The Norwegians, for all the back and forth & controversy, made a point that the NG’s avionics fit was quite ambitious & they were not certain things would be as simple as SAAB had stated.

Do you have a source for that?

The AESA alone wont cut it, also what matters is range versus payload. Plus dependency on the Meteor…given how expensive that Silver bullet is turning out to be (over 1 million pounds last I heard & it surely will go beyond even that), it cannot be the standard A2A weapon to give the Gripen NG equivalence versus heavier fighters.

Simply put, when the IAF wanted more Mirage 2000Vs as the MRCA because of which people say the Gripen NG is closest to that requirement…things were different. The PAFs firm procurement plan was next to non existent and the PLAAFs vision was unclear. Now its known that the PAF will get Block 52+ Vipers and J-10s, but more importantly, the PLAAF is standardizing around Flanker variants AND deploying huge numbers of S-3XX SAMs. These make a Mirage 2000V style platform, even more modern, of limited use.

India needs an advanced bomb truck with sufficient loiter time, also able to defeat today and tomorrow’s PLAAF air to air assets with a wide array of affordable munitions.

I am not sure that the Gripen NG can meet that need.

Gripen NG will be able to do a 1500 km mission with 4 AMRAAMs, 2 Sidewinders and one drop tank; Add one more drop tank and the range increases even more…

In a2a NG should have more than enough both speed and range.

For a2g, it really depends how much you want to carry and how far. For shorter range, it can carry a quite decent bomb load. For longer range and big loads, you should use either several NGs or the MKI.

And that begs the question: If you want something with much more punch than Gripen NG why don’t you just go for more MKI? Seems to make more sense than introducing yet another platform into your air force…

Any chance the NG could get the F414 EPE that it seems the SH will get for the Indian competition? The EPE should give 20% thrust over the “regular” F414.

There is also another step above the EPE, but even 20% increase should help.

If I did my math right with 50% fuel and 4 AMRAAMs and 2 sidewinders we would then get a TWR of 1.23 or so…

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2009/11/17/335014/dubai-09-dassault-says-uae-decision-on-rafale-fighters-not.html

Discussions are ongoing between Dassault Aviation and the United Arab Emirates on the possible sale of 60 Rafale fighters, with the company unable to say if a contract will be signed in the near term.

Well, with the F-22 there they will definitely see what a 5. gen fighter can do…

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2009/11/15/334899/dubai-09-uae-reveals-fifth-generation-fighter-ambitions.html

Could this be bad news for Rafale?

Or is there a chance that UAE will replace the Mirage with Rafale now and the F-16 with F-35 later on?

I have a feeling this will end bad both for the Typhoon and the Rafale…

Loke,

You are mistaken here : We are talking about rafale F1 so you can hardly draw any conclusions. The performance gap with the rafale F2 is significant. And rafales M F1 have no optics (No OSF) no link 16 and no mica IR with a bugged radar and EW (at the beginning).

You must understand that the F1 came in 1999 to succeed the F8 crusaders. It was very urgent to protect the fleet and the MN could not wait for the end of rafale developpment. The F2 arrived in 2006…7 years later.

Agean gust is much more representative.

Rafale F2 clearly dominated the gripen a few years ago when thet came to Reims. In terms of situational awarness, sensor fusion and power (in the whole flight enveloppe an especially at high altitude) it was outclassed. The report was posted several times here.
A rafale pilot who flew in the gripen back seat compared the gripen to a smaler Mirage 2000-5mk2. They appriciated the gripen ease of use and low maintenance nevertheless.

did not realize that when I wrote my post, thanks for pointing that out. I see that is a good point.

Unfortunately there was not much description of the outcome of the “agean gust”?

Any links to the meetings between Gripen and Rafale? Was that Gripen A or C?

Climb rate

So what are the climb rates of the current and future Gripen?

Gripen C: According to some sources: 90-100 second to 10,000 meters; other sources say 50,000 feet in 60 secs (!) pehaps that was the A, which according to some sources had a weight of only 5700 kg…

What do you think the climb rate of the Gripen NG could be?