You appear to think that you’re asking for a significant increase in numbers, but EU countries currently have SEVEN carriers, including one in reserve, & likely to be disposed of soon.

No, but I think I am suggesting something that is more reasonable. Single European countries are struggling to maintain their “carriers”; it would make more sense to team up and concentrate on a few decent ones, me thinks.

The UK used to be an empire; also Spain had their empire. However reality today is rather different; huge budget deficits, aging population, increased unemployment, etc. Combine that with no real military threat (for the time being) and it becomes increasingly difficult for each EU country to justify having those carriers. Furthermore one may argue that it’s better to have a few decent EU carriers than several tiny ones that are hugely expensive but each carry a limited punch.

It will be interesting to see if Italy and Spain succeed in hanging on to their carriers in the future. Also it will be interesting to see if the UK will get 2 complete carriers with F-35B (and how many?)….

Currently SEVEN carriers? Can you please enlighten me…

@Seeing all those mountains and all that water, I would tilt to twin-jet
if perfs and costs were similar!

Sure, but they are not.

Even the USN has accepted the inevitable; A single-engine F-35C to fly from their carriers.

If what I read about traffic in India is correct, then most likely the probability of an IAF pilot being killed in the traffic is as high (or higher?) than the probability of being killed when flying a modern single-engine jet like the LCA, F-16, or Gripen NG. Modern western engines are surprisingly robust.

Brazil’s defense minister says the final decision on what company will win a $5 billion fighter-jet contract will be made by the nation’s next president.

Nelson Jobim says Thursday it would make no sense to make a decision now that can only be followed through by the next leader of Latin America’s largest nation.

Previously, Jobim said President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva would make the decision himself after the Oct. 31 elections.

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9IRLOH00.htm

So now Jobim makes it clear what most people already had figured out; Lula will not make the decision, the next president will.

Loke, I have a Saab presentation that goes into a lot of details and it clearly mentions that the Gripen C is 6800 kgs empty and the Gripen D is 7100 kgs or thereabouts empty.

I don’t believe that empty weights are such a secret that Saab will lie about it on a presentation to an Air Force that it is hoping will become a customer.

Perhaps those weights are correct, perhaps not. I still maintain that we don’t know. Point is, at one time (many years ago) Sweden did “publish” some data on the Gripen, including internal fuel and weight. Later on it turned out that the fuel info given was not entirely correct — The Swedes went to quite some extent to hide the real fuel load it could take by having a “war” setting on the fuel tank — unless it was set on the “war” setting, you could not access the complete internal fuel volume of the Gripen A! This was later abandonded for the Gripen C, which always flies with 3000l available.

This raises the interesting question of whether the given weight of the Gripen A was also misleading. And whether it still is today. Obviously I don’t know for sure. Of course, it could be that this was done only for Gripen A/B/C/D and the weight given for the NG is the “correct” one. Or perhaps the weights given for both NG and C/D are correct and only the ones given for A/B were wrong. Again, we don’t know.

People working in the air forces around the world are very much aware that some information is classified. Sometimes information is simply not available and not given, however in other cases “information” is given but is on purpose misleading. I don’t think that people in e.g. the IAF are upset if they in one public briefing is told one thing and then afterwards in a classified and restricted briefing is told something else — obviously they understand why this is so, and they also know which numbers to keep in their minds… 😉

Let me turn this around: Do you really think that the air forces of the world so willingly would accept that a lot of detailed information about their weapons systems is made available, for everybody to read?

Do you remember the infamous “Red Flag Pilot” that was filmed and put on Youtube? He made some references to information, the type you could find in Janes’ and other magazines…. implying that what you read in Janes’ is often misleading and wrong.

The classified stuff never makes it into Janes’. Is the weight classified? Perhaps, perhaps not. Consider that the internal fuel was classified on the Gripen A. 😉

Do you think it will have a chance in an order like the MRCA if they do not reveal the specs ? They are offering ToT for nuts and bolts and radar even and would hide the real specs ?

Of course they are revealing the real specs to the people in the IAF that sits on the evaluation committee — they need to sign a confidentiality agreement however before they are shown those specs.

Why on earth would they need to share the specs with you?

Perhaps IAF is also doing the same thing; perhaps the weight of Tejas is not 6500 kg. Who knows?

It’s military equipment we are talking about.

When talking about the empty weight of Gripen A/B/C/D please keep the following in mind;

Parameters like empty weight and range have always been a closely guarded secret by SwAF and Saab…. meaning that the numbers you see in magazines and on the internet are wrong…

This could in part explain the “strange” fact that the Tejas, having an engine as powerful as the RM12, and having the same empty weight does still not have the same performance as the Gripen C/D :diablo:

The other part of the explanation is related to the canards, but I will leave that to Robban to explain, all those aerodynamical details just make my head spin.

That was my thinking as well; that the title was probably correct and the main text incorrect.

IAF will train with RAF’s Typhoons; is this a coincidence or can it be linked to MMRCA?

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Its-Sukhoi-vs-Eurofighter-as-IAF-takes-on-RAF/articleshow/6724839.cms

Did IAF already train with the SH and Rafale?

Hammer,

thanks for your input — I am still very curious about the 2016 date. Why are they not trying to shift it a bit forward to compensate for all the delays we’are seeing in the selection phase?

Is it because they want local production from day one? Obviously it will take time to build a local assembly line; OTOH Brazil already has an advanced aviation industry and as already mentioned India requires the first a/c to be delivered 36 months after signing. Then again they want 18 produced by the vendor first, and then locally assembled after that; if Brazil wants all their a/c to be locally assembled then I guess 2016 is probably reasonable?

NG suddenly looks like the front-runner to me.