Saab is to continue to offer upgrades to the Gripen C/D combat aircraft to maintain the type’s capability out beyond the introduction into service of the latest-variant Gripen E, a company official disclosed on 10 March.

Speaking during a media tour of the company’s Linköping production facility near Stockholm, Lennart Sindahl, head of the Aeronautics division at Saab, said that a series of enhancements for the Gripen C/D will be rolled out for those countries not intending to sign up for the Gripen E in the short- to medium-term, but that the overall package is not yet fully defined.

“We will continue to develop systems, such as the [Ericsson/BAE Systems] PS-05/A radar, to improve capability and to satisfy future customer needs,” he said, adding: “The international users [of the Czech Republic, Hungary, South Africa, Thailand, and the UK Empire Test Pilots School] will be operating the C/D long after Sweden [has moved on to the Gripen E], and we need to look after them.”
The Swedish Air Force (SwAF) is about to begin upgrading its JAS 39 Gripen C/D fleet with the MS 20 block upgrade, which will be the last before the Gripen E begins to enter service from 2018.

These block upgrades, which are rolled out about every three years, are designed to keep the Gripen at the forefront of capability without the need for in-depth modernisation work. As part of the MS 20 work, Weapon System 20 includes integration of the MBDA Meteor beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile and Boeing GBU-21 Small-Diameter Bomb; improved radar modes; a digital close air support capability; increased Link 16 connectivity; civil navigation enhancements; chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) protection for the pilot; night-capable operations using the SPK 39 Modular Reconnaissance Pod II; and a ground collision avoidance system (GCAS).

According to Sindahl, Saab is currently in discussions with Malaysia and has received interest in the Gripen from Botswana. Other export hopes include Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Indonesia, Latvia, Lithuania, Peru, Portugal, and the Philippines (conversations with Canada in relation to an alternative to the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter have come to nothing and been discontinued, Stindahl noted). He was unable to say at this time precisely which countries are interested in the Gripen C/D and which in the Gripen E. Saab is aiming to sell between 300 and 450 Gripen C/D/E aircraft over the next 20 years, which Sindahl said equates to approximately 10% of the accessible global market.

Saab said that, apart from being a highly capable aircraft, the Gripen’s chief selling point is its affordability, in terms of development, acquisition, operation, and through-life sustainment. Speaking at the same media event, Lars Ydreskog, VP Head of Aero Operations, Aeronautics, said that the Gripen E cost 30-50% less to develop that did the Gripen C, and that the Gripen Next Generation (NG) demonstration programme had been completed at just 40% of the overall predicted cost.

The current twin-seat Gripen NG (company serial number 39-07) will continue system trials and the development of tactical systems, before being joined by the first single-seat Gripen E (39-08) in mid-2015. This aircraft will be used mainly for airframe and general flight control tests, with a second single-seat prototype (39-09) joining the programme as a tactical systems testbed in 2016. The third and final single-seat prototype (39-10) will fly as a production standard airframe in 2017.
The SwAF is set to begin receiving its Gripen E aircraft in 2018, as is the Swiss Air Force (subject to a national referendum on the subject). Brazil is due to receive the first its first aircraft within 48 months of the contract being signed. Negotiations are ongoing and are expected to be completed by the end of the year.

Read more: http://www.janes.com/article/35119/saab-to-offer-gripen-c-d-upgrades-pushes-exports

DJC – You are going to have to engage in some form of roll-back, F-35 or not. The IOC spec was written against a 1995 perception of a 2010 threat; even then, you are not going to magically go it alone against an IADS (even the F-117 did not do that in 1991, against a much older threat).

I think this is a very interesting question to discuss, however it is probably difficult since a lot of the information is classified.

It was interesting to see that France sent Rafale in to Libya very early in the conflict, wheras countries with e.g. F-16, F-15, Harriers etc. waited for the cruise missiles to break down air defences quite a lot before sending in a/c. Were the French much less risk-averse? Or was it the fighter that made the difference?

One could argue that the threats in Libya were not that great since the systems were old — however to my knowledge there were some credible threats there initially, and also; if there were no threats why use all those expensive cruise missiles and B-2s before sending in the 4.0 gen fighter jets!?

No doubt one would feel safer in an F-35, however, it seems the Rafale performed pretty flawlessly against such systems. There is also a report that the Rafale was the only a/c that could operate in the vicinity of an (admittedly somewhat old) S-300.

My question then becomes: If an advanced fighter like Rafale can handle “old” SAMs successfully, and if the F-35 may need to resort to stand-off if faced with the most modern SAMs on this planet (e.g. S-400/500 and future versions yet to be developed) how much extra safety and capability does the F-35 really buy you in realistic scenarios? It seems silly to invest all those money in a stealthy F-35 if at the end of the day you still end up using stand-off weapons because the risk remains too high.

In the last 10 years we have seen one fighter reach IOC the F-22, four fighters in development. They all share four characteristics : internal weapons, airframes shaped for reduced radar signature, embedded antennas, AESA radar.

Agreed but there are a few fighters you don’t mention; the light-weight fighters, like the Korean FA-50, and the Indian Tejas. Korea and Turkey also have plans for new domestic fighters; it is not clear yet what level of stealth they will be going for. It is a cost-benefit assessment.

In all fairness, Rafale does have some interesting jamming techniques, which makes it less vulnerable than the average US “4. gen” fighter…

Of course I don’t think it is anywhere near the F-35 in survivability however there are a lot of indications that the Rafale will be much more survivable than e.g. the F-16 block 52+ and probably even the SH (w.o. Growlers…)

Here lies the origin of the SPECTRA concept, which most modern EW suites are only now emulating. Far from being a simple “situation Awareness” suite, SPECTRA is capable of offensive actions. It has 3 AESA highly directional jamming antennas allowing deception jamming. The possible types of jamming involved have been extensively discussed on the net and are highly classified. We know it uses a DRFM (Digital Radio Frequency Memory) chain and “intelligent” jamming instead of “brutal jamming”. False range targets, velocity gate pull-off, and narrow band Doppler noise created by using digital RF memory (DRFM) are the common coherent EA techniques which can be used effectively against LPI radars23. Simply put, it is able to feed enemy radar with wrong data about presence, location and number of planes. It acts as an illusionist instead of using noisy, blinding “projectors” (“broadband white noise jammers”). Furthermore, depending on conditions, SPECTRA is able to detect and localize potential threats accurately enough to allow a shooting without using active (detectable) sensors. Some interesting results nevertheless leaked to specialized press, here are some:

· While flying over Libyan air defenses (before the Libyan air defense system was suppressed by tomahawk salvo), Rafales planes “poofed” from enemy radars31.

· During NATO Mace XIII exercise in Slovakia, a Rafale B flew unmolested over a S300 radar (and was the only type engaged in the exercise able to do it)21

· During Joint warrior 2013-1 exercise, rumours say SPECTRA literally gave headaches to Eurofighter’s Captor M radar, preventing it from tracking visible and detectable Rafales.

http://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/2014/03/05/the-rafale-as-canadas-next-fighter-part-2/

Brazil’s decision to choose the Saab Gripen E (formerly Next Generation-NG) multirole fighter for its 36 F-X2 combat aircraft programme was based on a 28,000-page document prepared by a “highly competent team of technical experts”, Brazilian Air Force (Força Aérea Brasileira – FAB) commander Lieutenant Brigadier Juniti Saito told IHS Jane’s .

“The government decided to follow the technical advice of the Brazilian Air Force. We had a team of aviators, engineers, area maintenance personnel, and project management specialists working on the project for years,” Brig Saito said.

“They examined the three proposals on offer from the French Dassault Rafale, the American Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, and the Swedish Gripen, and came to the conclusion that the Gripen was the best technical aircraft for the FAB.

“Saab also had the best price. The Gripen is tremendous value for money and has low maintenance and fuel costs. As managers of public resources this was important but it wasn’t the deciding factor,” he said.

In the document FAB experts estimated that the price per flight hour for the Gripen is in the region of USD4,000. The figure for both the Boeing F/A-18E/F and Rafale models is around USD14,000.

http://www.janes360.com/images/assets/343/34343/20feb4.pdf

Quite big difference in the price per flight hour.

Can you point to any professionals who have proclaimed the F-35’s all-round superiority who are not working either for the contractors or for governments who committed to the program when the expected price was half the real number?

Was the Israeli airforce committed to the program when they expressed their strong desire for the F-35?

Or what about the Korean air force? The Japanese air force?

Another thing to keep in mind is that although you could say that you don’t believe people in the Norwegian, US, UK, Dutch, Italian, Turkish air forces because they are “committed” already; if there were some doubters in there about the F-35 capabilities don’t you think there is a pretty good chance that at least one or two might “leak” and for instance anonymously express their doubts through media? Or even leak assessment reports as we saw in Switzerland?

I have said before and will repeat it; IMHO the main issues with the F-35 is not in the capabilities but rather in the delays and increased costs. Thus you are much more likely to see politicians and bean-counters complain about the F-35 than pilots. Pilots that have seen the F-35 are in general very happy about what they see. It will not be perfect but still a huge jump in capabilities compared to what’s out there today. Hopefully the jump in cost will not be as big, because if it is, it will become unaffordable, and that is the main issue not the technical specs of the a/c itself.

In the age of cruise missiles, having a single air base = having no air force if attacked.
Norway’s best defense is it’s alliance with USA, but with a single air base, that no doubt is the primary target,
-where would USAF deploy ?

A number of air fields scattered all over Norway will be able to receive and handle F-35 should the need arise.