Spitfire9F-35’s Power and Thermal Management System (PTMS, but also known as IPP – Integrated Power Pack) combines the capability of an emergency power unit, auxiliary power unit and environmental control unit into a single package. The PTMS can provide electric power to the flight controls and jet’s systems to allow a dead stick landing.
However, the F-35 flight test program has not yet developed or tested dead stick landing procedures. Until that testing is completed and the results find their way into the emergency procedures, dead stick landing is not authorized.
Just curious – when is dead stick landing scheduled to be tested? Throwing away a $100 million aircraft that you might be able to land is quite an expensive exercise.
Spitfire9Polish Air Force MiG-29 and Su-22 Jets: Successors to Be Selected By 2022 (edited)
I guess F/A-18 will definitely be out of production by 2022; F-16 almost certainly (unless India buys the production line); Typhoon probably (Eurofighter could try to organise closing a number of assembly plants to slow and extend production + a reorder from Saudi Arabia remains a possibility to extend production). Gripen E, F-35 and Rafale will still definitely be in production. Any chance of Scorpion surviving long enough to be offered?
Spitfire9In the context of a program the size of the F-35 these costs aren’t significant and it ensures that every plane is brought up to the full production standard specified by the project with no orphan planes.
Consider for comparison that the Eurofighter program produced ~150 Tranche 1 Eurofighters out of a total production run of around 600 jets…
Agreed about Typhoon. How could whoever was responsible agree to build an aircraft designed without provision for its mechanical radar to be replaced with an AESA radar at a later point?
Spitfire9Wrong. Nobody ever claimed the increase from U$ 4.5 billion to U$ 5.4 billion was due to exchange rate. The REDUCTION of the value in USD AFTER the signature was due to the exchange rate because the contract was signed in SEK and not in USD.
Let me put in portuguese for you:
A REDUÇÃO do valor (em dólares dos Estados Unidos) DEPOIS da assinatura do contrato foi devido a flutuação da taxa de câmbio, já que o contrato foi assinado em coroas suecas e não em dólares.
Indeed.
Who cares whether the equivalent value in Egyptian pounds, $US, euros, Moroccan dirhams etc goes up or down after the contract is signed? SAAB receives no less/more krona, Brazil pays no less/more krona. If the $US dropped 90% in value against the Swedish krona so that the $US equivalent of the deal rocketed up to $50 billion or so, it would not make the deal any more expensive for Brazil.
Spitfire9The concurrency costs are proving to be a non-issue. All you are seeing is that the F-35 learned from the Eurocanards and built upgrades for the early airframes into the program’s planning and budget. That is why there are no Tranch 1 F-35 equivalents or Rafale F1s that need to be overhauled at great cost or relegated to reduced roles.
I thought there was a $30 million cost per airframe upgrade contract for the F-35’s produced so far. That’s not a non-issue to me. It’s not like it’s a mid-life update cost. It’s more like a get the damned thing to work cost, isn’t it?
Spitfire9Good question. I guess they could buy back some from South Africa if they want to downsize their Gripen fleet. But have the South Africans made any attempts to sell of any of their Gripens?
And I guess that Saab could build new airframes and offer Brazil as temporary solution until Gripen Es becomes available. But this would probably be quite costly for Saab unless they can find a buyer for these “surplus” machines later.
I guess it’s up to Saab and Brazil to really work out a solution. If the contract stipulates that Brazil will have access to Gripens before deliveries of new built Gripen E starts this could be a bit tricky (and costly!) for Saab.
I am sure I read that Gripen C/D production is continuing (in anticipation of an order from Slovakia) so perhaps SAAB is prepared to take the risk of building new C/D aircraft in the expectation that they will be able to place them with a buyer or a lessee. I guess that if they are required to supply Brazil with a small number of Gripen C/D, they are reasonably confident that they will be able to sell/lease them to another customer when they are no longer required by Brazil. I still wonder if they are not talking to South Africa about buying some aircraft back.
Spitfire9Part 1/2
There are several contradictions in this variation of the contract value, once when it has been challenges of the obligation to 100% of ToT ( Transfer of Technology) from Gripen NG to Brazil, this rate of 100% ToT could not be achieved since the main systems are not from Sweden.
However when it has been questioned the contract with Brazil the Gripen NG has becomes 100% Swedish, without any foreing part of the others countries where the currency are not the SEK.
If the main systems from Gripen NG are not from Sweden, then its cost can not be calculated only in SEK, however if this has been done it because that systems are from Sweden, so Brazil should have been access to 100% of technology of those systems.
.
After all there are important items that are not from Sweden as F414G engine and AESA radar Raven ES-5, among many others as can be seen in this post below:[ATTACH=CONFIG]245047[/ATTACH]
The important aspect is not what I should be know about it, but the fact that contract has been back to the original amount of the US$ 4.5 billions from 2009.
In my humble opinion I think there are several contradiction in this, after all between 2009 to 2016 there are variations in the exchange rate every single day.
Transfer of TOT: SAAB does not own a lot of the technology used in Gripen, so cannot transfer it to Brazil. Does that mean that Brazil will not be able to design and build a fighter in the future? If that is the case, how come SAAB has managed to build Gripen?
You say: ‘If the main systems from Gripen NG are not from Sweden, then its cost can not be calculated only in SEK…’ Do you think that a washing machine designer/manufacturer using a pump from Germany, a motor from Taiwan, glass from China for the door, nuts and bolts from India quotes a price broken down into 4 different currencies? No, the manufacturer quotes a price for the washing machine in 1 currency. Additionally, the manufacturer does not change the price every second because the value of the different currencies it pays for components varies every second.
Spitfire9I don’t think I got the joke.. but okayy.
My bad – not reading things closely enough.
Spitfire9I think it is April 1st in India.
Spitfire9Can anyone provide a reliable & complete breakdown of Gripen stocks? How many of which model in existence & who owns them.
Someone did give an almost complete breakdown not so long ago (2 or 3 months ago?), probably in this thread.
Spitfire9I haven’t seen anything about this in this thread, so I thought that it could be worth mentioning.
Last September the Swedish minister of Defence (Peter Hultqvist) said that no more Gripens belonging to the Swedish Air Force would be lent out or leased to export customers. The Swedish Air Force needs all airframes themselves. This is also the opinion of the commander of the Swedish armed forces, Michael Bydén.
Hultqvist basically says in the interview that it is up to Saab to find a solution if thay want to offer Gripens to lend Brazil before they can get deliveries of the new aircrafts.
(In Swedish)
http://www.metro.se/nyheter/hultqvist-lanar-inte-ut-gripen/Hdzoiu!n@UQKqL6wtj1QhAVPffyrw/EDIT: and I see now that this was just mentioned by Spitfire9 in the post above. :p
Does that mean SAAB will have to build new C/D aircraft to lend to Brazil until Gripen E can be supplied? They could buy some back from South Africa, couldn’t they? Perhaps they are already talking to SA about that in view of the reported problems with their air force’s finances.
Spitfire9Correction to my previous post regarding Bulgaria possibly leasing Gripen C:
Sweden has said it will no longer lease Gripens from its air force inventory, so Saab has begun production of new JAS 39C/Ds, initially in anticipation of an order from Slovakia. The company hopes a Slovakian deal will encourage Bulgaria and Croatia to acquire Gripens and share support.
The article also says: ‘Bulgaria is looking for up to 19 aircraft in a procurement expected to be worth around $500 million.’ I wonder how many new Gripen C/D + support + spares can be procured with such a small budget.
Spitfire9Bulgaria will spend about BGN 2.42 B (EUR 1.24 B) to keep airborne its MiG-29s fighter jets and acquire new warplanes as well as patrol ships under a defence procurement investment plan approved by the government, the Defence Ministry said on Wednesday.
The cabinet approved the three investment projects earlier on Wednesday.
The investment project for securing the airworthiness of at least 10 Russian-built MiG-29s (eight MiG-29A plus two MiG-29 UB combat/trainer version) will be implemented in 2016-2017, the Defence Ministry said in a statement.
The acquisition of new combat aircraft will be made in two stages. A contract for acquiring eight aircraft from 2018 to 2021 will be signed by the end of 2016. Another eight aircraft will be acquired between 2022 and 2023.
If that is it budgetwise, no way can Bulgaria buy new-build fighters. If second hand F-16’s cannot be procured, the other obvious candidate is second hand Gripens. I imagine Gripen C is the most likely choice, specially since SAAB can offer to lease if required.
Spitfire9Sorry. That post was meant to be (weak) joke implying they were buying fighter jets for pleasure, cost no bar. Anyway, forget about it.
No trouble. My weak sense of humour meant I didn’t see you were joking. :stupid:
Spitfire9You may already have a Ferrari in the garage, but you can still put a Lamborghini next to it, no?
True but you buy those for the pleasure and interest of having 2 somewhat different cars to drive. Air forces don’t buy 2 similar types because the pilots find that more interesting. It’s a bit too expensive…
Of course my garage contains neither but then I’m not a sheikh in the world’s richest country.
,,,but as you say, perhaps not for the very richest states. And if the rulers need to, they can come up with reasons why having 2 different types (although representing desperately bad value for money rather than having one) is advantageous – currying political favour with the supplier country, each type being more capable than the other in some ways, if one type is grounded temporarily, the other is still operational etc etc.
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