How are things going in Saudi Arabia?

How many a/c did they receive?
Were they delivered according to schedule?
When will they build the assembly line?
And are they happy with their Typhoons?

Perhaps that can also influenze the export chances of the Typhoon?

In which case Eurofighter’s paticipation in the MMRCA may not be over but its prospects of being selected are not too promising. Why select an aircraft that

(a) hasn’t got AESA sorted (existing or with concrete development plans)
(b) hasn’t got a carrier variant sorted (existing or with concrete development plans)

when there are 2 types on offer that have these sorted?

Because

(a) technically the Typhoon AESA is not that from being finalized (and it will also take some time before the first a/c will be delivered)

(b) Carrier variant is more “nice-to-have” than “must-have”, the MMRCA is for the IAF after all.

My guess is, it will make it to the short list but not win 😉

What he did not say is what that cost covers (REC Flyaway, Flyaway, Weapon System Cost, APUC, etc). There is a huge gap between those prices.

What he did say was that he did not recognize the price mentioned in Canada… so the price mentioned in Canada was “none of the above” 😉

F-35s cost more than $100M each: U.S. official

Sullivan said the estimated cost of the F-35A model that Canada is buying is “in the low 100 millions.”

“Probably somewhere between $110-115 million,” he said.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadavotes2011/story/2011/03/29/cv-f35-costs.html

UK Ministry of Defence have just revealed that RAF Typhoons have completed their first combat mission over Libya. Well done all!

TJ

Is there a link? I could not find any announcements…

The F-35A IOC is still set for 2016, not 2018.

Nowhere in that pdf does it even hint at 2018.

However, many times in the pdf it states an end to SDD in 2016.

1. “Final Block 3 software is planned to deliver to flight test in 2015, to allow completion of the mission system development in the first quarter of calendar 2016.”

2. “Development testing of the common mission system and flight sciences for CTOL and CV is now scheduled to complete in the first quarter of 2016. The flight science testing for STOVL extends into the last quarter of 2016.”

From F-16.net

Last June, based on this criteria, COMACC estimated the Air Force would be able to declare the F-35A IOC in 2016.

The Air Force’s position on IOC remains unchanged. We will declare IOC for our F-35As based on achieving the required ORD-compliant capability and capacity criteria, and not on a specific date. We are currently analyzing the impacts to program delivery timelines due to the most recent program restructure, and the results of this analysis will be available later this year. When this analysis is complete, the Air Force will reevaluate our IOC estimate, but we currently expect up to a two year delay.

It’s the USAF position on the IOC that remains unchanged, and their position on the IOC is that it is not based on a specific date…

Futhermore they say that their analysis is not yet complete and that they will reevaluate their IOC estimate. Based on their current understanding they expect up to 2 years delay.

Anyway, nice try… :diablo:

Some more info on the Norwegian cost estimates.

Norway estimated that total costs of buying and operating 56 F-35 for 30 years would be 145 billion NOK (26 billion USD using today’s rates).

However those 145 billion NOK includes basically everything it seems:

It is important to emphasize that the lifetime cost includes far more than what the providers were asked for. For example, in these calculations the expected costs of weapons, infrastructure, replacement airplane, fuel, organization, including salaries, education and more, were added.

link

Did the estimate from Canada include all these costs as well?

120 Billion for 48 airplanes for 30 years

a developing country could develope an aircraft industry from scratch for these kinds of money!

Actually I think the estimate was 145 billion NOK for 30 years, which translates into ca. 26 billion USD. Also I think it was for 56 planes not 48 but I am not sure. The original plan was 48 but this was later changed to 56.