– Norway is questioning its involvement

Not really — some political parties want more information and/or a rerun however they are in minority so they cannot change anything.

The parties that hold the majority are still fully supportive and the government is moving forward. JSM funding was allocated recently, and we will get the first JSF (for training only, will be based in the US) in 2016, according to current plans.

Thanks TMor that was an interesting observation.

Well congrats to Dassault and Eurofighter, making it to the short list is already quite an achievement.

According to the rules they should go for L1 after a down-select, is that correct?

If so, which will be cheapest, Rafale or Typhoon?

The Eurofighter consortium are probably not happy about losing the Tejas engine deal to GE right now… that could perhaps have given them an edge, with an established assembly line in India?

Will be interesting to see if this gets confirmed….

Perhaps Rafale will actually win this. It seems more mature than the Typhoon, and they avoid having to deal with 4 other partners which for the most part don’t seem too interested in contributing to the future development of the system.

A pity about Gripen NG; Brazil could be their last chance.

Their “lure” to get this to fly was supposedly the increased competition and reduce price that “competing” engine manufacturers would conduct to win future contracts.

Unfortunately you have to conveniently forget about the many billions of dollars it takes in the first place to build an engine like this AND the cost of the tooling and infrastructure to support 2 different engines…

There are several examples showing that competition can help in keepin costs down and quality and performance up.

The F-16 “engine war” is a well-known example; however in civilian aviation there are also examples of planes being prepared for different engines:

The initial 777-200 model was launched with propulsion options from three manufacturers, General Electric, Pratt & Whitney, and Rolls-Royce,[39] giving the airlines their choice of engines from competing firms.[40]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_777

Also other planes, e.g. several 747 variants have been offered with a choice of engines.

Considering the large number of F-35 that will be produced, and the great importance F-35 will play for the US and her allies I think it could potentially be useful to have an alternative engine available. THe F-35 will after all replace a quite staggering number of airplanes.

According to GE, the funding needed to finalize the engine is 1 billion not 3; with tooling and infrastructure however it becomes 1.8 billion.

1.8 billion sounds like a lot of money however over the lifetime of the project it could be a worthwile investment, reducing risk for one of the most critical components in the most important platform for the “western world” the next 40 years.

From the same web page:

The JSF engine program will ultimately reach $100B, and a decades-long engine competition needs only to generate a 1 percent to 2 percent cost benefit to recoup the remaining dollars needed to complete the F136 program. Twice, the independent Government Accountability Office (GAO) has concluded that it anticipates a 21 percent benefit from a JSF engine competition, using past experience from the F-16 “Great Engine War” competition as a comparison.

That’s $20B in savings – which is equivalent to nearly 200 JSF aircraft, roughly 10% of the USAF JSF program. There are also vast benefits beyond sheer cost – related to operational readiness and contractor responsiveness. GAO further concluded that savings of only 10.1% to 12.6% is needed for competition through the F136 to save taxpayers money.

The JSF engine program desperately needs competition. The Nunn-McCurdy breach and cost overrun on the current JSF engine program have cost the DoD over $2.6B that could have been used to fund higher priority programs. The equivalent of over 20 aircraft have been lost. The F136 will create real cost savings through competition, and these savings will free up funds that can also be used to benefit other defense programs if desired.

In an effort to distort the potential savings through a JSF engine competition, the DoD has even challenged the savings from the F-16 “Great Engine War” of the 1980s. The GAO concluded that the F-16 engine competition yielded nearly 30% cumulative savings in acquisition costs alone. These conclusions were based on Air Force public data.

http://www.f136.com/facts

Thanks Loke.
I took note that the gain is exactly where it counts, i.e not landing speeds:

“The EPE “will not make much difference at an air show”, says Boeing chief test pilot Ric Traven, but dramatically improves the fighter’s performance at high speed and altitude, halving supersonic acceleration times.

There is no case for EF over Gripen NG after this

Well, I think he was speaking of the SH — I don’t know much about aerodynamics, however I noticed that whereas it seems Boeing may be more interested in the 20% improvement Saab is more interested only 10% increase in thrust. My guess would be that the SH needs the thrust increase more than the Gripen NG does… 😉

Anyway, a combination of increased thrust and reduced life cycle costs does look attractive.

According to Wiki the French FREMMs will have a complement of 108 whereas the Italian ones will have a complement of 145.

How come? Are the French ones more automated? or less capable? or something else?

The decision to use targeting services provided by the Tornado GR4 stems from a shortage of adequately trained Typhoon pilots, as illustrated in information published by the UK House of Commons’ Public Accounts Committee on 15 April.

In evidence given to the committee on 9 March, two senior RAF officials revealed that only a fraction of the service’s 48 Typhoon pilots were qualified to conduct air-to-ground missions, in line with its requirements for the fleet.

“We have eight pilots trained in the ground-attack role because that is all we need,” said Air Vice Marshal Stephen Hillier, air officer commanding the RAF’s 2 Group organisation. However, he added: “If we want to deploy that aircraft on an air-to-surface mission, we can do it.”

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2011/04/15/355641/libya-raf-typhoon-hits-fresh-target-with-help-from.html