France is the only nation that is ready to help Brazil with a military nuclear engine for subs, that help a bit.

The nuclear sub contract does NOT involve nuclear reactor technology. I think the current treaties forbid that kind of transfer. Brazil already has a nuclear power plant prototype.

Translation by myself: http://defesabr.com/blog/index.php/09/12/2009/fab-estaria-procurando-convencer-lula-pela-escolha-do-gripen-ng/

FAB may be trying to convince Lula to choose Gripen NG

According to unconfirmed info, FAB commander, Brigadier Juniti Saito, have been pulling out big efforts on the last days to demove president Lula of the choice already made in favour of Rafale in the FX-2.

With technical reports in hands, where the main argument is that of Transfer of Technology, FAB would be seeking to convince government that Gripen would be the right choice for Brasil.

To FAB, that should be the criteria on the decision, considering the commercial counterparts offered by USA and France would mean little or nothing of relevance if compared to the importance of the actual transference of technology of a half way project, with much to develop in “four hands”.

There would be a confidence in brazilian military and industrials that the swedish would put FAB and CTA in the middle of Gripen NG development.

It is known that a portion of the national defense industry already commited itself to the swedish project and it is said that companies in the meddle, like Embraer e Avibrás, would be moving also with pressures and aguments, be it industrial, comercial and technological, for the chioce of Gripen NG to help in brazilian defense. A conferir.

Por Roberto Silva

I would like to know also. it appears that the Russians weren’t willing to transfer ANY technology, which bailed them out right from the start. Typhoon was considered expensive and they found its 4 nation composition would make complicated in terms of a ToT agreement. F-16 was never asked for, the RFI was for the F-35 and Lockheed offered F-16BR instead. Which is a pitty, as I think F-16 would fit Brazilian needs better than F/A-18.
Some say an american alternative was left in as some kind of political “nice gesture”, as discarding them from the start would sound aggressive towards a country we maintain a strong relationship within. Also would mean a good instrument of pressure against the other contenders in a way of obtaining a better offer, as american marketing is always very aggressive in this cases…

thanks a lot for this info

do you some background about it ? Like in which newspapers (is News Corp present in Brazil ?)? Did they provide some reasons for this supposed preferences ?

No, alot of them come from Blogs and posters. People who says “a freind of a friend whos is in the military…”
And of course some newspapers, the most pro-american being Folha de São Paulo and O Globo, the same ones who tried to sabotage the acquisition of Submarines and the Nuclear Submarine program with misinformation.
The last rumour, with no source, is that The Rafale offered will be a downgraded version, to comply with the lower costs required by the MoD. I frankly don’t believe in anything more until the official anouncement.

Contrary to what was current practice of U.S. government, Chile received the missiles in its territory. The Chilean Air Force, is currently the most powerful of all the South American continent. On the other side of the scale is the strength of South America that more fighters from France possessed: The Air Force and Navy of Argentina.

Clearly this is a biased opinion. As if the fact for the Argentine ar force being in shambles was for their buying alignment and not lack of money.
That article echoed out here some days ago and is being ignored by everyone but blind american suporters. Anyway, am I to believe SH will be cheaper than Gripen?

You’ve conflated two different types of ship.

LPH – Landing Platform, Helicopter. HMS Ocean is the only purpose-built example of this class of ship these days, though some carriers have either been built or modified for the role (e.g. Cavour, HMS Illustrious – & the CVFs will be), & any carrier can do it, though less efficiently. An amphibious helicopter carrier. Meant for launching heli-borne assaults. No dock. Any landing craft have to be carried on davits.

LHD – the D stands for Dock, & that’s the crucial difference between them. A through-deck amphibious ship with a helicopter hangar & a dock for landing craft, either conventional, or air-cushion. The USN is the largest operator of such ships. Juan Carlos & Mistral are of this type.

The Mistral class is about the same size as the Invincible class carriers. Cavour (one of the ski-jump carriers) is larger, bigger than Juan Carlos.

Excuse my ignorance, but what LHA stood for? Tarawa class was called LHA right? (from the top of my head)

First made in Pakistan fighter to roll out tomorrow

ISLAMABAD: The first state of the art JF-17 Thunder multi-role fighter plane produced in Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC) Kamra will roll out tomorrow.

This will kick start a new era in Pak-China relationship, and aviation industry, an official source told Geo News.

Both China and PAF attach a lot of importance to this project, which is materializing after hectic and laborious efforts spread over almost a decade, sources said.

The PAC has generated all the capability to produce the aircraft locally for its onward delivery to PAF besides materializing purchase orders from abroad.

The JF-17 Thunder a new generation, light-weight, all weather, day/night multi-role fighter aircraft with glass cockpit, hands-on-throttle-and-stick (HOTAS) controls and efficient man-machine interface will ensure a minimal pilot workload.

The maximum speed of Mach 1.6 and a high thrust-to-weight ratio will enable it to perform well in an air defence role.

An ability to carry short- as well as long-range air-to-air missiles lends the aircraft a first shot capability.

In the surface attack role, a variety of weapons – conventional as well as precision-guided, a sophisticated avionics suite along with accurate weapon delivery system, ensure higher mission success rate.

An effective ECM suite will greatly enhance survivability of the platform.

Its anticipated air-to-air refuelling capability will provide the JF-17 with more loiter time to safeguard the frontiers and the ability to deliver the required punch at distance.

It will replace the ageing fleets of A-5s, F-7Ps and the Mirages in the PAF inventory thus fulfilling a multi-role task.

If MiG had developed a simple, single engine fighter like this instead of insisting on MiG-35 they could be taking over the market on poorer countries right now.

Mectron. In co-operation with Selex.

Beat me to it. The only radar in production is the Scipio which will equip the modernized AMX, and possibly, A4s. As a side note Mectron also makes missiles which, while not top-of-the-line, are fairly good for a company that did most research on their own and doesn’t have big sells to the local military. Mectron is also working as partner with a SA team (Denel?) in the development of the A-Darter.