Sweden, Brazil Pursue Deeper Cooperation With $4.7B Gripen NG Deal

http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/2015/10/24/sweden-brazil-pursue-deeper-cooperation-47b-gripen-ng-deal/74415116/

Interesting to see that it is now expected that ‘about 29 of the 36 aircraft on order will be fully manufactured in Brazil.’

He wants to make room for ice-breakers, which may not be a bad idea,
but that implies something significantly cheaper in total cost than F-35 can conjure

I guess that the F-35 is seen as simply gobbling up too much of the defence budget to be worth considering. One doesn’t want one’s military capability to be skewed towards some holy flying cow (or anything else). And what happened re: potential cost figures being far higher than those being cited (don’t remember by whom) would hardly have instilled confidence in cost projections.

The state-run arms procurement agency is drawing fire for allegedly lying about the terms of a contract on the transfer of technologies in a 7.3 trillion won deal to purchase 40 F-35 stealth fighters.

When the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) signed the deal with Lockheed Martin in September last year, it said it would receive 25 core technologies from the U.S. firm, along with the aircraft, and use them to develop indigenous fighter jets.

However, it admitted Tuesday that it could not receive four of the technologies because the U.S. government did not allow Lockheed to transfer them.

It is alleged that DAPA was already aware during price negotiations with the U.S. firm that the transfer of the four was unlikely.

Additionally, the transfer was not included in the official terms of the contract as Lockheed just promised to seek government approval for it under the offset agreement.

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/release/3/167178/korea-procurement-agency-under-fire-over-f_35-deal.html

Korea’s Fighter Jet Program Hits Turbulence As Washington Rejects Transfer of Core F-35 Technologies

Excerpt:

The U.S. government refused to honor Lockheed Martin’s pledge to transfer four core technologies in return for sales of 40 F-35 stealth fighters to Korea, posing a threat to the nation’s project to develop its own fighter jets.

“The U.S. government rejected transferring the technologies for security reasons,” an official from the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) said Tuesday.

The four technologies are the multifunction, active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, infrared search and track (IRST), electronic optics targeting pod (EOTGP) and RF jammer.

The failure to receive these is feared to hamper Seoul’s project to develop its own warplanes, according to Rep. Ahn Gyu-baek of the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD).

During a National Assembly audit session, Rep. Ahn argued that Lockheed promised to hand over a total of 25 technologies related to the stealth fighter, including the four, to Korea as an offset program under the 7.3 trillion won deal, signed in September last year.

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/article-view/release/167101/us-refuses-f_35-tech-transfer-to-korea.html

My take: don’t trust the USA when it comes to buying arms. You can commit to a timely purchase of a US military product then discover too late to switch to another supplier that the US Congress doesn’t think you should get what you thought you’d agreed you were getting. Still, we are talking South Korea – which needs US military support – so the reality is that the USA can do more or less what it feels like doing with no come back.