For the one off customer that is interested in a dedicated recce capability the best approach would be to work with the existing, and integrated multi-mission pod and leverage a mature sensor that can be integrated with it. The US and most other operators will rely on (either organic or coalition) ISR assets (either manned or unmanned) so something that can be easily integrated will be the proffered choice of 1 or two potential operators that may want something organic to the F-35.

It would have been interesting to know what configurations were used in the Danish eval. They also had the Danish F-16 in the eval as a reference point, and the F-35 compared favorably to the Danish F-16 which, I believe, would normally fly with recce pods from Terma:

https://www.terma.com/surveillance-mission-systems/mission-solutions/airborne-tactical-reconnaissance/

Interestingly the F-16 and Typhoon were roughly in the same ballpark in terms of mission effectivness — Typhoon slighly above in NTISR and F-16 slightly above the Typhoon in SCAR! I wonder where Rafale would have been in this chart!

Details on AdvEOTS has not been released yet.

Advanced EOTS looks like it’s on par with RecceLite XR.

If details have not been released yet how do you know it is going to be on par with RecceLite XR?

Just to remind people, here is a (auto-translated) version of the Danish summary report:

http://www.f-16.net/forum/download/file.php?id=25979

Note the 30-year life time costs on page 10: 61 billion DKK for 38 two-seater SH vs 71 billion for 34 (single-seater) Typhoon and 42 billion for 28 (single-seater) F-35. Clearly the Typhoon looks much more expensive than the SH and F-35; My guess would be that the Rafale would be somewhere between the SH and Typhoon.

If you take into account that the SH can be operated for much longer than the Danes assume (9000 hours not 6000), replace the two-seater with the single-seater, and make a comparison with the same number of airframes, I am not so sure if the F-35 is much cheaper — however the Typhoon then would start to look even more expensive compared to the SH.

But most importantly the structure of the former MMRCA tender is completely different than with Switzerland. India required to replicate the whole rafale Supply chain locally…Apple and oranges comparison you make.

I think you missed the point — my point was that Dassault demonstrated in India how they are good at “selling a car without tyres” in the sence that they are presenting a price during the competition that was very low and then later on when they were selected gradually started to releveale the “real price” of selecting the Rafale. This is not a comparison of the cost structures in different competitions but pointing to a strategy that was used in India by the French. I see no reason why Dassault would not try to use the same strategy in other competitions.

How well they “succeed” with such a strategy will depend on how well the customer is able to structure their competition, asking the right questions, etc. etc. I suspect the Swiss may do a more thorough process when looking at the details of the costings (after all they are Swiss!) and thus they should get a better picture of the real cost of each option than what they had in India or Brazil for that matter.

As for F-35 and Recce: Spudmanwp is one of our local experts on F-35, if you disagree with him it would be nice to see some links to back up your statements…

Why do you think SH would be less expensive than rafale ? If I recall well, during the Brazilian evaluation Acquisition costs for SH was indeed a bit lower albeit not by a huge margin but operating costs were higher. Total Life Cycle cost was pretty similar. Not too mention also that in the rafale offer France would certainly offer to share its rafale support facilities to the swiss due to the proximity of the two countries & main rafale AfB just a few minutes of flight from swiss border – 15 minutes at cruising speed ? (like in the previous competition + training airsapce etc…). there are many potential synergies to leverage in order to optimize costs. Secondly, I thought that the SH was not included in the previous assessment as it was deemed “too big”. I am pretty sure to have read it some years ago.

I don’t think the F35 wouls score automatically better as Switzerland is not planning to invade China etc…In a defensive role the FR35 is not an ideal platform to scramble & intercept a foe. It depends of the technical evaluation & criteria. If the F35 does not have the kinetics to perform an itercept in a test scenario properly, it will not succeed despite its stealth & sensors. Same for reconnaissance where it does not have a dedicated pod like RECO-NG. If the frame of the previous competition remains I would not say it is the favourite.

SH has been produced in larger numbers; however perhaps more importantly many of the components are shared with other products; also, on a technology level technologies are shared with other product lines; in addition there is more competition in the US defence industry than in the French, leading to greater efficiencies.

As for the Brazilian eval: we learned from the Indian MMRCA competition that the numbers presented by the French were very, very optimistic, this is one of the reasons why the MMRCA was cancelled I believe (The Indians realized it would be much more expensive than what they anticipated on the basis of the MMRCA competition). I would be surprised if something similar was also not the case in Brazil. For various reasons I believe that Boeings numbers were closer to reality both in the Brazilian and Indian MMRCA.

It is a good point though that there can be synergies between France and Switzerland, so perhaps the difference will be less than what one would expect..

The story you linked to yourself was claiming that SH is in the race…

As for performance, the F-35 will score at least as high or higher than Rafale. For Recce pod: AFAIK F-35 will not need one, the integrated sensors will be more than adequate. Hardware and software upgrades will be needed of course however since the F-35 will be the main fighter a/c of the USAF, USN, and US Marines (and the UK, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, etc.) you bet that over the entire life of the F-35 it will be equipped by the best sensors money can buy, and at quite affordable cost.

Only Gripen will be able to compete on costs, however Gripen will be in an entirely different league when it comes to performance. If they keep requirements low then Gripen will meet them and will probably win. However if requirements are increased then Gripen will be out; Rafale may still be in but my guess is it will still be more expensive. Let’s wait and see.

Check this story, there’s a poll included: https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/schweiz…story/29587506
Rafale, which was favoured both by military and general public back in 2012, is in the lead again. I think it’s between Rafale, F-35 and Gripen.

A poll on a news site is hardly going to influence the decision…?

SH and F-35 did not participate in the previous round competition, so how do we know where they will end up?

The main issue with Rafale and Typhoon (at least from my understanding) was the high cost. I doubt they have managed to reduce the costs significantly since the previous competition. I may be wrong.

According to the Danish competition the Typhoon was more expensive than the F-35. The SH was closer to F-35 in cost, however in the Danish competition they had specified only 2-seat versions of the SH which are more expensive to operate than the single-seat SH.

So unless the SH fail to meet the technical requirements it should be ranked above the Rafale and Typhoon due to lower costs.

F-35 will be ranked first on technical specifications, and it will be cheaper than either Rafale or Typhoon. The question remains; will be “sufficiently cheap”? Dassault tried to argue that a smaller nunber of Rafale could do the same work as the specified number of Gripen. LM can use the same argument, however with a smaller delta in costs it will be more likely they will succeed. Politics may stop F-35 of course (if it is perceived as “too agressive”). The SH could be a compromise between cost and technical requirements if politics prevents F-35 from winning.

Gripen will most likely be cheaper than F-35 and SH, however will the delta be sufficiently large? I doubt it — perhaps if India orders Gripen they will be able to reduce the costs, but without a sale to India I am not sure the delta will be large enough.

Of course I may be wrong; perhaps the SH will not meet the technical requirements, they may well be at a higher level than for the previous competition. If that’s the case then also Gripen will be out and it will be between the F-35 and Rafale, however I doubt they will put the bar so high as to exclude the SH (although this may happen to Gripen which was very close to fail on meeting technical requirements during the previous round).

Swedish defense and aerospace company Saab AB SAABF, -0.80% said Tuesday that development of its new Gripen E fighter jet was ahead of plan as the company reported a sharp rise in third-quarter earnings.

The larger, upgraded version of the Gripen fighter is due for delivery in 2019 and first flew in June. Since then, the plane has logged more than 20 flights and last week flew supersonic for the first time, Saab Chief Executive Hakan Buskhe said in an interview.

Work is also underway on additional test aircraft and the first production models, he said.

Read more: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/saab-profit-up-gripen-e-jet-project-ahead-of-plan-2017-10-24