American puppet state, so is only likely to go for a US aircraft. F35A is mega expensive for the role, essentially just doing the role of an F16. Of course, given the huge cost, they are likely to have far fewer aircraft, and this will hurt their capability to hit large numbers of targets.

I think there will be a lot of collaboration, but no joint crewing or sharing, too problematic.

I think PA2 would be happening now if the UK had played ball a few years back. When the French purchased access to the design they were looking to participate in the CVF build. They had realised that they were not going to persuade the UK to build CVF in France so they were looking at a proportion of the super block construction. They were looking to build one or two of the super blocks for each ship in a French yard with final assembly of QE and PoW in a Britain and final assembly of PA2 in France. It might well of reduced costs through economies of scale and the French hoped they UK might be attracted by getting super block and systems work for PA2, they even sweetened the deal by selecting the Rolls Royce MT30 over the French navies preferred solution of the LM2500.

When the UK didn’t bite the CVF based PA2 started to die a slow death as the French navy started to push for their ideal solution and DCN started move in a different direction design wise. Finally with general political dithering its gone into limbo. Nevertheless I bet the French navy were pleased when the UK decided to switch to CATOBAR for the QE class.

Looked more like an attempt to flog Rafales to the UK and hoover up carrier workshare than a genuine desire to collaborate on CVF to me.

And a needed big increase in budget.

Not really. The budget is fine. They just spend it really badly. Put another 10 billion in and the bureaucrats will just p1ss it away on cr@p as usual.

Yep, a majority Tory government after the next election will probably find the money to commission both! 😉

And as it was Labour who were responsible for the utter mismanagement of projects like FRES, MRA4, St Athan and for not boosting the defence budget to cope with the pressures of two wars that resulted in the £36 billion overspend that made severe cuts inevitable, I’m sure you’ll understand why Im not particularly keen at the idea if them getting back in!

No they won’t. Neither are interested in defence spending. Labour will spend big on healthcare, social protections like unemployment benefit and housing benefit, and a big civil service to artificially lower unemployment figures amongst those that bother to vote. Tory’s want small government and big economic growth.

Rafale the best! 🙂

http://paralay.com/paralay_tab.xls

What do you mean by “simultaneous support of radar” and “simultaneous attack of radar”? Typhoon’s radar is larger and more powerful than the Rafale’s at present. With AESA on both they will both get an range increase and will both benefit from AESA advantages. Typhoon may I suspect also get a lower RCS, since it’s AESA will be tilted as per F35/F22, whereas this does not appear to be the case on Rafale. Your total points for Typhoon’s radar is 6, and Rafale’s radar is 8, despite all the facts pointing to Typhoon’s being the more capable.

But to address the topic, there is no real “better”, it just depends on which point in time we are talking about, and what you define as important. Typhoon has faster production, Rafale has slower production, yet I frequently see it touted here by some French members that the latter is an advantage of Rafale, when in reality either could be better depending on the requirements. There are of course also areas where one or the other has a clear advantage, the Rafale is naval capable, and Typhoon’s AESA looks to be superior by a fair margin. Of course with hindsight its easy to say the French should have made a larger radome, or that Typhoon should have been naval capable.

My,my…

How silly, we all know that the Concord_ was suply superior to these two…

Oooh you’ve done it now, they aren’t going to like that missing e 😎

@Tmor
The question IMO is not how it looks but how it is in reality, what is the truth in other words.

Now suppose that the Rafale is actually superior to the Thyphoon? (something I believe perfectly possible), how one is supposed to say it?

Now you can argue that it’s useless to try, which I would agree too.
But let’s admit that it’s then another debat and it’s not easy to treat as trolls those who want to try their chance.
It’s something else to say to someone: “it’s useless to try to show the superiority because it looks trollish” (even though you are convinced) than to tell him: “you’re a troll”.

Fact is that the French who know (Dassault, the pilots, French specialized journalists) seems very arogant toward the EF and there is maybe a reason.

The reason could be that Grandclaudron, Captain Romain and Co have been briefed to say so. Another possibility is that they are sure of the superiority of their machine.

Personnaly I believe in the superiority not because of this or that but because I don’t believe that General Motors would win the Formula1 championship the first year because it’s bigger with more money.
Advanced fighter – like Formula 1 – is a highly evolutionnary business and I’m more confident with Dassault ingeneering smooth trajectory. Simply that.

(in many area of expertise when you are, say, 3rd generation of a material with the same team framework making R&D for 15 years on the same subject, I can garanty you that each gen’ made previous one really, really, … outdated. I can see that during work days…)

Now I agree it’s useless to argue with that on forums, the indian test team are probably aware and we’ll see.

Let’s just hope it’ll be fair or again we’ll won’t know more that time.
I personaly fear a lot EADS dumping with EADS explaining in 2 years during a share holder board: “our results are very disapointing because of Cassidian heavy losses mostly due to the badly anticipated Indian contrat costs…. bla, bla, bla….
…. but fortunately the Airbus results as well as Eurocoptere results have been very satisfying so that overall results is balanced in spite Cassidian losses…”.

But taking a French air force captain’s word on Rafale vs Typhoon (a fighter with massive British involvement and used by the RAF!) is a bit much. Could have asked him who has the bravest pilots too perhaps? “ooh I tink it moost be la Fronch” 😉

I think that Indian MMRCA tender is the best opportunity for Rafale to get the order. They will have to really muck it up to lose it. I have strong feeling that they might try to be too clever on price and that will be sad day for Rafale

If MMRCA replaces M2000 than Rafale would seem the most likely choice.

MMRCA is now Typhoon vs. Rafale. So what’s wrong with discussing the merits of both aircraft ?
I like both aircraft. And since the peeps that clearly prefer one aircraft over the other dig up many interesting news pieces and pictures to prove their point I’m happy.
Sometimes I’m even a bit trolling to steer things up a bit :p

Is it 110% absolutely certain that it is down to Typhoon and Rafale? I was expecting them to drag this out for much longer TBH. That said, I don’t really care who gets the tender, Mig35 would suit me 😀

Wow, thats confusing actually :p btw did you notice that you are comparing specs of Mk1 with mig29k, not considering the possibility that Mk2 has roughly 15-20% higher thrust and increased MTOW? No ?

If LCA were as capable as Mig-29, then Mig-29 would never have been ordered by the IN. Anyway I propose that we move all discussion of LCA and its derivatives to a different thread to keep this one on topic, so if you want to discuss it further then we can do so there 😎

Also, a bit offtopic, but a general question to Gripen supporters. Has anyone heard anything more about the “stealthy” proposed Gripen? Has it progressed from the RC style model or have they axed the idea?

your point was ‘tejas is a LIFT 2nd line fighter’ NOT whether it was medium category or not. the SHAR has an even lower T/O weight than tejas, by your fantastic logic it is a “LIFT second line fighter” eh einstein ? :rolleyes:

So you are trying to tell me what I mean? I think I might know what I mean better than you do! Yes, Tejas is a 2nd line lead in fighter.

of course I wasn’t willing to admit when you posted ‘proof’ of some completely unrelated point. that’s how real life works. when you want to prove point A your provide proof for point A, not unrelated point D. may be that works in kindergarten but not here.

You asked for proof, I posted it, you didn’t like that I’d called your bluff. More correctly I made point A, proved point A, then you tried to falsely attribute point D to me and then claimed my proof for point A did not support point D, but since the point D was made by you there is no onus upon me to prove it.

I am still waiting for ‘proof’ that NLCA is a ‘LIFT 2nd line fighter for Indian Navy’. that it is a light fighter, or that the F-16 is a medium fighter, or that the earth is round and a million other similar irrelevant points DOES NOT constitute proof. clear ? or do I need to type that out slowly ?

And I’ve provided it overleaf. You not liking the proof is not the same as there being no proof. If the proof has to get your acceptance then there is no point in my providing anything since you will just continue to say “insufficient” as there is really no incentive for you to say anything different.

I can’t see much of a point to a straight sea gripen, If SAAB want to take orders away from the F-35 then they really need to be building effectively KFX-201N, I know which of the two I’d rather see as a tornado replacement.

Of course they’d have to get it designed, prototyped and in LRIP in record time.

It may well turn out to be a bad idea though, as they don’t have that much in the way of resources, and they want to develop Gripen NG and perhaps a naval version too. This spreads them too thin and risks making the end result substandard. One could argue that ploughing it all into Gripen NG would yield a much more attractive end product.

the NLCA is ordered after mig-29k, surely, by your unique logic that is proof that mig-29k is not good enough otherwise only mig-29k would have been procured ?

Don’t try to put words in my mouth boy.

all you have done is point out that one is a light fighter and the other is a medium fighter, which everyone and their dog knew already (with the notable exception of you, I presume). that doesn’t make one a main fighter and the other a ‘LIFT second line aircraft’ :rolleyes: is the F-16 a LIFT second line fighter in USAF because it is smaller than the F-15 ? or is it a frontline fighter that occupies a separate niche from that of the F-15 ?

The F16 is a medium fighter, Tejas is not. My point clearly stands.

sheer genius ! is this what passes for proof in ppp-land ? :dev2:

in conclusion, you were once again caught making half-baked comments without proof. some people just never learn.

I presented proof, but unfortunately you just aren’t willing to admit that your original proposition about me was wrong, which speaks volumes about you. I’ve presented facts, you’ve presented nothing except abuse about me, which I think draws this element of the debate to a close, as I’m not going to waste anymore my time with your personal attacks.

lots of speculation in this thread and a form of protectiorism/mistrused

I think this is only alternative if they skip F-35B or maybe F-35 alltogether and probably like in norway, only a way of pushing things in the JSF program.
Who knows?
SAAB is a luctrative company that used to pull big things with small means. With big knowlege of marine equipment.
If this is going SAAB way, the work is needed to stay in britain for certain and a
royalty for future orders, maybe even in NG orders?! This is probably a good case for britain. things Lockh. o Dassul.. will never do.

Anyhow, i think its brave of SAAB pushing this. And certainly they dont think its to much modification at all, as many of you imply. And they probably know more of the buisnesscase than you guys after all 🙂

Also the cost of having gripen as a third fighter isnt as big as you might imagine. Especially compared to extended F-35 and EF fleets as alternative.

Sig, people are getting way ahead of themselves here. I’ve seen nothing to suggest the Gripen naval has put a proper proposal forward for an alternative to F35C. Until they do that it’s hardly worth discussing. We’ve seen SAAB contract lots of work to the UK on Gripen in past years and there have been no orders or prospects of orders from the RAF or FAA!

Gripen seems like a much more logical replacement for Jaguar/Harrier than Typhoon, and a hell of a lot cheaper.

Yes it would, but that’s not what the RAF and RN are looking for so it’s irrelevant.

Nope it only takes to demonstrate that your aircraft can operate from ships.
Building a aircraft carrier isn’t that expensive. It’s big, it’s for the long term, and it’s above all political.
The Sea Gripen is going to keep them busy and even if it doen’t end by anything being built, it shows that they are ambitious.
If they manage to build it so that it can compete with the F35 B, then it’s going to be very good for them. So far nobody know exactly what sea operation does to expansive stealth paint and coating on the long term. The F22 has quite a few trouble operating from land, and since operating from sea is always more complicated it’s reasonable to think that the Sea Gripen might be a solution for european’s navy like Spain and Italy.

Actually “stealth paint” has been used on aircraft for quite a while, including at sea (e.g F18E) and it’s almost certainly been on the F18Cs for many, many years.