It has 11 pylons/stations, same as Gripen E, which is less than both Rafale and Su35.

Price in purchase is slightly lower than Rafale, but it has higher TCO.

And it is interesting that you have information, that is classified, about how good sensors are. What radarbands are the anennas listening to? What is the angular accuracy of the emission detection? Does it have real time sensor fusion between all aircraft in the formation? Does it have beamed datalinks? Does it have “guidance handoff”, meaning one jet can take over the guidance of any missile or precision bomb released by another jet in the formation? Does it have the best missiles (Meteor and Iris-T)?

Unless your answers are “VHF-Ka”, “<1%”, “yes” (with link 16 it is a definitive no), “yes” (but it hasnt), “yes” (but it hasn’t), “yes” (which it hasnt), then the Super Hornet in fact is not ahead of the competition in networking, or weapons. When it comes to the actual sensors the performance is classified so I wont bother going there.

Great, here we go yet again… those operating cost numbers have been debunked over and over again at this point. You can’t simply plug in numbers across different forces with different assumptions and expect to get a useful result.

As for the sensors, networking, etc… just do a little reading, please. I don’t have time for yet another Super Hornet versus the world debate. Do your homework and come back with an intelligent question.

What do you mean a higher price it performs worse? A Super Hornet cost 60,000,000 dollars and how can it perform worse?

On messageboards most posters put a huge emphasis on perceived air to air performance and more or less assume that every jet is good at “other” missions.

When you read people saying some variation on “the Super Hornet is a poor performer” you know you are talking to someone that is concerned exclusively with a vision of air combat where the fastest plane always wins…

Don’t get me wrong, speed is an asset, but it is not the primary determinant of favorable outcomes.

The charts posted above are worth considering for a few reasons. First they illustrate how different spec sheet numbers can be from reality once you start loading a plane up.

With four air to air missiles and one drop tank the Super Hornet’s theoretical max speed of M1.8 drops to about M 1.5. (This is why many people misunderstand the F-35’s top speed of M 1.6. An F-35 with four air to air missiles and sufficient fuel to fly the same radius would have a max speed of M1.6, faster than the Super Hornet in this comparison.)

If you look at the original Hornet above, it has the same top speed as the Super Hornet, but its speed is limited to M1.2 because of all the tanks it needs to carry to achieve the specified range. (Again this is relevant when you start comparing aircraft like the Gripen to a Super Hornet. A Gripen can fly a long way if you put tanks on it, but these tanks are not without performance penalties.)

So finally returning to the subject of this whole thread, the proposed upgrades to the Super Hornet. If you imagine putting the conformal fuel tanks on the Super Hornet then it could fly farther with less drop tanks. In the above comparison it could go without the centerline tank, reducing its drag and increasing its speed. That would also free up the centerline station for a weapons pod, which would allow the Super Hornet to carry four AMRAAMs with less drag, which again would improve speed and range.

Summing it all up, the conformal tanks, weapons pod, and enhanced engines all work to improve the Super Hornet’s weakest area, its kinematic performance.(with some additional benefits in the way of reduced RCS) If all three upgrades were pursued then the Super Hornet would be substantially quicker and faster in an air to air configuration.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jan/17/airbus-promises-600-new-uk-jobs

Gee, Korean sub-contractors. I guess that is somehow relevant…

This is incorrect.

Both Boeing and EADS offered to comply with all 53 out of 53 tech transfer/personnel assistance requests. Lockheed offered to comply with only 23 out of 53 and basically got an F in the offset category. This is why the DAPA threatened to disqualify both the Silent Eagle and the F-35 bids if both were offered on FMS terms as originally proposed by the US DoD. The Silent Eagle is offered on the DCS term and thus Boeing can bypass the US DoD and offer whatever the term it sees fit, pending the US congressional approval.

The issue with Boeing’s offer is not the scope of it(100% compliance); but getting the US congressional approval for said technologies.

Boeing is limited in what they can offer by what both the Pentagon and Congress are willing to allow, regardless of the type of sale. Even if they weren’t, they aren’t interested in adding a new competitor to the international fighter market.

That is the huge flaw in the whole Korean plan. They seem to think one of the existing companies in the market would be happy to create a new competitor for their next competition… Korea doesn’t have anything to offer that would be worth shooting yourself in the foot over.

If the Rokaf has confidence in a SMOOTH program for early 2020’s IOC then they are justified with a 4.5 gen fighter selection for the current program.

Of course this is how pretty much every new program starts. Cheap, fast, on time…

I guess my key question would be why would Korea think it could do it so much faster and cheaper than the Europeans? Sure they have the benefit of some newer technology because their program is starting so much later, but they are also inexperienced and handicapped by being forced to build their design around off the shelf engines and so forth.

Improving on the Eurofighter enough for it to be worth the effort will not be easy. Doing it on such a short timeline and with such a small production run planned does not increase the odds of success.

You’re funny, slowman. The Koreans looking for partners smells of dependency. Isn’t that a negative according to your own past posts?

So basically it looks like the Koreans are hoping to produce a 4.5 generation fighter sometime in the mid to late 2020s, that they then hope to eventually make a “silent” version of either through some kind of a pod or a minimal internal weapons bay.

If they want a twin-engined Eurofighter-sized 4th-generation fighter that can carry four missiles conformally… they should just buy some Eurofighters or SH Internationals (with the weapons pod).

If you got something to tell me, tell it to my face..

If you just need a round of chat with Spudman about someone else, then use PM. That is what this feature is for.. I am not interested in reading what you think about me because I could not care less, especially concerning you. Neither are other posters on this forum.

Comprende, amigo?

To your internet face? Is that this one? :very_drunk:

Let me spell something fairly basic out for you. If you want people to take you seriously, don’t act like a goofball. If you want to operate in some fantasy world of your own creation that is your choice I suppose, but don’t expect the rest of us to join you there just because you prefer it to reality.

Several different people have taken the time to explain the very simple concepts you keep mixing up. At this point you can only be making the mistakes you are because you refuse to understand.

I understand this logic well, that is why you don’t see me using the $219mil figure for US domestic 2014 LRIP deliveries. As I have said repeatedly before, all I care about is the price my country is being charged. Nothing else… Currently we got a $194mil proposal on the table for each one of the planned birds – these are no LRIP prices even if the higher prices of the initial batches have certainly been accounted for.

Again, you clearly don’t understand even the basics. Your country is not buying jets for $194million each. That price includes a great deal of equipment in additional the the aircraft. What you are doing is dividing most of the costs of modernizing your air force by the number of jets you are buying and trying to claim that that is what they cost. You aren’t going to fool anyone with this lame routine.

I think the example with the car is not a very lucky one because the lion share of the price has been already accounted for. But let me use an example of a vibration measurement frontend – you can buy one for ca $120,000 (with say 32 channels)… This is your “Flyaway” cost.

etc etc

Any aircraft you might buy will require a great deal of associated equipment, facilities, simulators, etc. If you were interested in operating in the real world you could look at the costs associated with other recent contracts worldwide…

You keep making the same mistake that most naysayers do… you are comparing APUC of the current LRIP to Flyaway of a later LRIP batch or more likely an MYB FRP batch.

He has been corrected on this over and over again, but he doesn’t appear to be interested in being accurate, he just wants to gripe and complain. Anything good about the F-35 is propaganda or lies. All bad news is understated. All good news is marketing. etc etc