So in other words, you’re saying that Mr. Beesley is lying, since he hasn’t had anything negatve to say? You can’t have it both ways.

This is becoming ridicolous… Do you really believe that “the company line” always tell the whole story about a product? Doesn’t matter whether it’s a car, a computer or a fighter jet.

Someone from a company that gives an official statement about one of their products will emphasise the good and strong points, and downplay any negative points. This does not necessarily imply that they are lying!

I observed this many times with many different products.

Could you please explain to us why this for some reason would not apply to fighter jets? Or is there something special about LM? :rolleyes:

My point is that price is not the leading factor as long as you achieve a realistic and coherent price/capability package.
Because they wanted new capacities and because they wanted something like an F16, the UAE were willing to pay 3 billion $ to have such capacities.

Furthermore, there is no undisputable fact proving that the Rafale is more expensive, be it as aquisiton cost or operation or the sum of the two. Eurofighter is said to be more expensive, it was however sold to Saudi Arabia.

One could argue that Rafale is too expensive for the capabilities it exhibits, but we are getting away from the subject.

Conserning the 200 Meteor, it feels a little short for the entire french fleet. Don’t you think ?

I agree it is really the cost/benefit that is important. UAE paid a lot for F-16 bl 60 as you said however presumably the second customer would have paid much less, but that second customer never materialized, just like the second Rafale customer so far did not materialize, and I think cost is an important factor. There is a limit to how much most countries are willing to pay for what’s essentially a 4.5 gen multirole fighter jet.

The Meteor?? Is this not the MMRCA News and Discussion thread?

I don’t know if this has been posted already?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xw7xaqbowxQ

Could anybody translate!? 🙂

IMHO Rafale and Typhoon are not too dis-similar in terms of development; Rafale seems to have an overall lead but I think that lead is so small that it should not make a customer choose Rafale over Typhoon.

Rafale has some other strong points though, in particular:

A carrier version (if you are interested of course)

Very few US components (if that is important to you).

Spectra I am sure is fine, but I believe Typhoon has similar stuff.

As for weapons integration; unless India wants Storm Shadow lack of SS integration on the Typhoon is probably not a big problem?

I think what is more important is long-term commitment, and I am not sure who is strongest there; Rafale supported (so far) by France hit by the global recession, or Typhoon supported by many more countries but in addition to also being hit by global recession many of them are planning to introduce F-35 and may be less interested in committing huge amounts of money to Typhoon.

Anyway, a hypothetical discussion IMHO since I have studied the tea leaves and they say US will win.

Point of fact, Gates has tried to cancel the F-35 alternate engine, the F136, not the GE F414, which powers the E/F/A-18E/F/G, and the Grippen.

Sorry to be a pain and OT, but it’s not Grippen it’s Gripen; and the current Gripen is powered by RM12 which is a modified F404.

The F414 however will power the future Gripen NG.

🙂

The question though, is how capable is China of targeting a CBG? Do they have the satellite coverage(or other systems in the event that their satellites become unserviceable)?

China has “the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, they have sensors on ships that can feed into the missile for targeting,” he said. “So could they start to employ that? Yes, I think so.” He added that it is unclear how “proficient they are in the employment” of that capability

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-05/china-s-ballistic-missile-stealth-fighter-advances-draw-attention-of-u-s-.html

Seems the USN believe that the Chinese have at least some means of detection and targeting.

Surprisingly honest and agenda free.

indeed… or perhaps this whole “J-20” story the recent days, with first grainy photos then gradually better photos, no official comments, and then finally an “honest” comment that is downplaying the whole thing is designed to lure the US into believing that they still have a significant lead.

Also consider:

Shen confirmed that China has been developing its fifth-generation fighters but said the aircraft shown in the photos do not appear to be that system.

http://focustaiwan.tw/ShowNews/WebNews_Detail.aspx?Type=aIPL&ID=201101050035

So perhaps we are not talking about the J-20 in this thread but another a/c, perhaps a bit more similar to the F-35? And perhaps the “real” J-20 (perhaps designed to be an air-superiority F-22 killer) has not been revealed yet. It could be that the West is underestimating the Chinese when it comes to development of stealth a/c:

Vice Admiral Jack Dorsett, the head of Navy intelligence, said yesterday that the Pentagon had underestimated the speed at which China has developed and fielded a ballistic missile that may be capable of hitting a maneuvering U.S. aircraft carrier. Dorsett said it was too early to tell whether the U.S. also has misjudged China’s capability to build a stealth fighter jet.

“We’ve been on the mark on an awful lot of our assessments but there has been a handful of things we have underestimated,” Dorsett told defense reporters.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-05/china-s-ballistic-missile-stealth-fighter-advances-draw-attention-of-u-s-.html

A lot of people have commented that the “J-20” referred to in this thread looks more like a bomber than an a2a fighter. To me that begs the question; what will China’s a2a stealth fighter look like? How will it compare to F-22 (just forget about F-35…). And when will it be revealed?