader partners/workshare, to ‘balance’ the arrangement for programs like Telemos and Taranis/Neuron2… which could certainly benefit from more potential users/purchasers.

…I realized that my intended edit to my last post didn’t go thru correctly before, the original staying the same, and the new version making a new post instead… You ended up quoting the first one, but I guess I will go ahead and delete that one since that’s what I intended, the second edit version reads a bit better.

Yeah, the shared utility with the C-17’s is pretty straight forward, but in the frame of the Canadian F-35 debate, it seems like the costs of going for boom refueling would need to be added wholly to the cost of F-35… since the C-17s have been operating without Canadian boom support obviously. I do think it’s interesting that going with Probe and Drogue F-35 WASN’T amongst the options listed by the government, rather using ally/private-contracted boom refueling instead (which I suppose is what’s used for C-17s when that is needed). If they do go with Boom Refueled F-35A’s (as no evidence points to Probe and Drogue F-35), I do wonder if there will be pressure to replace some of the KC-130 with a Boom platform. If they do end up contracting Boom refueling, then that would probably allow them to retire some P&D tankers, somewhat offsetting the cost. I can’t really say what the end result of these factors would be, but it is pretty revealing that these potential costs don’t seem to have been quantified and included in F-35 planning to date. Regardless of the issue of acquiring F-35 per se, that is rather reckless regarding the budget as a whole.

The French swap around optronics between flying operational Rafales (they have less than the number of Rafale, I think they are waiting until the nextgen/upgrade version is available to install them in all Rafales), so it doesn’t seem that strange to do so with a developmental program like PAF-FA, when those sub-systems aren’t even needed on each flying prototype. I would have thought that they would have substituted a ‘dummy’ of identical shape just not to alter the aerodynamics/balance in any way, but since it’s probably not that much difference one way or the other, and they are (apparently) pretty secure in the aerodynamic lay-out, they may have just decided to skip it.

Military Will Contract Out Air-to-Air Refuelling If Canada Goes with F-35 (excerpt)

The Canadian military has decided it will rely on the U.S., other allies and private companies for air-to-air refuelling if the government purchases the F-35 because the stealth fighters aren’t compatible with Canada’s current refuelling aircraft.

The only reasonable way to approach it is to compare total costs, including refueling system costs, for all considered approaches. I assume they would have to re-imburse allied airforces for services rendered, I’m not clear on what this private company refueling would be, the same deal as the UK has? That seems swell.. :rolleyes:
Of course, they could also go with Dave C like the UK originally planned, saving new refueling costs, and that has a longer range anyways which means less refueling when flying long distances over the north, etc. Of course, it’s more expensive as a platform, too.

With the French due to decide their future defence procurement strategy the Predator B is recommended as an immediate purchase because its cheaper and less risky than a wholly European project:

Instead of the mooted Anglo/French project or as a precursor to ?

Precursor. Predator has always been compared to the Thales-Elbit Watchkeeper or sticking it out with EADS-IAI Harfang. Or just not doing anything for awhile. Telemos is after all of that. With budgets, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Telemos’ schedule pushed out. The stated rationale for Predator is that the other options are temporary anyways, and aren’t particularly cutting edge, so choosing the cheapest interim option until Telemos is fielded makes sense. Although if France goes for Predator, I’d expect that the UK would want to induct Telemos earlier (to replace Watchkeeper), but staggered acquisition isn’t really a bad thing either.

Alenia sees the Franco British FCAS as the way forward post Neuron:

While the focus here seems to be on Son-of-Neuron, it seems like there is probably room for Alenia/Selex to be involved in the MALE Telemos project as well. There isn’t just one Anglo-French UCAV project. Alenia/Selex could also do a lighter-than-Predator platform with French/UK involvement (and/or Germany or Sweden). Since budgets are really the limiting factor (as alluded by this article: http://www.defensenews.com/article/20120728/DEFREG01/307280001/Skies-Growing-Cloudy-Anglo-French-UAV-Project), Italy joining (and funding) development can easily make sense and enable both Telemos and the higher end stealth UCAV project.

I always took the name as in comparison to the 330 and their early iteration of the 350.

it can turn out to be cheaper to fly a gripen and have two sets of logististics than have lots of Typhoon to fly and buy.

especially with shared maintenance and logistics. if italy bought a good number, having a shared maintenance center in italy would not be stretch, and this could be used by all gripen users during mediterranean ops. getting rid of amx and super harrier, it would still be less types for italy. if italy started an order soon, i’m sure a good amount of gripen production could be transferred to italy… parts of gripen NG are already selex sourced. a shared maintenance center in italy suggests alenia/selex could even be involved in the shared maintenance contracts as partner with saab (for all users).