Spitfire9F-35 Needs More Government Investment To Achieve $85 Million Goal
http://aviationweek.com/defense/f-35-needs-more-government-investment-achieve-85-million-goal
Examples of cost saving opportunities:
Right-sixed aluminum bulkhead forgings (F-35A) – $65,000/aircraft for $652,000 invested
Near-net forging for tailhook component (F-35C) – $30,400/aircraft for $298,000 invested
I can’t really grasp how such massive savings in relation to the capital needed to effect them have not already been made. Take the first example: savings of $65,000,000 in manufacturing 1,000 F-35A at a cost of $652,000 invested… yet it has not been done??? It seems like defence contractors don’t have much idea of how to run a business efficiently. Or should I say, have little interest.
Spitfire9Indian Navy Retires Sea Harriers
Spitfire9Artists are creative. Arms manufacturers are largely destructive, intent on devising means to destroy what humanity has built or created. Arms manufacturers might be creative in seeking to come up with ways and tools to destroy things but never let them liken themselves to the creative geniuses of the last 1000 years. I find the choice of ‘Leonardo’ as a brand name pretentious, very inappropriate and in extremely bad taste. But then who ever said marketing people suffered from taste?
Spitfire9First: it doesn’t seems as if they are advancing much. Last time we were shown some manufactoring shots, they were nearly at the same stage of assembly
Secondly: some Image still are rather messy. There are plenty to point at. I don’t understand why they show this. Swiss industrial are usually attentive to precision manufacturing (they lag in other field).
They lag in Gripen E assembly, too. 😉
Spitfire9He gets the very basics of the program in question wrong. He gets the basics of ARMs in service with the IAF and those WW wrong. Then he quotes anonymous sources alleging the above things.
A bit of straight forward reasoning is required here. What credence does any journalist have if he makes such basic errors in his claims?
How is the editorial policy that it allowed such rubbish to get tge headline??
Also dont ypu find it the least bit suspicious that the mans track record is all about claiming local programs will invariably fail and imports will be made (except when they arent). Suffice to say most indian journos writing on defense wouldnt know a mortar from a motor and this gent is even beyond those limits. His so called sources are in all likelihood as credible as less than 100kg ARMs in aervice with the IAF.
If the writer does not know his facts technically, he should not be employed IMO.
The military do, however, keep a lot of things close to their chest. Especially when something is going wrong or has gone wrong. Journalists do need to talk to people who leak information. People who (for obvious reasons) do not want to be identified. All sorts of incompetence in the procurement process is hidden in the interests of “national security”.
As for this journalist (or various other Indian journalists) having an anti-local procurement agenda, that’s the prerogative of editorial writers to me. Agree with you there.
By the way, I have not received a response to my email to the journalist concerned.
Spitfire9Its never going to be better. All the stuff planned for the Mk1A is also planned for the F-16V. Similarly, the F-16 will never be better than the Rafale. The Tejas’ USP is its cost effectiveness. At less than half the cost of a new build F-16C/D (and cheaper than a Mirage MLU) if its provides 80% of the capability, its an ideal purchase for an air force looking for a bump in numbers.
+ 1
Focusing on unnecessary leaps in performance (vs increasing the production rate) is a counter-productive idea.
+ 1… unless performance falls so far short of what it should be that the aircraft is of very little use in reality.
But it seems to me that all LCA has to do is match or surpass MiG-21 for it to be an adequate replacement on a 1:1 basis. If there is a looming crisis with fighter numbers, the faster Tejas Mk1A are produced, the better IMO. What matters to me is not the potential capability of aircraft to be delivered an unknown number of years from now but delivering aircraft with adequate capability ASAP.
Spitfire95. “In 1917, when the United States abandoned its isolationism and sent a division of troops to France to fight in World War I, it was not because there was some document with a clause that required them to fight. It was because of a common strategic aim. New Delhi and Paris must have a common strategic aim on the Rafale.”
IIRC American citizens were being killed by U-boat attacks on shipping in WWI. France was under attack from Germany. Common strategic aim was to defeat Germany. What common strategic aim do France and India have with Rafale? Would India come to France’s aid with Rafales if France were attacked by Russia? Would France come to India’s aid with Rafales if there were hostilities with Pakistan? Or China? Perhaps I’m being naïve (or just ignorant) but I don’t see the nature of a common strategic aim on Rafale.
Spitfire9You have a point. But making LCA better than F16 will be gradual.
Everything with LCA is gradual. Very, very, very gradual. 😉
Spitfire9* Saab is currently working hard to sell the Gripen in “countries such as Croatia and Bulgaria,” and the Swedish government is negotiating with Slovakia on eight planes.
* A contract for at least 40 planes are expected to start in Finland.
* A contract on the 30-36 plan, expected to launch in Belgium.
* A previously interrupted procurement in Malaysia are expected to resume this year.
* Indonesia procurement of fighter believed, unlike what has been reported in the media, remains open. “I think we have a good chance, and we have a good dialogue with Indonesia,” said Richard Smith and mentioned that the country is considering combining fighter purchase with the purchase of radar systems.
* Saab has been in Colombia for discussions, because it intends to replace its aging fighter fleet.
* India: Saab have considerable hope that the recently declared intentions of cooperation under the motto “Make in India”, published by Prime Minister Stephen Löfvens and Saab’s CEO Håkan Buskhe’s visit to the Indian Prime Minister in mid-February will lead to something.
Switzerland was not mentioned, but during a question and answer session after the presentation said Richard Smith, Saab believe they have a good position ahead of an expected and decided resumed fighter procurement process, which is expected next year or possibly the year. A formal contract in progress not yet explain why it was not included in the review, he said.
I guess Slovakia will buy Gripen C (nobody else has a stock of cheap, surplus to requirement airframes available).
Ditto Croatia (lease? purchase?)
Colombia – is the SAAB spokesman talking about Gripen E? If he is, when would any be available from the Brazilian assembly line?
In the end I think Switzerland will buy Gripen E. A number of Swiss are opposed to any replacement whatsoever for retiring fighters. Others, I think, will grudgingly support replacement with a more capable fighter but will want the cost to be as low as possible. On those grounds I think that the best chance for the government to avoid a veto in a referendum is to opt for Gripen E. Given that the electorate can challenge any proposed procurement, what minimum requirements the air force considers any candidate must meet to be considered for selection becomes largely irrelevant to me.
India – only if Tejas Mk1A proves a disaster (development looks like it will not be finished for years and years/ proves not to fulfil requirements)
Hmm, rather optimistic I think. Belgium is a NATO country which has operated F-16 in close collaboration with other NATO F-16 countries, in particular the Netherlands. Current F-16 users within NATO are switching to F-35, I would be surprised if Belgium also does not do this (and rather operate a smaller number of a/c).
+1
Spitfire9Prague pays some 1.3 billion krona (US $53 million) annually to operate 14 JAS-39 Gripen aircraft enabled with 2,200 flight hours per year.
Interesting info. Fixed cost per flying hour for the equipment used looks like $US53,000,000 / 2,200 or around $US25,000. Might sound a lot but over 20 years the cost of having a squadron of functioning light fighters would be about $US1 billion. That compares very well to buying the aircraft to me. I wonder why Slovakia has opted to negotiate a purchase instead of a lease.
Spitfire9A senior French official with a close view of the on-going negotiations between New Delhi and Paris for 36 Rafale fighters told Business Standard on condition of anonymity: “If some people in the MoD do not want to allow the Rafale deal to go through, so be it. We are currently building it for Egypt and Qatar, and we could have another customer in Malaysia.”
Malaysia? I thought UAE were negotiating to pass their M2K’s to Iraq so they could buy a decent number of Rafale.
Spitfire9Instead of sounding things –
1. Look for NGARM specs. Deviates from above report.
2. Look for ARM weights. Deviates from above report.
3. Look for credible, public sources alleging statements about ARM procurement for the IAF. There are none in the above report.Given 1-3, anyone sensible would conclude the report is junk.
Question is why didn’t you do this basic digging?
OK, I didn’t dig. Sorry. I assumed that the report in defencenews was factual.
It said: ‘…Indian Air Force (IAF) officials say the missile is too bulky…’
You’re free to challenge the veracity of that statement. I didn’t. When I was a journalist you would need to justify contentious copy to the editor. If you could show the editor that what you wrote was accurate in its factual content, it passed. If not, it was not published. The journalist reports that Indian Air Force (IAF) officials say the missile is too bulky. There are 3 possibilities here:
1 Indian Air Force (IAF) officials did not say that
2 Indian Air Force (IAF) officials did say that
3 the journalist misunderstood what Indian Air Force (IAF) officials said and incorrectly interpreted that they said the missile was too bulky when they were not in reality saying that
I’ll email Vivek Raghuvanshi at Defense News and ask him if he stands by what he wrote in that article, shall I? Not being trite there. I will email him and see what response I get.
Addendum
The journalist quotes a senior IAF official – “DRDO has never kept us in the loop about this missile…” Either the journalist is making it up, has defective hearing whereby he misheard what was said (impossibly unlikely) or what he has written is correct and accurate. The latter is perfectly good journalism IMO. I will ask him if he maintains that he quoted verbatim what his interviewee said.
Spitfire9Lockheed Funds Suppliers to Keep F-16 Fighter Line Going (excerpt)
(Source: Reuters; published March 15, 2016)
By Andrea Shalal and Idrees Ali
WASHINGTON — Lockheed Martin Corp is using its own funds to pay suppliers and stave off the closure of its F-16 fighter jet production line as it waits to finalize orders from Pakistan and other countries, a company official said on Tuesday.
Spitfire9Where were you the last 4 years… ? the “No Thank you” was already done in 2012.
Both Rafale and Typhoon were rated as meeting requirements. India elected to negotiate a deal with Dassault on the basis that through life costs were projected to be lower than with Typhoon. But it transpired that IIRC some 60 items had not been included in projecting costs. The situation has changed in the last year with Dassault winning orders that represented 4+ years production at the then minimum viable rate of 11 aircraft a year. A contract with India is no longer critical to getting the production rate up to a more economic level so I think Dassault is in a position to push for a higher price to supply Rafale to India. In view of Eurofighter production contracts with partner countries nearing completion before 2020, I think Eurofighter are under pressure to secure more contracts. To me that means there should downward price pressure on Typhoon.
In addition, there are 4 assembly lines for Typhoons. I think the only reason the one in Spain is still open is because the penalty contracts for cancellation signed by the partner governments make cancellation of orders very expensive. Wouldn’t it make sense to shut assembly down ASAP (or the one in Italy) and sell the assembly line equipment to India for a song? Partner governments save money by not buying aircraft they cannot really afford (due to government debt problems), India gets a cheap production facility and Eurofighter sells more aircraft overall than if they did not get an order from India. I assume that a number of assembled aircraft would be supplied to India from one of the other assembly lines while production was being set up in India.
Spitfire9If you read the link, India wants the french government, instead of banjs who normakky provide that service, to be financially liable for Rafales performance and availability rates, which, depending also on Indian maintainance, isn’t under french control, so the french refuse to be directly liable to that.
Question: in rhe case of Typhoon, who will accept to bear that liability?
No sane company will accept that liability. It is a ridiculous demand to make. Short of the French government taking the liability on for political reasons, it’s not going to happen without the supplier guessing at what the liability might be and loading the price accordingly, possibly to a level that is unacceptable to the customer.
The question to me is why there should be an issue with serviceability. If Rafale serviceability in French forces is within the normal range, what’s the potential problem with Rafale serviceability in India? This is not a BringAnotherEngine146 scenario where it was apparent that the engines used on the BaE146 regional jet had serious reliability issues. India would have contracts for Rafale parts supplies just as there are for M2K parts supplies. If there are not issues with serviceability levels with M2K in IAF service due to the supplier not providing contracted support in a timely manner (eg failing to ship parts on time), why should there be with Rafale?
In other words, what the f**k is the problem that needs to be covered by guarantees from the French government?
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