You do realize that EF2000 cancelation atract after it a huge ass penality and retirement of the 200% contract offsets …
for a 1.9Bln $ , EF2000 cancelation of ferm order (which is the case of Austria) is 1.5 Bln $.

Does Armed Neutrality ring any bells?
See Swiss example in WW2… It would be very costly for anyone to attack then..

Is plain Simple ..Si vis pacem…para bellum …

anyway on ACIG (c) there is an article about the why EF was picked… I suggest you to read it.. and also read Tom’s Cooper POV on the matter in the forums

http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_476.shtml

For once Austria took a good decision to buy actual modern planes … and the result is… we don’t need them… 🙂 …only UK MoD decision resemble this kind of thinking 😉

Both the R-40RD and R-40TD are developments of the original R-40 “AA-6 ACRID,” created after the original missiles technology were compromised when Belenko defected to Japan in a MiG-25 in 1976.

Belenko compromise the radar at most, but the plane was unarmed. No such thing as R-40 was compromised.

Russian had to update the radar. This ment that the weapon system (keep in mind that any new plane for russians where considered a new weapon system) had to be updated to match the updates of the radar. :dev2:

Can any western aircraft do that….????? 😉 this is called “Cobra Pugachev”….

Which is an absolute useless combat maneuver… Airshow Stunt :diablo:

Well SA-5 contribued to that too…

But the price is still lower than the Polish F-16 purchase, even without the interest payments which Poland is paying. So all he does is emphasis how much cheaper a Gripen is than an F-16 block 50. A bit careless, picking an example which disproves your own claim. 😀

The USA lent Poland the money to buy the F-16s, & Poland will be paying it back until 2015. That’s a similar timescale to the Hungarian Gripen lease-to-buy deal, so comparing the total payments ($4.7 bn for 48 F-16s, including interest) probably gives as good a comparison of prices as we’re likely to get.

actaully you are far off… Poland payed that amount for planes/spares/weapons/training.
Hungary pay that for planes/training.

Why go through such big modifications just to get one more hardpoint? Wouldn’t it be better to just re-arrange the hard points on the fuselage instead? I’m thinking Mirage 2000 and Rafale style here? Or perhaps just modify the landing gear doors so that the open differently, giving more room for multiple stores racks?
It just seems so unnecessary.

Dude …it ain’t that simple… a plane is no LEGO(R) … any change to a hard point generate a change in plane structure…requiring lot’s’a calculations/testing/certification . after the structure is changed …plane is going through various testing with various ammo to see if the new possitions didn’t changed the plane characteristics.
and that is for a hardpoint position change…
imagine what is needed for a change in landing gear position…or change of a engine…