Spitfire9These radical improvements in agility at low speed, do these occur at speeds at which air combat ever takes place?
Spitfire9F-35 isnot the only choice but it sure better than Rafale, Typhoon, F-15
I didn’t realise that anyone objective thought F-35 was a better fighter than Rafale, Typhoon, F-15. Perhaps you’re not being objective?
Spitfire9…if you’re comfortably situated in some other part of Europe such as Switzerland (or a secure part of Asia, like Sri Lanka), then rejecting the F-35 makes perfect sense but ordering another fighter jet can only be driven (internal) political/nationalist factors rather to meet some military/security need.
Mmm… that sounds a lot like nonsense to me. You seem to be saying that if you are in a secure area eg Switzerland (and are not under threat) a non-F-35 choice makes sense but if you need to meet some military/security need, you must have F-35. F-35 is not a particularly good fighter compared with Rafale, Typhoon and F-15 so why is it your only choice?
Spitfire9Off topic. Is it possible for Eurofighter have over-the-wing pylons for drop tanks? It will free up 2 heavy hardpoints under the wings for the 2000lb laser bombs instead of drop tanks. Just to have 5 heavy hardpoints like the Rafale.
IIRC BAC did it with the Lightning. I doubt the wing was designed with a bit of forward thinking so it would be easy to adapt for drop tanks. If they could adapt the Lightning wing to do it, could Eurofighter?
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Spitfire9The Buisiness Case process allows customers to define requirements and present them to the rest of the partners, they can proceed if no one elde joins or share funding with other interested customers. Capabilities developed are already being shared recovering some funds from partners who buy in later and in other cases mutual support agreements are used to exchange certain capabilities in return for receiving stuff from other partners.
The basic flaw I see with the single partner developing systems that are then offered to other partners is that unless those other partners pay their full share of development cost, it is in their interests to wait and let some other partner bear the cost of development. For example, partner A spends 200 million on development of a system; another partner buys the system and contributes 33.33 million towards development costs; other partners later chip in their 33.33 million. The country funding development has only recovered 50% from the other partners that have benefitted from the development.
It’s a little like F-35. Who would want to order F-35 at LRIP prices when they could get them later for a much lower price? But without customers buying LRIP F-35’s, the point at which full scale production at prices reflecting that is pushed to the right.
Spitfire9Eurofighter’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) has welcomed a new report by the UK’s Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI) to be launched today in London (July 6th) as ‘positive and encouraging’.
It’s positive and encouraging and negative and discouraging.
It’s not really a RUSI report in the sense that the report says (p14):
The views expressed in this paper are the author’s own, and do not necessarily reflect those of RUSI or any other institutions with which the author is associated.
Spitfire9Well, to start off, its not a dog. Former ACMs Fali Major and PV Naik have both gone on record stating that its a top notch aircraft as per all IAF personnel associated with the program, including test pilots (who know best) and, much much better than the MiG-21.
I’ve even quoted their exact words on the Tejas thread to dispel the myths being propagated by a media that sometimes serves as a mouthpiece for vested interests. Believe me, the Radia tapes blew the lid on an already well known fact- how the media served corporate interests, both Indian and Western. And we all know how much is at stake if the LCA program to be canned- its worth tens of billions of $ for foreign OEMs.
The problem as of now is how to get HAL to ramp up production fast enough to be able to deliver the first 40 in a compressed schedule. the new LCA-Mk1 P with Elta 2052 AESA that is being planned as an interim to the Mk2 will act as a bridge and hopefully the IAF will order enough of those to justify the ramp up in production capacity.
And for the few parameters where the LCA Mk1/Mk2 may fall short of the Gripen C/E, it kinda makes up for it with a much cheaper price tag and affordability is key for the IAF to be able to get anywhere near 45 squadrons.
Understood that there are loads of vested interests briefing against Tejas. I have to say, though, that India had a window of several years in which to make provision for a higher production capacity than that that was implemented. Steps were not taken in the large window that was there. That has simply exacerbated the problems.
Spitfire9There isn’t going to be any complete re-design. the Tejas Mk2’s design has been frozen and detailed design work is underway. Any change in the design now would totally derail the timelines. There isn’t going to be a Gripen clone in India, that much is for certain.
It will be a relief if Mk2’s design is not unfrozen by revised thinking as to what it should do. In an environment where decision making is slow the last thing you want where system development can take years (and typically does) is an inability to commit to a requirement and implicitly a design.
It does not matter too much if Tejas Mk1 is a dog providing it’s less of a dog than MiG-21. Where Mk1 is concerned I would say it should be produced at a high rate of knots to start alleviating the looming squadron strength problem. At least 20 a year. Based on historical performance Mk2 will arrive several years later than envisaged in which case Mk1 production can be used to help satisfy the need for light fighters until Mk2 is eventually ready to go into production.
It doesn’t matter too much if Tejas Mk2 falls short of Gripen E either. What matters is that it is an indigenous platform which is (a) cheap to develop (b) cheap to manufacture (c) cheap to fly.
Spitfire9Swedish Defence Minister Peter Hultqvist Coming (to India) with Gripen NG Fighter Aircraft Offer
Spitfire9The F-35 will hardly be any more expensive than Japan’s Mitsubishi F-2 fighter, that is one thing for sure.
True, but the F-2 was absurdly expensive.
Spitfire9Thinking about Vietnam, would the UK’s tranche 1 be offered??
I was thinking about that. According to this Reuters article at http://ca.reuters.com/article/idCAKBN0OL04U20150605?rpc=401&sp=true Vietnam is concerned by Chinese expansion into areas of the South China Sea claimed by a number of states. The country also wants to become less reliable on Russia for defence equipment. France seems to be out, presumably for being the ex-colonial power. I guess there are reservations about buying US on sovereignty grounds. It only needs US to want to cosy up to China for Vietnam’s interests to be dropped like a hot potato if they are in conflict with China’s. Think of how USA treats Taiwan.
Thing is that Vietnam has about 50 Su-30 aircraft and is looking to retire 100 or more MiG-21. A medium weight fighter would make the air force much stronger but would affect the hi-lo weighting of heavy and light fighters very considerably. KAI F/A-50 or Gripen would do more to maintain the character of the air force.
Who knows, though. Could be Vietnam is prepared to up its defence spend quite considerably to beef up its air force in view of political tensions. Tranche 1 Typhoon might just prove to be the answer.
My guess is that SAAB is particularly well placed since it can offer a light fighter replacement in Gripen as well as maritime patrol and AWACS all from one source.
Spitfire9Not 5G as in gravity. 5G as in mobile networks.
Spitfire9This is more about Indian defence sector –
As a major game changer, Government of India has withdrawn excise and customs duty exemptions presently available to goods manufactured and supplied to Ministry of Defence by Ordinance Factory Board and Defence PSUs vide Notifications No. 23/2015-Central Excise and No. 29/2015-Customs dated 30.04.2015.
This will provide a level playing field to Domestic Private Players bidding for the Government contracts by taking away the strategic advantage with PSUs for quoting lower rates in open bids.
How could GOI have engineered a situation which would entrench non-competitivity in the PSU sector, resulting in GOI paying more than it would do otherwise? This is one of the most ridiculous examples of structural stupidity I have come across.
Spitfire9The irregularity of F-135 unit costs, and their annual variance, is illustrated in the table below, compiled by Defense-Aerospace.com from figures released by the DoD Inspector General:
F-35 engine unit costs by annual production lots
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Defense-Aerospace.com analysis of DoD Inspector General data
The irregularity of these price variations makes it impossible to predict future prices, and clearly contradicts long-standing promises by industry and Pentagon program management that unit prices would drop steadily as production ramps up.
It is worth noting that, at the present cost of around $30 million, the F-135 engine alone represents over one-third of the cost that the Joint Program Office (JPO) expects for an entire F-35A aircraft in 2019.
Is anything being done to fix the engine cost problem?
Spitfire9Eurofighter Typhoon – Now An Even Stronger Force Multiplier
Bit of promotional stuff from Eurofighter Gmbh pitched at Canada –
The key messages that the Eurofighter Team in Canada will be delivering to CANSEC centre on the fact that the aircraft can fulfil all the nation’s foreseen operational scenarios, economically benefit the Country, and guarantee air dominance for the 21st century. The Team will also be highlighting that the aircraft is fully interoperable with US aircraft and other NATO countries.
Germany Seeks to Sell Eurofighters to India…
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