hopsalot@ hopsalot, again Gripen D is carrying a lot less fuel compared to Gripen C, and Gripen E carries a lot more than Gripen C. “Bingo”, this swiss test flight has zero relevance to Canadian range requirements and Gripen E.
I like the Gripen, but it drives me crazy when fanboys look at the spec sheet and go: “The Gripen is pretty fast, and it can fly a long way, and it can carry a decent amount, and it can operate from a short runway, etc etc.”
What they don’t seem to understand is that it can’t do all those things at once. Lightly loaded the Gripen is pretty fast and maneuverable, and it can operate from a short airfield.
If loaded with an air to ground loadout it can carry a respectable load, but only a short distance.
This makes perfect sense when you consider that the Gripen was designed to operate in a defensive war over Swedish territory. It wasn’t expected to need to fly far or carry a load great distances.
If you start throwing fuel tanks, etc, on a Gripen its performance degrades very rapidly. Don’t forget that a Gripen has literally half the thrust of an F-18 or Super Hornet…
Relative to its power, a 450 gallon tank on a Gripen is like a 900 gallon tank on a Super Hornet, F-35, or Eurofighter…. the Gripen can hypothetically fly with a huge amount of fuel relative to its tiny engine (enabling those inflated range numbers), but it is a purely subsonic aircraft with minimal maneuverability.
Even an air to air loadout of 6 missiles on a Gripen is the equivalent of a 12 missile load for something like a Eurofighter…
hopsalotIn a surprise move, Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered his military to start withdrawing the “main part” of its forces in Syria from Tuesdayhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-35807689
which means those forces are going nowhere and may even be increased.
Sounds like the budget crunch is hurting more than he expected. ..
hopsalotFeom kinematics pov
Gripen with 3 tank will have no advantage over the traditional hornet, similar speed (probably even slower) , not agile
Gripen with 3 tanks would be lucky to have a kinematic advantage over a business jet. Read the quote from the link I just posted above:
The Gripen NG Demonstrator – the plane is supposed to prove the feasibility of future product enhancements – is certainly equipped with the new General Electric F414G engine, but it lacks the new wings. Redesigned the computer, a few inches thicker, they will accommodate a few percent of additional fuel, in addition to three large drop tanks of 450 gallons (1700 liters). During the flight tests conducted May 2 to 4 in Linköping, Sweden, the Swiss delegation would just wanted to test at least those famous tanks. Because they are essential to achieve sufficient autonomy to the surveillance of an area, a task that the military assumes for example during the Davos Forum. But ultimately, “people Saab refused,” says one source. With three external tanks, the aircraft would have been too constrained. “It was not necessary to have tanks of 450 gallons for missions,” retorted the spokesman Armasuisse Kaj-Gunnar Sievert.
A Gripen carrying three 450 gallon tanks is essentially in a ferry configuration. Useless for combat…
hopsalotFirst and most important point…..you said there were concerns about the ability of the Gripen to operate in Canada…so all of my counterpoints relate to that notion. There are no concerns..at all…..about the Gripen in Canada other than the one we all worry about, the single engine. And the F35 offers nothing on that point. So keeping my rebuttal to your point about defending Canada…
Larger plane….more fuel. The Gripen can more than adequately defend Canadian airspace and do so at longer range than the F35 without tanks. It can carry as much in A2A as the legacy hornet with tanks. Not a problem.
You are incorrect about the Gripen NG outranging the F-35… not in an apples to apples comparison. That is what so many on the internet struggle to understand, you can’t just reduce things to a number on a brochure. The F-35’s quoted range is on an air to ground strike mission, flown at lower altitude than would be ideal for efficiency, and including a substantial reserve of fuel for combat in the mission area. In an apples to apples comparison the F-35 easily out-ranges the F-16, F-18, and Gripen.
You realize that the Gripen repeatedly ran out of fuel during the Swiss eval forcing it to abort its air policing missions, right? Picture Switzerland relative to Canada…
The mission of Wednesday, August 13, 2008, however, promised to be simple. A plane flies north towards the Alps of Ticino and is the intercept. To do this, the evaluation team placed the Gripen D 39-822 registered on alert on the military base of Zion. The tarmac is dry, it’s beautiful weather. At the controls of the fighter, the Swiss test pilot Peter Merz, aka “Pablo” behind him, the Saab Gripen manufacturer, to ensure that everything goes smoothly. After taking off as planned at 15 h 32, the plane goes into Swedish supersonic speed to stabilize at Mach 1.42. But suddenly, in the middle of his approach: “Bingo Fuel”! The LED Alarm fuel placed on the left of the cockpit shows the need to abort the mission and return to base.
Gripen arrived barely in contact with the F/A-18 to intercept, but was unable to intervene and had to land in Emmen (LU). Ground, the head of the Swiss Air Force Markus Gygax is stunned: excluded to buy such a flying pan. In comparison, the French Rafale, tested under the same conditions two months later, has made the interception, returned to Zion, and has been able to achieve another successful missions. On the twenty-six test flights at the time by the Gripen, the plane landed with four times the reserves of fuel below the minimum security.
Fortunately, the Defence Minister Ueli Maurer swears he will not buy the Gripen then but an improved version: Gripen E / F. Its engine is 33% more powerful, it has a completely redesigned car electronics, can carry more weapons and above all … 46% more fuel. For Federal Councillor, there is no problem: it’s a bit “like one of tuning a car,” he likes to repeat.
Tests for the gallery Unfortunately, all is not so simple. “Sunday Morning” has obtained a list of 98 improvements. She was provided by a whistleblower, federal employees, and we have it validated by three reliable sources. Contacted the Department of Defense did not wish to share its position on that list confidential.
At this stage, as shown in our graphic, only six of these upgrades have been tested in flight (green). The rest is either in the prototype stage (orange), or on planes (red). The Gripen NG Demonstrator – the plane is supposed to prove the feasibility of future product enhancements – is certainly equipped with the new General Electric F414G engine, but it lacks the new wings. Redesigned the computer, a few inches thicker, they will accommodate a few percent of additional fuel, in addition to three large drop tanks of 450 gallons (1700 liters). During the flight tests conducted May 2 to 4 in Linköping, Sweden, the Swiss delegation would just wanted to test at least those famous tanks. Because they are essential to achieve sufficient autonomy to the surveillance of an area, a task that the military assumes for example during the Davos Forum. But ultimately, “people Saab refused,” says one source. With three external tanks, the aircraft would have been too constrained. “It was not necessary to have tanks of 450 gallons for missions,” retorted the spokesman Armasuisse Kaj-Gunnar Sievert.
http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?116740-Rafale-Thread-13&p=1890004#post1890004
Gripen has SatCom capability delivered by Thales. Until the RCAF deal with the polar issue with orbiting multiple satellites North South I assume a pod is also needed. I could be wrong.
:rolleyes: Imagine how you would be reacting if this were the F-35. The F-35 will have fully internal satcom, fully integrated with its mission systems, and compatible with US satellites…
Your interoperability point is 1000% bunk in Canadian operations and bunk in deployed locations except maintenance. In addition Gripen is compatible with all munitions we currently have except the gun.
“Compatible with” isn’t the same thing as integrated with. You realize that right? An AMRAAM or AIM-9x could presumably be integrated with a Rafale, but it hasn’t been and would cost millions of dollars to integrate.
If Canada bought some rare aircraft with a tiny fleet size it would end up footing the bill to integrate every new weapon that emerges in the next 30 years. It isn’t even a certainty that Saab will still be in the fighter business for much of that time…
The top end estimates of contracts available to Canadian companies on offer from LM is 11 billion (not guaranteed). The existing supply contracts will dwindle when and if we choose another plane but it’s not certain they will all go away. Lowest cost supplier and all….
There are plenty of low cost competitors out there. Look at who is already buying the F-35…
Is Norway paying for our drag chutes? Cool.
They are paying for them to be developed and integrated. You realize that is the major expense right? (see above on integrating weapons)
Saab owns the source code and a significant amount of the technology installed in the plane. We can’t touch the code on the F35 to do our own upgrades.
What indigenous upgrades does Canada field anyway? You aren’t Israel… you don’t make your own weapons, EW gear, or much of anything else.
Do you have any links to state why Canada won’t be able to sustain the Gripen in Canada? Anything????
It is called common sense. Gripen NG will be lucky to sell 200 jets, mostly spread across tiny cash-strapped air forces. (look at current customers) Canada doesn’t have a large enough air force to justify doing depot level maintenance in Canada.
Do you know what the acquisition cost of the plane was for Brazil? Fly-away? How about F35. Nobody has experienced those cheap F35 flyaway and maitenance costs yet….
It is hard to tell the exact cost, but when you look at both Switzerland and Brazil you can see that it is certainly not nearly as cheap as its fans would like you to believe.
None of the five planes (least of all Gripen) will have any issue defending and operating in Canada. It was a silly point you made. Gripen…..in Canada there are no issues with….except that bothersome (yet proven) single engine.
Sure, if you work from the assumption that Canada will never need to defend itself then I guess any plane or no plane would do just fine. Might as well invest in a bunch of “No Trespassing” signs…
hopsalot1. Currently without external drop tanks (axed from the program for now at least) the F35 has far less range than the Gripen E.
… and which profiles are you comparing? The Gripen NG is a small aircraft… you can hang giant fuel tanks on it but it effectively isn’t a fighter anymore.
There is simply no way around the fact that a larger aircraft with a far larger fuel capacity will have the edge.
2. Your second point is just plain silly. NORAD and sureveillance aircraft are sufficient to identify threats. The whole point of bomber interception and commercial traffic escort is to actually be seen. I’m sure you can contort some logic hard enough to come up with an extreme case….but you lose alot of credibility by even making this point.
If you can’t think of reasons you might not want to be seen then you just aren’t thinking period. Better to have the Russians wondering whether there is a fighter there… sometimes they see one, sometimes they don’t.
5th point is irrelevant. It was a weakness of the F35 until capable in Block 4. Since other aircraft don’t need to worry about external pods degrading stealth….not a Gripen weakness.
Thanks to this latest bout of indecisiveness the F-35 will be at block 4 by the time Canada gets its jets. Hanging a pod on a jet is never ideal, especially a small plane like a Gripen…. first you want to hang some giant fuel tanks on the Gripen, then you want to add a satcom pod (which would have to be integrated), next presumably you want a few weapons… then you may need to hang a targeting pod if you want to be able to see anything on the ground/sea from altitude…
Point 6 – Stop talking about interoperability It’s bunk. Any of the five figjters will be interoperable. NATO cheif says this is bunk. The Pentagon says this is bunk. The advantage of the F35 is available parts and replacements when deployed overseas. It’s pretty much irrelevant inside Canada.
Oh, so this didn’t happen just a few years ago then?
he Swedish JAS Gripen aircraft deployed in Sicily as part of NATO’s Libya mission remained grounded on Thursday as the fuel available is suitable only for US navy aircraft.
The eight fighter jets are located in the US part of the Sigonella airbase on Sicily and the only fuel available it that which is used for US navy aircraft.
The Gripen were due to participate in their first mission over Libya on Thursday but this has now been delayed and test flights have been postponed.
According to the outline plan, the eight aircraft were all due to monitor the UN no-fly zone over the civil-war torn country from Thursday but on arrival at the base they discovered that no fuel was available.
The Sigonella base is designed as a naval air force base, lieutenant colonal Mats Brindsjö, head of the Swedish Air Operation Center, said.
“And US navy aircraft use somewhat different fuel to that which we use in our planes,” he told the TT news agency.
The US fuel variety is known as JP5 while the Gripen normally fly using a civil fuel known as Jet A1.
“Certain additives and some equipment are needed to change JP5 to Jet A1 in a controlled manner. This equipment is not as yet in place down there and in the time being we are trying to buy the fuel from a place off the base.”
http://www.thelocal.se/20110407/33058
Interoperability is never “bunk.”
Point 7 – Yep we invested and we’ve already gotten a nice return. Thanks for that. We don’t need to buy the plane to contribute to the supply chain. Meanwhile….we can get 100% offsets with Saab guaranteed. No such guarantees exist with LM.
Those contracts can and will go away if Canada does something silly. As for Gripen offsets, they can’t hope to compare to the F-35 given that they haven’t even managed to sell 100 of them yet.
Gripen can deploy to ALL icy forward operating bases in Canada. Im not sure how well the F35A will handle those conditions but at a minimum more money needs to be spent on the drag chutes.
Drag chute integration is already being paid for by Norway, and the US will be operating F-35s in Alaska. Not an issues.
The Gripen is already compatible with our tanker fleet. The F35…requires either new tankers sooner or new refuelling probes…yep more money…
The F-35B and F-35C already use refueling probes. The space is reserved in the F-35A if Canada wants one added. It is hardly as if they would need to undertake an R&D program.
Saab offers technology transfer and access to modify source code….F35….nope
Saab doesn’t even own much of the key technology in the Gripen and thus can’t transfer it…
The Gripen can be maintained entirely in Canada. F35 we’ll have to do at least some of that work in the US.
Based on what? As I said above, there aren’t even 100 Gripen NGs on order, total. Who knows what the Gripen NG’s sustainment effort will look like.
Being all alone in trying to maintain a fighter fleet isn’t a good thing.
Of course that does not even mention lower acquisition and operating costs…..
That of course is very much in question. Brazil certainly hasn’t experienced these supposedly lower acquisition costs…
hopsalotHow is the F35 well suited to operating in Canada and the Gripen ill-suited? I don’t follow that reasoning at all.
The F-35 is a substantially larger aircraft with inherently greater range and endurance capabilities.
The F-35 has stealth, which would allow it to monitor aircraft near Canadian airspace without revealing itself if it so chose.
The F-35 has a larger and longer-ranged radar.
The F-35 has EOTS, which allows BVR “visual” ID of aircraft and ships. (particularly if Canada goes for the advanced EOTS)
The F-35 will have satellite comms integrated internally. (it won’t need the pod Canadian F-18s currently carry.)
The F-35’s mission systems are critical to its mission success. With the most robust and advanced communications suite of any fighter aircraft built to date, the F-35 provides pilots with an unprecedented advantage. It will also be the first fighter to possess satellite communications capable of integrating beyond line-of-sight communications throughout the spectrum of missions it is tasked to perform.
https://www.f35.com/about/capabilities/interoperability
The F-35 will also be fully compatible with Canada’s chief military ally and training partner.
Canada is already participating in the F-35 program and has received significant work-share.
etc etc, and all of this completely ignores overseas/NATO operations.
hopsalotThat has been repeated “ad nauseum” around here for the last few months with absolutely zero evidence suporting it.
Untill now there were two competitions involving one of the two Eurocanards and the F-35A, on both of them, Japan and korea, the JSF was handily beaten on costs, and in one of the competitions, South Korea, Airbus offered 1/3 more airframes than LM for roughly the same amount of money.
The F-35A MIGHT end in the same cost bracket that evolved versions of the twins by the beggining of the twenties, “might” being the correct word.
The F-35 was more expensive at the time of those competitions, but consider that its price has already dropped considerably and will have dropped still further by the time Canada orders…
hopsalotGuy 1 (Volvo) want’s a Ferrari
Guy 2 (Audi) want’s a Ferrari
Guy 3 (BMW) want’s a Ferrari
Guy 4 (Audi) want’s a Ferrari
Guy 5 (Mercedes) want’s a Ferrari
Guy 6 (Skoda) want’s a Ferrari
Guy 7 (Chrysler) want’s a FerrariDosen’t mean they have the need for one or that they will get one.
The problem of course is that the Rafale and Eurofighter are just as expensive as the F-35 and while the Gripen NG may be incrementally cheaper, it is very poorly suited to operating in Canada.
hopsalotApparently, there are manpads in the theater, now. A mig-21 is shutdown.
Video shows AAA.
Note, there are people screaming predicable things in Arabic on this video. If that offends you, don’t click.
hopsalotThose blogs, like this forum, are full of entertaining information about an intriguing subject. The author is no less an authority than most people posting here.
Actually, given the sheer amount of rubbish we have had to correct on this thread already it seems they aren’t half as knowledgeable as they think they are.
hopsalotCanad’s circumstances are very unique. This conversation just got quite silly
No, they really aren’t. Yes, Canada has big cold spaces but as I have already said, past a point it doesn’t matter anymore, you need multiple bases.
A Swedish, Norwegian, American, or British pilot that ejects over cold water is going to be just as dead, just as fast as a Canadian. No helicopter will get there in time to fish them out.
hopsalotThat is fair enough rad.
But it looks like F-35 is going to slip its IOC, there is delayed delays on the F-35’s.
The F-35 has already reached IOC. The USAF may slip their IOC by a month or two depending on the software, but that won’t much matter to European operators because they are all planning to IOC later anyway.
For years i’ve been reading how the F-35 would fill the ranks in US and Europe.
And it is starting to, there are already more F-35s flying than Rafales, and several European operators have already received their first jets. (including the first F-35 manufactured in Europe)
But We wont see F-35 operating in Europe earliest 2021.
Try 2018…
With the US Marine Corps having now declared Initial Operational Capability, Beck says that British IOC is “what makes me tick every day.” His squadron currently has two aircraft assigned: F-35Bs ZM135 and ZM136. A third aircraft, ZM137 is attached to Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 501 (VMFAT-501) at MCAS Beaufort, South Carolina. “We are soon upgrading to Block 2B software. When I collect our fourth aircraft at the end of 2015, it will be in Block 3I software configuration. This aircraft will have a genuine fieldable capability — pretty much what we would take to war.”
The clock is ticking towards establishment of the UK’s first front line unit at RAF Marham, 617 Squadron, the famous “Dambusters” from World War II. IOC in a land-based capacity is scheduled for 2018 and then from the UK’s new Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers in 2020.
http://www.codeonemagazine.com/f35_article.html?item_id=182
Very limited upgrade on F-22’s.
And on top of this there is sequestration and limited jets on order.
As opposed to infinite jets on order? The production ramp continues, somewhat slower than would be ideal, but production rates are already higher than any competing program and climbing rapidly.
We are looking at another upgrade Package on F-15/16 due to above, and A-10 prolonged service.
Yes, in order to maintain its force structure the US is planning to continue operating some older types longer… but given that nobody else on earth has a 5th generation fighter operational yet this doesn’t look like that big of a deal.
It looks to me that Russia and China are gaining on US and its peers.
The situation in Europe is even more Dire..
Depends. The PAK FA is late and getting later, with no meaningful production planned until sometime after 2020. Russia continues to produce updated versions of Cold War era aircraft that aren’t much of a threat to 5th generation types. China is a greater concern, but again, we we talking about a force composed entirely of 3rd and 4th generation fighters. The J-20 appears to be moving faster than the PAK FA, but what are its actual capabilities? Not much is known…
hopsalotThe single engine was the reason the f16 lost last time.
It does matter in Canada…or at least it did. If you lose an engine in the Beaufort the pilot is not going to survive. The Canadian arctic is far larger than Alaska or Norway. While there are f-16’s in Alaska (red flag aggressors) there are also f 22’s.
I am not so sure a single engine is a show stopper. But don’t minimize the vast expanse of territory we own.
Nobody is minimizing anything, we are just pointing out that Canada’s circumstances aren’t all that unique. Past a point bigger just doesn’t matter anymore. The north/interior of Alaska is every bit as cold, empty, and inhospitable as similar areas in Canada. Canada is bigger than Alaska but it isn’t trying to patrol it’s territory from a single base. (And as mentioned above, if a pilot goes down in the water it doesn’t matter how far from base he is… he will be dead in minutes, before a helicopter could even get off the ground. )
hopsalotCarrier operations are in the main conducted with in SAR range where you park you carrier off the cost and conduct strikes the last carrier on carrier action in blue water was WW2
No, they aren’t, and even if they were technically within range, in many cases the response time would be far too long.
hopsalotThe truly funny part of this whole single engine versus twin engine argument is it doesn’t matter where you are, if you lose an engine in a single fighter you are going to struggle. Being in the north of Canada doesn’t matter anymore than being in the middle of continental USA. If we look at the most numerous western fighter from the last generation, far and away it is the F-16, with more sold than any other fourth gen and more than the twin-engined F-15 and F-18 combined. Fear of a single engine has not stopped nations from purchasing the F-16 and it won’t stop Canada from choosing a single engine aircraft.
The UK and US will operate single engine F-35s over essentially all of the world’s oceans… the North Atlantic, the South Atlantic, the Pacific, the Bering Strait… Norway will be flying over the north sea, Australia and the US will fly over great inland deserts in the Outback or the US Southwest, etc etc.
Suddenly the F-35 isn’t safe enough for Canada?
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