Spitfire9actually the better fit would be the Qatari Mirage-2000-5s as opposed to the UAE ones. they have 11 of those and they have plenty of hours on them left having been used quite lightly, so they’d get 11 for the 12 the FAB has currently.
the IAF evaluated them and found them worth purchasing but the price negotiation didn’t work. They were costly though- close to $40 million each, but Qatar was willing to sell their MICAs with the fighters and spares as well.
Well, if Eurofighter were to do a deal with Qatar (before Brazil’s M2K’s run out of hours / Brazil decides to invest in life extension), I presume they would be available. $500+ million would solve a pressing FAB problem and buy time for further prevarication on FX-2.
Spitfire9the problem is that the gripen NG is nowhere near being ready, and, besides, it would require a whole supporting infrastructure to be built/bought…. with the M2k Brasil already has everything it needs to support them, hardware and trained crews, so it would be “simply” buying the airframes and using them (possibly training for this or that specific equipment if necessary, but it’s peanuts compared to getting a completely new aircraft)
The simple solution would be to buy some ex-Armee de l’Air M2K’s, wouldn’t it? I suppose that France would not want to do that if Dassault thought it would jeopardise a possible sale of Rafale in the near future.
Spitfire9It would make sense for Dassault if it could tie the deals together, but I don’t see it being possible, even if Dassault was very keen. The problem is that it would need the commitment of the UAE to buy Rafale, & a commitment from Brazil to buy the M2Ks, linked so that Dassault didn’t end up with 60 M2Ks & no customer.
It would take a three-way deal, & so far even two-way deals have proved elusive. It’s too much complication.
It is not that complicated to do such a deal. You make a binding contract to supply agreed goods and services to UAE and to buy agreed goods from UAE subject to confirmation by a certain date. You then make a contract to sell the M2K’s to Brazil before expiry of the confirmation period in your contract with UAE.
Spitfire9not so sure, as brasil wants ToT, and for that, Dassault is still in excellent position. The deal with brasil would be delayed, that is for certain, but considering the orders between france, india and UAE (who would obviously have to order the rafale for the deal to work that way), at Dassault they would have enough work to do until Brasil orders their next aircraft
If I were in Dassault’s place (which I am not) I would go for a deal where I took the UAE M2K’s and sold them to Brazil as part of a Rafale deal with UAE. That would open up the possibility of supplying Rafale to UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman, possibly receiving orders for 100+ aircraft which would keep the assembly line operating at a good level (in terms of economic assembly cost) for many years.
With the possibility of assembling more than 18 aircraft for India due to MiG-21 retirement being necessary and Tejas supply being limited to 40 in the next 5 years, I foresee Dassault assembling 30/40/50 Rafale for India. It would be convenient if Brazil delayed introduction of new fighters until 2020+.
Another advantage I see: by 2020 Super Hornet production may have finished (and Typhoon) so that the only competitors for a deal in Brazil would be F-35 and Gripen. LM TOT would be very limited and F-35 promises to be much, much more expensive than Rafale to buy and operate so I don’t see F-35 getting the deal. That would allow Dassault high profit margins in its offer to Brazil. As for Gripen, what need if you already have several squadrons of M2K?
However, I doubt Dassault see things my way…
Spitfire9M2K line ceased to exist years ago, but they still could buy a few mirages from the French (even if most of these are quite old as well), or eventually buy UAE Mirages as an interim solution, buying probably up to a decade to decide what they want to do. As they already have the pilots qualifies to fly them, infrastructures to maintain them, the investment wouldn’t be too costly. They are, even for the oldest ones, in excellent condition and very well equipped and one can be sure they’d get a full support from the french to whom that may (re)open the possibility to get the UAE to buy some Rafales.
of course, to get them soon, the negotiations between Dassault and UAE should go fast, but as the two major points on which the negotiations stalled were the selling of these Mirages and the overall price, this market may encourage Dassault to make a better offer (with indian market, the UEA one and possibly the brasilian one to follow, it may be much easier for Dassault to propose rafales at quite a competitive price, by now.. )
The problem I see with Brazil acquiring UAE M2K’s is that while it might help Dassault clinch a small Rafale deal with UAE, it might also end the prospects of a much bigger Rafale deal with Brazil.
Spitfire9France is a reliable and flexible military equipments’ supporter, until it believes that it can get much more benefits from being loyal to your enemy.
The ethics of the more powerful countries cease to be of any importance when inconvenient to their “national interest”.
Remember Mirage 5 ? A fighter that had been originally developed for the specific requirement of Israel airforce, but it was finally sold to several Arabian air forces with hundreds of units, and was then used to bomb against Israel during the yom kippur war of 1973.
To be fair to France, unless they had an agreement with Israel to only supply Israel, why should they only sell to Israel?
Spitfire9The Dassault offer has to be ignored anyway.
If that is the rule, that is the rule.
There is a wonderfully partisan article cited in the Brazilian FX2 thread:
http://www.opex360.com/2012/09/24/suisse-dassault-aviation-propose-le-rafale-au-prix-dun-gripen/
Talking of Gripen being selected, it mentions (attributed to the paper Matin Dimanche):
– criticism of the financial risk
I cannot recall reading of any contract with lower financial risk than the deal SAAB offers (zero risk of price inflation)
– the engine will burn more fuel than anticipated
Not quite sure how an engine with known fuel burn rate will burn more fuel than anticipated
– They say “What’s more Gripen E’s for the Swedish air force will be assembled using parts from earlier versions”.
Not quite sure how that is an additional criticism (“What’s more…”) of the Swiss choice of the aircraft. I don’t recall SAAB proposing to assemble Swiss Gripens using parts from earlier versions.
The article also mentions that Dassault and Eurofighter have revised offers. One Eurofighter offer is for 22 second hand Typhoons at a price of 2.2 billion!
Spitfire9See post #7.
Have now, thanks. Missed that unfortunately.
Spitfire9Ever heard of loss leaders?
Ink jet printers. To parallel them with aircraft, they are like fighters that cost $10 million to buy but $5 million to refuel if you actually use them now and then.
Dassault matching Gripen’s price? They would be supplying an ink jet jet, I suspect. OK, I exaggerate but Dassault has a reputation for high in-service costs, n’est-ce pas?
Spitfire9basically, she’s decided…. not to decide… again 😀
While the delay must leaving FAB in a more difficult position (“When will we get something?”) it will be interesting to see how Brazil views the Dassault offer to match Gripen price in Switzerland as that story unfolds. Perhaps the negotiators on the Brazilian side will get an idea of how low Dassault’s lowest price really is. Still, Dassault would make up for being forced to offer a lower price to get the deal in other ways, no doubt.
Spitfire9I think we can all sit back and relax for a time. Extract from AviationWeek:
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has decided to wait until mid-2013 to make a decision on a multibillion-dollar Air Force jets contract…
http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article-xml/awx_09_24_2012_p0-499444.xml
Spitfire9Maybe because no aircraft has been eliminated? You conveniently left out this part of the article
[..]
Rodzali denied that Gripen and Sukhoi were no longer considered for the MRCA programme as “we are still evaluating all of the aircraft”.
He also denied that RMAF had ranked the aircraft in the technical evaluation.
[..]Full article here: http://www.thesundaily.my/news/497484
I left out most of the article to avoid copying too much.
If it is untrue that “Gripen and the Sukhoi Su-30MKM were eliminated from the MRCA programme following technical evaluation by RMAF test pilots. ” – according to sources the newspaper used – then the newspaper’s sources are unreliable.
The following from newspaper sources may also be untrue: “They said the three top contenders, namely Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet, Dassault Rafale and Eurofighter Typhoon, would compete for the final stage of the programme, where their transfer of technology packages and off-set offers would be evaluated before the winner is selected.”
When the newspaper’s sources claim “the air force could only procure 12 jets if it opts for the Super Hornet, Rafale or Typhoon.” they may be wrong, too.
However, that would explain why a lease of 18 Gripen is being considered.
It is possible that all 5 aircraft under consideration will go through a full evaluation even if it has become clear that 1 or more has already “failed” the technical evaluation. Perhaps the newspaper’s sources are right. Perhaps they are wrong.
Spitfire9Chosing Gripen E is the best choice if you do not want to receive anything in the next 10 years.
It will be difficult not to receive anything in the next 10 years since Gripen C/D will be supplied on a temporary basis. That fact means that there is virtually no risk that Switzerland will have to keep F-5 in service longer than planned due to delay in Gripen E/F arriving.
Spitfire9I see zero Rafale deliveries from HAL before 2016. The current MiG-21 numbers are close to 150.
Thanks. Does that mean that IAF fighter numbers (and the number of fighter squadrons) is near minimum now and will be rising by 2017?
Spitfire9There are not 450 MiG-21s being retired at this point, the fleet had dwindled to a much smaller number.
I suspect the peak number was below 450 in service.
My mistake, sorry. If you know, roughly how many MiG-21 are still in service?
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