On another hand, France + Brazil IS a viable long term solution on the fighter business and it’s obvious. Next fighter generation would be designed in common – and more and more in common.

Actually I disagree… Look at the 4-country Eurofighter…

I believe the Gripen model is much more viable — I often compare it to the PC, whereas Rafale will be more like a Mac — a closed architecture.

Gripen OTOH is based on an architecture which is more open and flexible — one works with companies in different countries and integrate into a system. Currently the only major US component is the engine — if this turns out to be a big issue it can quite easily be replaced with e.g. the Eurojet. If the link to Selex and UK is found to be non-acceptable one can turn to other companies, including Thales, Elint, etc, for the next fighter.

The 2-3-4 country collaborations have not shown to be working very well in the past IMHO, and it will be even more of an issue in the future. A more open and flexible system is being called for.

/factsheet.asp?id=199[/url]

The Swedes may differ about that, but all the intrested ones get the related data with ease. Even the basic Gripen got “fatter” over some years in service to keep the specifications.

http://www.air-attack.com/page/49/JAS-39-Gripen.html

When JANES give a more detailed empty equipped of 6622 kg received ~1990.

Later confirmed by that:

http://www.airramstein.nato.int/bast_e3_factsheet_saab_jas39.pdf

Yes, but my point was that these figures on Gripen may or may not be correct — and as I said somebody working on Gripen at one occation acknowledged that the “real weight” of the Gripen was not published. So instead of just writing “classified” they just publish a number, which does not reflect reality.

Range was also a secret at least for the Gripen A, as was the maximum fuel load…. Still you could find numbers. So how could it still be a secret? The numbers published were misleading. Those sneaky Swedes… I’m sure the Americans would not do the same…?

We never needed nuclear weapons in the past to suffer US embargoes. I think the Government simply believes we can have more space to maneuver with France than with U.S. Restrictions from U.S. were always heavy in the past, even if we never had an anti-US gov like Venezuela has now in example. Even if Obama looks like more friendly now, the trend indicates he will not be on top for more than 4 years. Someone from the Bush gang take over and it’s game over.

What embargoes have you suffered in the past?

All this talk about “supporting a seat at the security council” is just a smoke-screen, IMHO… It simply does not make sense. This however:

http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2009/09/28/Brazil-favors-developing-nuclear-weapons-for-respectability/UPI-66461254168185/

and:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/brazil/nuke.htm

During his winning campaign in January 2003, leftist Workers’ Party presidential candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva criticized the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty as unfair. “If someone asks me to disarm and keep a slingshot while he comes at me with a cannon, what good does that do?” da Silva asked in a speech. He later said Brazil has no intention to develop nuclear arms.

My guess is that there are strong forces in Brazil that wants to obtain nuclear weapons. This would probably trigger embargo from the US, just like it did with India. Thus Lula would like to avoid military equipment with US components at all costs, and become as independent as possible.

Even if Lula and his friends have such plans, there is election time soon and future presidents may or may not support such plans? So: Brazil may or may not obtain nukes, but I believe that Lula is making preparations for such an event…

On verra.

The Gripen is able to pull 12G.

Robban,

I think I’ve seen somewhere that NG should be strengthened and able to handle 13-14G? Although I don’t know why anybody would want to go so high (unless you want to build a Sea Gripen perhaps :))

I will try to find the reference…

we can always think of such a possibility, but what’s the point of going all the way to do so? If it’s just about F-22 training and calibrating its sensors, they can do so in the US.. and what interest would it have for the french to go tehre and just play targets? especially with their latest fighter which they have so much difficulty to sell.. do you think that a sticker on its rear saying “F-22s most coooperative target” would make it sell better? I doubt it… 😀

Perhaps they were training for possible future operation in the ME. Perhaps part of this was also to demonstrate to some country in the region that is alleged to be developing nuclear weapons that there are some plans for military action and those plans are credible as demonstrated by several exercises of which this one is probably just one minor one…

It demonstrated how easy it was to fly F-22s to the ME and get them operational. And it also demonstrated that whatever planes that “other” country is having, F-22 will have no issues whatsoever (if anybody doubted that). It also says “we and our allies are ready for action”.

Just my speculation of course….

Edit: Snafu sorry did not see your posting…

Except that the rafale AESA is almost ready, making France the second country after US that did this, while Selex thing is not even a prototype.

Perhaps. Or perhaps not…
And NG avionics comprises…

On a more serious note, that’s one single advantage of Gripen: the ability to incorporate many weapons (not only IrisT, but also Sidewinder, Phyton, Derby, JDAM) while the Rafales are somehow limmited to French weapons, or weapons with Frech participation (Meteor)
Highly unlikely.

Spectra could do the jo without towed decoys and french industry can do them, if necessary. As for HMD none of the two fighters has a functional one in this moment.

Fields in which Rafale best Geipen

Did you read the RFP? I doubt that any buyer wouldn’t insist in a larger payload. Not only for weapons, but for range. Except for a few fighters (Su family and in future F 35) the rest need EFTs. Rafale can carry 4 big ones.

Saab and Selex have been working on AESA for many years, a prototype has been installed in the Gripen Demo, already flying.

How on earth do you know that the Thales AESA will be better than the Saab/Selex? I am not saying that I know that it will be better; I am just saying that it well may be. I do not know for sure of course. And the same goes for the other avionics pieces being developed.

Saab has two big advantages compared to Thales/Dassault:

Saab is (together with it’s partners) developing brand new stuff right now, which means that they can incorporate the latest in electronics. Even if you spent a fortune buying a super-PC 5 years ago, that does not help; today you can buy a more powerful PC at a much lower price!

The other advantage is that Saab can collaborate with others; for each component be it EWS, AESA, IRST, composites, etc, etc it can pick the best and/or cheapest partner. Dassault needs to stick with French partners which has a political advantage in this case, but will also increase costs.

These two advantages should give Gripen an edge. gripen is much smaller but with the reduction in size of electronics that may not be such an issue.

For payload: It may not be as important as you seem to think. Range: Gripen NG will have an excellent range, more than most other fighters out there…

And as you know the AESA will have one advantage: Much bigger scan volume, and since the angulation can also be optimized, also probably longer range.

Note: I am not saying Rafale is a poor fighter, on the contrary I think that the F3 may be the best 4.5 gen fighter flying today; I am just saying that the NG may well be better than Rafale in many areas if/when NG flies in 3-4 years.

Of course a future F4+ or F5 Rafale may become better than Gripen NG again…

For RCS: why do you think Rafale has significantly lower RCS than Gripen NG will have?

The winner, the Gripen NG was considered better in four requirements: technical, technology transfer, employment generation and price..

I could agree with three of the requirements but technical ?? Whats that mean??
RAFALE offers a combination of performances, capabilities and technologies in A2A ,A2G which is hardly matched by GRIPEN or SH or any other fighter in that category .. RAFALE’s capabilities are documented also by foreign experts ( Peter Collins RAF) .. Rafale can easily outmaneuver any version of GRIPEN and SH and by 2012 it will be carrying a superior AESA radar and soon after that ,the awesome METEOR .

So whats left ??

Perhaps NG’s AESA will be more awesome that Rafale’s…

Perhaps the Saab/Selex IRST will also be more awesome than Rafale’s.

You cannot compare Gripen C/D avionics and say “Rafale is better” because the NG will have Ng avionics not C/D avionics.

NG will be able to carry both IRIS-T and Meteor (but Brazil may want to integrate something else…)

Perhaps the NG also will have a lower RCS and IR signature…?

And what about towed decoys and HMD?

So what is left? Rafale wins in TWR, and have a slight edge in maneouvribility. But those factors seems to be consider less important these days — it’s all about avionics, sensor fusion, SA, EWS, RCS and IR signature…

The other thing is of course payload — but as said before if FAB does not see the need for such huge payloads, it does not help the Rafale…

So yes, it may fully be possible for Gripen NG to “beat” Rafale also on the technical assessment — depending on what requirements FAB consider more important, and of course depending on what kind of technology Saab and it’s collaborators like Selex etc. are actually developing right now… Problem is, we don’t know much about it, so how can you say that Rafale will be better?

Do I need to remind you that Rafale lost against Greek F-16? When I raised this I was told “but that was an old version of the Rafale”. Point is, the current Gripen is “a very old version” of Gripen and not relevant. So I ask again how can you say that Rafale will be better than a future Gripen NGapart from the TWR, payload, and a few other things?