LokeFirst of all, now I work at the Brazilian Congress, exactly at Senate’s Foreign Affairs and National Defence Committee, and I have a lot of inside info about Brazilian affairs. At that time, Gripen C/D hadn’t arrived at India and all pro-Gripen forums said that it was amongst the better performance planes… Only four twin engined planes flew from Leh at that time.
I don’t know what “all pro-Gripen forums” you talk about?
To be truthful, the Indian Air Force Commander visited Brazil a few days ago and a lot of new info about Leh affair leaked. The first point is that IAF is still discussing Gripen participation. The RFI and RFP established that all tests must be conducted with the real bidders. The tests at Leh were conducted with Gripen C/D and Demo and both of them are not representative of NG. The Raven radar still is not completely operational.
According Indian officers, two planes failed: MiG35 and F/A-18E/F. Gripen Demo takes off with the required load (only two tanks, four air-to-air missiles and a cargo of 1900kg bombs). Typhoon and Rafale takes off with full cargo but EADS bidder failed at some attack missions
From what I have heard the NG Demo tests were very successfull in India — all of them.
According to some Indian reports, 4 of the first 5 planes tested failed in Leh; Gripen was not tested at that time. I simply pointed out that your report was in contradiction with what was said at that time.
I also see an inconsistency with what you wrote in a Brazilian forum — perhaps something got lost in translation but I recall you said that Mig and Rafale were the only two that succeeded; now you are saying that only two failed, and they were Mig and SH?
Does this mean that also F-16 succeeded according to your sources? (since you now claim that only two failed? Or are you talking about the twin-engined only?)
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The Gripen availability at Red Flag info was from Forca Aerea Brasileira (the FAB), the Brazilian Air Force. The first one to comment it was Mr. Juarez Castro, an ex-FAB maintenance officer. Gripen C/D offered a lower availability than our F-5EM Tiger II (we got around 70% availability). Since 1984 I covered military affairs for Brazilian newspapers an Janes Defence Weekly and I never saw an air force admits it failed.
40% is quite a lot lower than 70%; how did you arrive at that number? Also interestingly is that Hammer in another posting claimed that according to his sources the problems were mainly due to the SWAF being not prepared for the heat, and that it was not a problem of the Gripen. Do you disagree with this?
The info was from SAAB and was available at F-X1.5 FAB bid.
So Saab told you that they promised to do the integration for SA but failed to do so? Seems rather strange they would highlight their own failure, even if it was true (which, according to some informed people, it is not). Did you read what the South Africans said in the link I provided above? Seems the people in SA have a different view on this.
Norwegian Air Force considered SAAB bid a complete methodological mess.
This is news to me — what is your source for this?
What I said is that they have a lot more of modern combat experience than FAB and that experience must count.
No, I think you said more than that, you used the fact that Norway did not pick Gripen as an argument against Gripen in the Brazil competition. As a phycisist once said “It’s not even wrong”. Norway, a long-time NATO member and close US ally, and paying F-35 partner, was comparing a 4.5 gen a/c to a 5. gen VLO a/c. If Rafale had not pulled out of the competition, they would also not have been chosen, simply because F-35 was going to win in any case.
If you had used the Norwegian competition to argue that Brazil should buy F-35 instead, then it would have made a bit more sense perhaps; but to use it to argue that Brazil should pick one 4.5 gen fighter over another one does not make sense at all, no matter how you try to spin it.
Norway and Brazil are quite different countries so one should in any case be careful to draw any parallels for the two competitions.
My points were fully correct. What I said is that the operational range would be around 20% higher than C/D. According RNoAF papers, that leaked SAAB numbers, they are correct. The only point that Gripen Demo excel is ferry range and no one combat in ferry conditions.
I think you also said something else however I cannot find the exact quote, it was something you wrote a long time ago.
In any case; Gripen NG with 6 a2a missiles and one 450 gallon drop tank will get a combat radius of 1300 km w. 30 minutes on-station. A maritime 5.5 hour unrefueled recce mission was also described. Are you saying that these missions are only 20% longer than what the C/D would be capable of?
The Demo is not fully representative of NG final configuration. I accessed all Brazilian Air Force F-X2 papers investigating a denounce against Defence Ministry. I can not put here everything I read cause a wrote a feature to JDW about it, but even COPAC’s officers, that were sympathetic to SAAB bidder, admitted that the structural commonality between NG and the Demo will be less than 40%…
What do you mean by “structural commonality”? I think you have a quite different definition that what most people would expect. “less than 40%” sounds extremely low to me.
LokeConcerning the capacity of Selex to do a (fighter) AESA radar … I think nobody should doubt about it.
Though the biggest share of work is certainly not the development of the radar itself but its integration to the fighter systems – and all the development loops between the two tasks :diablo:
Saab and Selex have had collaborations for many years already so they know eachother technology bases quite well. And they don’t need to deliver a final product before 2013, I think — possibly even later with all the delays we see in all the competitions going on. Why the hurry?
LokeThe USA underestimating their own air power. There is no good reason to keep such a huge number of ageing air-assets. The US-economy is neither able to keep it at the state of art nor renew even a part of that. 😎
I don’t think they (at least not the pros in the US armed forces) are underestimating their own air forces.
I think there is another explanation for this “overkill” long after the cold war ended.
I think it’s called the military-industrial complex…
LokeWhen an aircraft is at prototype stage, what does “real” mean when it comes to operational costs? Is $4000/h the operational cost for the prototype, in which case the production version will likely be even lower? I’m sorry, but this doesn’t sound “real” for me. It’s necessarily estimates from either Saab or the FAB. For the Rafale, there are official reports from the Congress (rather free from any corporate spin) ; this is closer to “reality” for me. Weren’t apples compared with something closer to an orange than an apple?
Gripen NG is not a completely new aircraft, it’s more like a major MLU of a mature, existing 4.0 gen a/c. The differences between the C/D and NG are quite well known. It should be possible to estimate from the C/D costs what it would be for the Gripen NG.
Also by using existing components like the F414 (which has been produced in more than 1000 units and demonstrated high robustness and low operating costs, even in a harsh marine environment) the number of unknowns are kept down.
Edit: I would like to add that, also for the Rafale, the FAB can just arrive at some estimates of the operating costs. The FAB will not operate the Rafale as the French do, and their costs may be higher or lower depending on a number of different factors.
LokeI don’t think Rafale will “cut it” as a VLO fighter in spite of SPECTRA; thus I think they need to supplement the winner of F-X2 in the medium term with a true VLO fighter. Therefore I think Gripen would make the most sense; it is cheaper, has excellent ToT and business offsets and may enable Brazil to enter a partnership with other countries to develop a 5. gen A/C to supplement the Gripen in a Hi/Lo mix.
This idea is actually somewhat similar to what Pepe seemed to initially support… but with more Brazilian involvement in particular on the development of the VLO fighter… 😉
LokeThai Gripens operational from 2011
[…]
Thailand is initially buying six Gripens, with a plan to grow that to 12 aircraft. Further purchases are possible, but will have to await the first operational experiences with the fighter in Thailand, says Wing Cdr. Jackkrit Thammavichai, who will be the first squadron commander. However, he says, “I foresee no problem” in making the case for more aircraft.
[…]
Thammavichai says the experience to transition former F-5 and F-16 pilots has been good, with the aircraft “easy to fly.” The flight control system is “very smooth,” and the human-machine interface “well designed.”
LokeThe Demo’s presence here reflects the fact that Saab and the Swedish government are talking more openly about the fact that the JAS 39E/F is a launched program. The outcome of the current international competitions will affect when, not whether the new aircraft enters service with the Swedish air force. (Full story here.)
Swedish air force inspector general Maj Gen Anders Silwer said in London on Sunday that a formal political decision to proceed with the JAS 39E/F, as the NG is designated in Sweden, would be taken in 2011 or 2012 but that “the money is allocated in the ten-year plan”. This would result in the first eight aircraft becoming operational in 2020. However, development and service entry will be brought forward if an export customer acquires the aircraft.
LokeSoon to be announced are Tor Anti-Air Missiles to further dilute the French slice of our military reequipment money.
Going more OT here, but; did they consider the Crotale system at all? Crotale seems very capable to me, SK has bought it and that to me seems to indicate that it’s pretty good.
Of course the best system (from a purely objective and unbiased point of view) is the NASAMS II 😎
LokeJust to remind you that there have been a large number of “leaks”, pointing in many different directions:
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/brazil-embarking-upon-f-x2-fighter-program-04179/
March 19-25/10: O Estado de Sao Paolo reports that the Brazilian air force certified all 3 fighter jet finalists as meeting Brazil’s technical specifications, and says that relevant reports have been delivered to the defense ministry. Brazil’s defense ministry said it would release final details during the week of April 5/10.
IF this is correct then it does not matter that Rafale scores higher on technical parameters than Gripen since both would meet the specifications. And if they both meet the specs then normally one does not look at the technical specs anymore but on other parameters to choose the winner (e.g. costs, ToT, industrial offsets, and “politics”.)
I did find it interesting however that Mr. Pepe (who normally tends to highlight all the negatives about Gripen NG) actually stated in his “report” that the Gripen consortium had a better ToT package than Rafale…! Very interesting since many leaks have claimed the opposite.
As I have said before: There are many leaks, and often quite inconsistent.
Let’s wait and see, perhaps more will become clear within the next weeks (or months!?)
LokeBecause those coutries are to put in the “poodle” list and Dassault did not have time nor money to spend to help those countries to pull the price of the US kits down – and rightly so when we see the outcome.
One more comment — it remains a fact that before F-35 was firmly established as a program, there was significant interest in the RoNAF for — the Typhoon (the Gripen NG did not exist as a concept at that time). The Typhoon was seen to have considerable potential compared to e.g. F-16 block 60 (F-15 was considered too expensive I think).
When the F-35 arrived on stage, the RoNAF lost interest in the eurocanards, but not before….
EDIT: Going completely OT here, but: Norway is not as much poodle as you probably think. For instance we refused to join the US in the Iraq war in spite of very strong pressure from the US. You also need to realize that one lesson Norway learnt from WW2 was that a small country like Norway cannot afford to build a defence to deter large countries; this triggered Norway to join NATO and a close military alliance with the US.
LokeIt was a DGA decision to stop it because they did not want the tax payer’s money spent in R&D to be given away for a potential Rafale concurent (especially after Dassault took a 30% in Thales…)
Exactly the same reason why Raytheon declined the offer.Now it’s word vs word but seriously: Gripen has been caught so many time the pant down (the 3000$ figure per flight hours to pick just one) that we know perfectly who to believe.
Do you have a source for that?
Why are you bringing Gripen into this?
LokeMy BS flag just flew up to the top of the mast. 😉
$5000/Hr is just WAY too low.
you don’t know that because you don’t know what’s included. It’s like comparing fighter costs without knowing whether we are talking fly-away or total life cycle costs or something inbetween…
Norway pays 50,000 NOK for their F-16, that’s roughly 8000 USD an hour. But I have no idea what’s included in that, so it cannot be compared to other costs :rolleyes:
LokeDassault did not bid in Norway nor in Netherland, Japan, Australia or Canada for instance.
Because those coutries are to put in the “poodle” list and Dassault did not have time nor money to spend to help those countries to pull the price of the US kits down – and rightly so when we see the outcome.
The problem is that I suspect you to know it. So what is the aim of your little try? Do you really think people are that dumb on this forum?
Or maybe you are sincere and you’ve come to really believe your own propaganda?
In which case I understand now why Gripen fans cried so much after the Norway and Dutch evaluation…. expecting next river of cries after Brazil eval’ now.
No you missed completely what I said — Pepe tried to use the Norwegian competition to discredit NG as an option in the Brazil competition. I tried to show how absurd that was. Think again.
LokeIstoe :
There are several errors in that Istoe story, for instance they claim that the SH became much more expensive than originally anticipated. In reality it was developed on budget and ahead of schedule…
Interestingly, the NG development is more similar to the SH development than anything else — the changes to the airframe are, if anything, even less invasive than the Hornet -> SH development.
NG development is progressing according to schedule, and most of the risks related to the airframe have already been de-risked.
There is one thing that seems puzzling to me; if the arguments for the Rafale are so overwhelming why all the delays in proclaming the winner of this competition? I think the most likely answer is that the arguments for Rafale are not that overwhelming after all… and Jobim needed all this extra time to “develop” the arguments to defend the choice…
LokeThales was dropped from the LCA AESA competition for “technical reasons” — does anybody know what they were? Seems inconsistent with all the claims made in this thread about the very advanced and fully developed AESA technology of Thales…
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