Spitfire9@Madrat,
I have to admit that I’m not overly well informed about the political/economical situation in Romania. So if they can’t even pay for planned F-16s, they may end up with nothing. Though I thought that the aircraft would be provided for free.
Almost free – just a few tens of millions each for the refurb.
IMO better to wait then ask for HAL’s phone no. Wouldn’t HAL be happy to supply 20 or so Tejas Mk1’s 3 or 4 years down the line?
Spitfire9BAE plans a Typhoon aircraft assembling plant in Saudi Arabia.
BAE Systems plans to set up military aircraft assembling plant in Kingdom
BAE Systems intends to establish a military aircraft assembling plant in Saudi Arabia, according to Guy Griffiths, managing director international and a member of the company’s executive council.
Speaking to Arab News, Griffiths highlighted his company’s efforts in supplying Saudi Arabia the most modern air defense systems.
“We provided these systems through agreements signed between the Saudi and British governments,” he said, stressing the good cooperation between his company and Saudi Arabia during the past three decades.
“We have started training Saudis on Typhoon aircraft assembling at our plant in Warton in order to establish an assembling plant in the Kingdom shortly,” he said.
Full Story
According to a FlightGlobal article from Nov 2009, 6 had already been delivered in 2009 and a further 2 were scheduled for delivery in 2009 (making 8 delivered June-December 2009).
My question is this: IIRC the Saudi’s are supposed to be assembling the last 48 Typhoons of the 72 ordered. How on earth is an assembly plant going to be ready so that there is not a big delay between the RSAF receiving its 24th Typhoon and its 25th? Perhaps there will be just 1 Typhoon squadron for a couple of years until locally assembled airframes become available?
Spitfire9No real danger of LCA intercepting enemy fighters down south I guess.
Something intrigues me: reservations have been expressed about stationing Tejas Mk1 in areas where it might actually be called into action against a foe. If Tejas Mk1 is “superior” to some or all of the IAF MiG-21’s, are the “inferior” MiG’s stationed in areas where they, too, are unlikely to be called into action against a foe?
Spitfire9Development of what is now known as the Gripen NG began around 2004… Initial estimates put the cost at approximately $230 million but that was considered too high, leading to the formation of an industrial partnership that cut the costs by 60 percent. In fact, the Gripen Demo came in some 15 percent below that budget.
Just looking at the above, it appears that SAAB gives amazing results when it comes to cost:
initial proposed cost: $230 million
proposed cost after some clever thinking: $98 million
actual performed cost: $84 million
Compare that with the something like £50 million (say $75 million) reportedly spent for the UK to delete the cannon from their Typhoons which resulted in it being decided that it would be cheaper to install the cannon but simply not use it!
If I were going to buy a 4.5 generation aircraft with a limited budget, would I feel more confident about costs dealing with SAAB or with one of the other OEM’s?
Spitfire9Thanks for that.
So if the Gripen NG were delayed – for example by the radar not being available on schedule – the Swedish air force would be prepared to lend a squadron or 2 of their C/D aircraft to India for a year or 2? Would it be worth the trouble of training pilots, maintenance personnel etc on the C/D for such a short period?
Spitfire9Still the risk of delays is probably not zero. To alleviate this one could tell Sweden that one will check the progress in e.g. 2012. If there are delays of more than X months, then Sweden will deliver in 2013-14 a number of Gripen C/D that will be used as stop-gap until the NG arrives.
Do you know how many C/D aircraft are sitting on the ground excess to requirements?
Spitfire9I wonder how much of the Gripen NG SAAB will end up making.
It looks like SAAB has contracted to produce a significant proportion of the Gripen NG airframe in Brazil. This contract was apparently won by Brazilian aerospace interests against Indian aerospace interests.
http://www.akaer.com.br/ingles/programs/gripen.php
“Saab has contracted Akaer to participate in the Gripen NG development.
For this contract Akaer teamed with other Brazilian Companies under the T1 consortium.
Development and production activities involve the central and rear fuselages and main landing gear doors.”
Should the Gripen NG end up winning the MMRCA competition, I presume that construction of a much more significant proportion of the airframe will be undertaken in India (wings + forward fuselage?) which leads me to ponder on what parts of the Gripen NG will be produced in Sweden. Boeing with the 787 has to some extent become an assembler, assembling modules created in Italy and Japan. In SAAB’s case, the company appears to be heading towards farming out manufacture of large chunks of the aircraft and assembly, too.
As I understand it, Swedish Air Force NG’s will mostly be conversions of C/D frames, so I am starting to wonder if there will be any need for a Gripen NG assembly line in Sweden at all.
Will SAAB’s NG activities in Sweden shrink to design and testing, integration of new weapons+avionics etc and conversion of C/D frames?
Spitfire9I interpret the meaning as; future cooperation between SAAB and Akaer to build Gripen wings is not serious… (because Akaer has no experience of building fighter(wings))?
NOAS
From the Akaer website:
http://www.akaer.com.br/ingles/programs/gripen.php
“Saab has contracted Akaer to participate in the Gripen NG development.
For this contract Akaer teamed with other Brazilian Companies under the T1 consortium.
Development and production activities involve the central and rear fuselages and main landing gear doors.”
Spitfire9Even the current Tejas is better than the upgraded MiG 21 Bison and in an ideal world should replace it. But it has certain performance issues and is underpowered especially at lower altitudes, now IAF will have to live with the LCA for decades to come so can’t really blame them for waiting it out till the plane matures.
I understand that one does not want to be landed with operating a unsuitable aircraft for decades.
The MK2 is make and break for the LCA if it is good as its paper specs it will be ordered in more numbers than what is being pledged now. If it fails to meet the specs we may only see a token number of orders just like with MK1.
As I understand it (a) Mk2 has to perform as required or it will only receive token orders from a reluctant IAF (b) ~125 unimproved MiG-21’s are due for retirement.
If Mk2 is not going to be available in time to replace those retiring MiG-21’s what is IAF to do? Could IAF extend use of non-upgraded MiG-21’s? If not, would a reduction in squadron numbers until enough Mk2’s had rolled off the line be acceptable? If not, then I guess IAF might have no option but to order something else.
Sounds like there is every reason to do whatever is required to get the Mk2 right and to do that as quickly as possible. If the intakes on the Mk1 leave something to be desired, I suggest pulling EADS or whoever in to get them right for Mk2 (and anything else that is beyond the capability of DRDO).
This is why many folks have a not so favourable view towards the F-16 and Gripen as the MRCA, because if the MK.2 fails to meet its stated performance requirements the IAF may just order more MRCA to fill in, easier done in the case of single engined less expensive fighters.
And if the Mk2 fails to make the grade, it is better that the IAF has bigger problems maintaining its numbers?
There is no good reason that Mk2 should fail to meet performance criteria nor that it should be unavailable when required. I think that Mk2 should be given “urgent” status, external expertise should be sought where required with appropriate funding allocated and a fast track system should be introduced to ensure it is available to IAF ASAP.
Spitfire9If it was so simple for Selex why waiting so long ? There must be a reason. Use your common sense
I believe that it was delay by the Eurofighter partner governments that led to late availability of AESA on Typhoon. IIRC initial AESA development was undertaken on a private basis (ie without government funding). I imagine this was because Eurofighter foresaw problems marketing the Typhoon without an AESA but knew that an order would be forthcoming eventually from the partner governments.
Spitfire9Bhaisaab, IAF claims that the refurbished and re-engineered MiG-21 is much better than the crude flying machines they originally got from Soviets. Its mid-life structural upgrades were touted to have made it as-good-as-noo.
I am confused. I thought LCA was supposed to replace MiG-21’s. If the MiG-21’s have been considerably upgraded and given mid-life structural upgrades making them as-good-as-noo, what will Tejas be replacing – any MiG-21’s that have not received mid-life structural upgrades?
Spitfire9yes you do, there is no partner seriously planning not buying the f-35, including UK and dutch which is what i think you are hinting at
The Dutch are reconsidering. The Brits have the worst govt finances since World War II and must be reconsidering. The UK govt has decided that the current position of public finances is untenable and that drastic cuts in expenditure are absolutely necessary. The items on the spending agenda to receive closest scrutiny are those projects involving the biggest government outlay. Where future UK defence spending is concerned, F35B would be a very, very big ticket purchase.
by the way our SH are costing $90,000 an hour @ 200hr per yr
If that figure includes all costs – design, build, all costs associated with operating the aircraft, the cost of each SH would be $90,000 x 5000 = $450 million over a life of 5000 hours. Can that be right?
Spitfire9They could ask for a similar fighter, yes, but not one that will cost the operator $160mil (because that is what I think about F-35B’s flyaway+support cost)
The real threat for F-35 is not double digit SAM (no triple digit SAM exist as we speak), but economic reality. 😉
I think cost is the real threat for F-35 export customers. The slippage in the program combined with the LRIP price disincentive to order means that customers can find themselves in a very difficult position: if they don’t order for delivery when planned, that creates problems; if they do order for delivery when planned, it’s too expensive. Even more so now that many governments have severe budget problems and are not likely to allocate extra funds to cover high LRIP prices.
Spitfire9😮 My bad, yes 6% not 0.6% 😮 – to be fair the only way I can see it raising the cost is based on the fact that when the suppliers and LM calculate their costs they have to depreciate any capital expenditure (new plant and toolings for example) over the number of planes built – take a stupid example – say that supplier A is making special washers that cost them $1.50 to make in raw materials, and labour and need 1000 per F-35B or 550,000 for the whole production run, but to make the washers they spent $1.1 million on new plant and they have a 10% profit margin then they will agree a contract with LM for washers at a cost per washer of $3.85 (the plant capitalisation cost of $1.1 million divided by 550,000 washers = $2 per washer plus $1.50 = $3.50 plus 10% profit margin gives $3.85 a washer).
Now if LM changes the order to 400,000 washers then Supplier A now has to charge $4.68 per washer (plant capitalisation of $1.1 million divided by 400,000 = $2.75 a washer plus $1.50 = $4.25 plus 10% profit margin gives $4.68 a washer)
Thanks for taking the trouble to explain why each F-35B should cost more to build if the UK does not order its projected 150.
Spitfire9Why?!
As long as no special production line for the F-35B is set up nothing will change by that. The production cost for every F-35B are the same in general, when it comes to the relate man-hour to built one. Each production line has an optimum value related to the output per year in month. You run in problems only, when you have an oversize production line and an related overhead. :diablo:
With a small optimum production line the worst thing for the customer maybe, he has to wait a little bit longer sometimes for some surplus orders.
Sorry, I think I should have talked of the flyaway cost. I think that the cost per component for a run of 600 wiill be lower than the cost per component for a run of 450, so even if the cost of assembly remains constant, the flyaway cost will be higher.
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