LokeWrong, there was considerable resistance in Norway in some (socialist) circles of government to no buy American. The Air Force was ready, and the previous government was ready to buy it on superior capabilities alone. they where forced to have a competition that included price as one of the key criteria.
There was some resistance against American, but not “considerable”; OTOH there was a lot of push for buying Swedish; also there was considerable resistance against spending a lot of money on fighter planes.
The left-wing politicians in the current government would actually prefer to not buy new planes at all…
So when it was “proved” that F-35 would be cheaper than Gripen, their main argument for Gripen was shot down.
Note that it was not necessary “sell” F-35 as cheaper than Gripen to get this through in parliament; F-35 would win in any case as long as the Labour party wanted it. However by saying it was cheaper than Gripen the Labour party probably saved the government from disintegrating…
The above is just my opinion…
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LokeFine, as long as you don’t call it a baby seal.
never
ever
call it a baby seal.
LokeEh, everyone has said since the beginning that Norway is to get the F-35 or even a flying pig if only that would have been offered by the Americans.
…
But it’s not a pig. It’s a rhino. A Flying rhino. Actually it’ Rhino II.
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LokeOriginal Q was not around merit, Pratt v. GE, but addressed chances of GE/RR Private Venture to move towards demonstration, thus maybe selling their engine. Q harks back to (largely myths) of Merlin, Avon, Mustang, Spitfire starting out at commercial risk. Corporations enjoy the use of Other People’s Money for the precise period where investors trust the Corp. for its best use. The sums to bring F136 to WoW! ground-rig demonstrator could break both RR and GE’s Engine business; who pays LMAC to talk/scheme?; exotic materials (do I mean beryllium?) are not free market-sourced; a successful demo does not in itself win business – politics, duplication in ownership pain. So the A is niet. Board Directors would be personally pursued to compensate lost shareholder value. The few precedents involved Directors’ belief that Customer funds would soon flow – e.g: Avon, PV just for brief weeks before a General Election where either Party was expected to fund it.
Agree with what you say, however as many other threads also this has drifted a bit… which is OK, we’re here to discuss and argue, not just to get yes-no answers 🙂
Ares blog on the F136:
Some of the F136 cost estimates being bandied around today include not only development (which is well along) but the production of engines for early production aircraft. It is safe to say that those aircraft will need engines, so the net saving is not as big as it looks.
The benefits are uncertain, to be sure. If the F135 turns out to be reliable, durable, affordable and easy to uprate through its life, then the investment in the F136 won’t pay off. So far, though, the F135 has run late, delaying the flight-test program, and over budget. Isn’t it premature to reward Pratts with a monopoly?
Thompson points out that no fighter in the last 20 years (which of course rules out the F-16 and F-15) has had an engine choice. However, the JSF is an unusual case. The planned size of the program can support two engine lines at reasonable rates. The STOVL design is a very stressing requirement: neither thrust nor reliability can be compromised, and the engine is running at maximum power at exactly the point when a failure will cause a rapid departure at low altitude.
Thompson makes the point that there aren’t two radar suppliers. True, but if your radar fails you’re not trying to eject from a jet that’s 100 feet up, falling out of the sky and probably trying to pitch end over end like a Romanian teenage gymnast.
Maybe a sole source is a better idea – but let’s see the F135 on cost and on schedule first.
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LokeWhen will the MMRCA planes be introduced, according to the current plans?
Is it 2013?
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Lokefalcon edge
Some info on the Falcon Edge system:
The Northrop Grumman Falcon Edge internally mounted EW package forms part of the integrated sensor suite (the Falcon Edge EW system, the AN/AAQ-32 navigation and targeting forward-looking infra-red sensor/laser range-finder/laser designator suite and the AN/APG-80 multirole active electronically scanned array radar) that has been developed for installation aboard the Desert Falcon F-16E/F (formerly Block 60) aircraft procured by the United Arab Emirates (UAE). As such, Falcon Edge provides both radio frequency detection and jamming capabilities and is understood to incorporate ‘high-sensitivity wideband’ digital receivers, a digital techniques generator, two forward jamming transmitter Line Replaceable Units (LRU), an aft jamming transmitter LRU and an antenna array that provides ‘entire aircraft coverage’. In more detail, the digital receiver, techniques generator and forward jamming transmitters are located in the aircraft’s forward fuselage, while the aft transmitter LRU is carried in the tail root fairing that supports the platform’s vertical tail surface. For its part, the ‘entire aircraft’ antenna array comprises (from nose to tail):a C/D-band (0.5 to 2 GHz) ‘Compass Sail’ receive element beneath the aircraft’s noseC- through J-band (0.5 to 18/20 GHz) receive arrays on both sides of the platform’s forward fuselageforward-facing ‘high-‘ and ‘low-‘ band jamming transmitter antennas on the aircraft’s engine air intakeforward-facing E- through J-band (2 to 18/20 GHz) active/passive receive rod aerials on the outboard leading edges of the aircraft’s wingsaft-facing E- through J-band active/passive receive antennas in an aft-facing ‘box’ housing on the tip of the platform’s vertical tail surfaceaft-facing ‘high-‘ and ‘low-‘ band jamming transmitter.
AFAIK, the Falcon Edge adaptive cross polarization techs which according to the experts is quite effective to jam some types of radars. Also the system is supposed to be quite good at locating radars; not just the direction but their actual location (i.e. direction + range). But I guess all modern systems can do that now?
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LokeIndia Warns Against Arms Deal Corruption
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4109904&c=ASI&s=TOP
In December 2007, the Indian air force scrapped a $600 million deal for 197 helicopters after allegations of corruption in the bidding process.
The deal had been awarded to Eurocopter, the helicopter unit of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), which makes civil and military aircraft, in February 2007.
Eurocopter denied Indian media allegations about the involvement of middlemen in the project.
Another deal for 22 attack helicopters was scrapped in March, on the grounds that the firms in the race had failed to meet contractual parameters.
Indian defense sources, however, said there were suspicions of irregularities in bidding for the $550 million contract.
Would be very good if they can reduce corruption levels. Send a strong message, kick the bribers out!
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LokeAmazing pictures of vapour cone as fighter jet cuts through the sky
Some nice images:
Edit: ‘For aerodynamic reasons the Super Hornet is especially good at producing these cones.’
What is special about the SH in this respect? :confused:
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LokeAll this discussions about the costs for the MMRCA…
It has been stated in the media that the budget is “more than 10 billion USD”. Does anybody know what this includes?
If I did my calculations correctly that’s approx. 80 million USD pr. a/c (assuming 126 will be bought).
Holland has been offered 85 Gripen NG w. a lot of stuff included for 78 million USD.
I see Austins point about infrastructure, however if the IAF will be given this budget to buy new planes, isn’t it likely that they will spend it? To me this means that it will be between Gripen NG, F16 and SH; Rafale and Typhoon will probably be too expensive.
Mig35: I may be wrong, but I don’t believe it will be as capable as the western stuff.
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LokeI have to smile about the Norwegians, nearly all politicans see the politcal gains from the F-35 selection. Russia and the related problems are a taboo in Norway.
??? “Russia and related problems” are not taboo, to my knowledge. What do you base that on ?
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LokeI think Iran is more advanced than most of you guys care to admit. All you have is estimates because no one really knows what their true capability is.
Take their airforce for example…..until recently it was “common knowledge” that their aircraft were falling apart and that they were cannibalizing their aircraft for spare parts. It turns out that their airforce has in fact been completely overhauled in recent years almost entirely relying on domestic resources…..pretty big achievement for a country under sanctions.
Yes, this may be right… Look at what South Africa achieved, under sanction, with their military development program… Some of the stuff SA developed was actually quite advanced. Iran can probably do the same.
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LokeSo now it seems it is officially confirmed, Rafale is back in the race:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124341126785657703.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Air Chief Marshal Major said also that Dassault has been allowed to rejoin the bidding process. He declined to elaborate.
An earlier bid by the French aircraft maker was rejected by India last month “during the technical evaluation phase of the contract.”
I am amazed at how long it took — make one wonder, what has really happened….
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LokeRegardless of their motives and ability to win support for their opinion it’s still the 2nd largest political party and their opinion adds weight to the long running position by foreign companies, analysts and industry journalists that the Norwegian tender was not done in a professional manner.
Even the pro-JSF Danes scratch their head when looking at the Norwegian JSF costs, for one the purchase price is too low (later revealed to not being a fixed price but just a estimate) and then the operating costs is several times as high. There has also been almost no information on how they came up with their conclusions, not even on a classified gov-2-gov level has the Norwegian state informed Sweden.
Same goes for the Norwegian parliment who has only received a few pages informing them of the decision. So FrP got some honest cause to object being taken for a ride by the socialists.
Per Ove Width (Frp) in the defense committee said it was the thinnest proposition he had ever received in all of his long parliamentarian life.
Just 11 pages.
For the largest material tax expenditure program in Norwegian history.
When he asked about exchange rates since that was not included in those 11 pages the reply was made confidential to the public.
No one except a handful people in the norwegian gov and their consulting firm know how they calculated the prices.
As for F-35 being more capable, certainly for US defense doctrines. I would never accept that my country bought such a failed and costly multirole jet. The fact that Norway who is usally a very open society refuses to present any decent material on the decision making process is quite telling. The only way to make F-35 the winner as a cost-efficient alternative is to manipulate the tender process and selection.
This is just speculations of course, but I suspect the reason they came up with those numbers was to “sell” the F-35 program to SV, one of the political parties making up the current government. SV was very pro-Gripen; they did not care about technical capabilities but price and political/economical aspects only. So an evaluation that would have showed F-35 to be more technically capable but also more expensive would have been an issue to them. When the evaluation showed that it was not just more capable but also “cheaper” than Gripen, SV was shocked, surprised, stunned and completely pacified. They accepted defeat, and accepted the choice of F-35.
SV is a very small party; if they had decided to not accept the F-35 decision they could create havoc by leaving the government; but even this would not have reversed the F-35 decision since some of the opposition parties also support F-35. I think even FrP support the choice of F-35, so this is mainly just a political game from FrP.
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LokeNo, you’ve not misinterpreted it, but if you read the article by Bill Sweetman (linked to elsewhere on this forum), you find that statement misquotes him.
Swerve, I think TGIF was being ironic here… The reason why TGIF brought up this was because Scooter tried to discredit one of my posts by pointing out that I was quoting Bill Sweetman in that post, and according to Scooter one should not quote Sweetman since Sweetman is not a reliable source.
TGIF then pointed out the inconsistency demonstrated by Scooter, since Scooter in another thread had “quoted” Sweetman… The fact that Scooter not just demonstrates inconsistency by first referring to Sweetman and then later on try to discredit me for referring to the same Sweetman, but also actually referred to a misquote of the same Sweetman makes this whole story even more fantastic — almost unbelievable…
TGIF, did I get that right? 🙂
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LokeThe F-35 is vastly overpowered by vertical landing demands related to the F-35C.
It is like driving a car in the city, when no more than 30-40 miles of speed are allowed and a constant stop and go is typical to do.
Installed power does become a burden under such conditions.
A V-8 engine will consume over 10 litre per 100 km (miles per gallon), when a V-4 engine will do the same with under 10 litre easily.
Compared to a Gripen a F-35 does look like a Hummer versus a Volvo V40.
Yes, and we can avoid that problem to some extent by using percentages instead of litres/gallons and km/miles. It was stated that 30% increase in fuel gave a 8% increase in range. If there had been no penalties you would expect x% increase in fuel to give x% increase in range; the rule of thumb is however that for a drop tank you gain only by half; so you would expect a 15% increase in range if you increase the the fuel by 30%. Here it seems we are doing significantly worse.
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