Spitfire9More detail about successful F-35C carrier trials:
Spitfire9Senior Canadian government officials say Canada will under no circumstances be purchasing F-35s on an expedited basis and that no decision has been made on which new warplane to buy.
Spitfire9In this case the possibility could be that in 2019 there will be two production lines of the Gripen NG f, in Sweden and other in Brazil.
That is the plan.
Should make it easier to offer reasonable delivery to any new export customers. Switzerland voted not to replace their F-5’s with Gripen E. If they do not want to rely solely on F-18 they will need to address F-5 replacement again. I foresee Gripen E being the selected airframe again. It could replace F-5 and F-18 later on, making logistics much simpler. Then there’s a potential order from Vietnam, isn’t there?
Spitfire9In 2019 should be installed a production line in Brazil, and 15 aircraft would be manufactured untill 2024, then before 2019 would be none prototype from Gripen F ,even if the design process could be complete in 2019 anyway there will not be a production line to manufacture a prototype from Gripen F before 2019…
…However the problem in my humble point of view with this plan would be this: : if the development program from Gripen F delay the production line in Brazil will be halted until the development phase could be finished, since there are only 7 Gripen E that could be manufactured in Brazil according for the contract already planned between 2019 and 2024…
…Can anyone see any possibility of cancellation of this production line in Brazil with only 15 Gripen NG scheduled so far?
I agree that with only 7 Gripen E scheduled to be produced for Brazil between 2019 and 2024 and Gripen F very unlikely to enter production from 2019, the FAL would have very little work. However I doubt that Brazil’s main concern is the viability of the FAL. Big inefficiencies in the early years of production will, I imagine, be an acceptable price to pay as part of the process of setting up a fast jet design and production capability.
Thre is, however, an aspect that you may have overlooked: if SAAB is going to supply 21 Gripen E out of initial Gripen E production, this will result in a reduction in the number delivered to the Swedish AF. It may be that some Brazilian Gripen E production could be for the Swedish AF to make up for the production diverted for the FAB. It would make sense in terms of smoothing production rates for SAAB and Embraer.
I don’t know anything about producing aircraft but it seems to me that producing Gripens in Brazil at a rate of 2-3 per annum would be very uneconomic. If Dassault needs to produce 11 Rafale per annum to make a minimum acceptable profit, I don’t see how Gripen can be produced viably at a rate of 3 per annum.
Additionally if Brazil has ambitions to export Gripen E/F, pushing them out at a rate of 2 or 3 a year will be inadequate for export buyers. Imagine that Mexico decided to order 25 in 2018. Would delivery over 8+ years starting from 2025 be acceptable? I think the answer would definitely be no. What would happen when the expected 2nd tranche of (say) another 36 Gripens is ordered for the FAB? Would delivery of only 15 between 2025 and 2030 be acceptable? Again, I think the answer is no.
All in all I see no possibility of Gripen production in Brazil being cancelled.
Spitfire9Missiles are still using X-band limited power seekers.
….As has been said many, many, many times before* – make the wavelength large enough and nothing is “invisible”.
Don’t know a thing about radar so this question may be a non-starter: what stops long wave length radar being used in missiles to track LO aircraft?
Spitfire9China’s Nanjing defense electronics technology group is unveiling a new phased array radar iterating in the VHF/UHF waveband, designed for long range air surveillance and target acquisition role. Operating in the long wave band – VHF/UHF enables the JY-26 to detect targets presenting low radar cross section (stealth aircraft) at the decimetric, centimetre and millimetre wave bands. The use of phased array technology also provides users the ability to increase the power transmitted at a certain location where a target presence is suspected, thus increasing the probability of detection of low-RCS targets…
…Chinese designers at the Airshow China claim the JY-26 radar has already spotted the US Air Force most advanced stealth fighter – the F-22 Raptor stealth fighter, as it flew in South Korea on recent exercises.
http://defense-update.com/20141111_jy-26-chinas-new-counter-stealth-radar.html
If China is not making up reports of detecting F-22, what are the implications for the use of LO aircraft v non-LO aircraft? Could it be that a radar on Chinese soil really spotted an F-22 over South Korea?
Spitfire9ROFL!!! man you almost made me fall from my chair… the US have been doing exactly that to get the F-35.. lowering requirements was the only way to have it “meet the requirements”.. or more exactly, to have the requirements meet the limitations of F-35.
I know it’s a bit of a stretch to compare the JSF to the Indian LCA but isn’t that what happened in both programs? What about all those non-F-35 European fossils (Gripen, Rafale, Typhoon)… did they all meet all the designated requirements or was the bar lowered here and there as required in the same way?
Spitfire9617 sqn RAF will be reformed with Dave B in 2016, and I think (not totally sure on this one) 809 NAS RN was only going “up” in 2018.
Sorry. Overlooked that indeed the RAF are scheduled to have some F-35B’s.
Spitfire9Or design, test in Sweden and then manufacture in Brazil. Not a big deal. In fact all Brittish parts in Gripen can easily be replaced by SAAB and EMBREAR. It´s a different thing when it comes to the engine tough…
Why would SAAB spend lots of money on re-designing and testing loads of components just so a small number of Gripens could be supplied to a single country? It makes no business sense to me unless the customer pays all the design and testing costs + profit margin. In SAAB’s shoes I would also want guaranteed payment ie not a promise by the Argentine government (bad credit risk), nor a promise by an Argentine bank (bad credit risk). I would want a documentary credit confirmed by a credible bank (meaning that bank pays SAAB even if the Argentine govt/bank fails to respect the documentary credit). Are there any credible banks that would take such a risk? Not sure.
I just can’t see that it’s worth all the potential problems – financial and political – to SAAB to get involved. In any event I think the cost to Argentina would be prohibitive so they would never want to pay the price in the first place.
Spitfire9Re: the debate about Brazil substituting UK-sourced components with others: while a different radar could be integrated, how long would it take to substitute a different undercarriage? I don’t think you could take an undercarriage from a different aircraft and modify it to fit Gripen. I think you would have to start from scratch: design, test then manufacture it in Brazil.
Spitfire9It must have been something that got past google because all the news reports there keep insisting that the UK just ordered another four F-35Bs, with a bulk buy scheduled for 2017. Are you saying they’ve decided to cancel the F-35 and spend 3 bn on the EMCAT, followed by billions more on the N-Typhoon?
I agree that it is impossible for the UK not to order F-35B for the new carriers. It is the only STOL or STOVL aircraft available. Whether F-35’s will be used by the RAF is far less certain.
Spitfire9you underestimate the difficulty of intercepting any a/c at transonic speed and already at 30k+ ft,
while you yourself start at zero speed & zero altitude.
in short, you are in la-la land
Yes. An airliner travelling at 800km per hour whose comms and transponder had failed could travel several hundred kilometers before a subsonic interceptor could reach it.
Spitfire9i think Brazil would co-fund replacement/indigenous solutions
As far as I know, the only country embargoed by the UK is Argentina, so why would Brazil spend loads of $$$ to cleanse Gripen of UK content?
Spitfire9Argentina Buying Gripens? Brits Say ‘No Way’
Spitfire9Canada needs to define what its requirements are.
Indeed, however I put it to you that choosing a particular product and then defining the requirements according to the characteristics of that product is neither valid nor professional.
If it doesn’t need supersonic flight and wants the cheapest possible twin-jet aircraft to patrol its airspace then a Scorpion might win. If it needs stealth and next-generation avionics then the F-35 is the only thing available.
The choice of aircraft to meet Canada’s requirements is not limited to either the cheapest possible subsonic twin jet or the F-35. F-35 should excel as a day one strike aircraft into defended airspace. As a fighter, though, I am unconvinced that it will be as good as Typhoon. How important are strike qualities for Canada? How important are air superiority qualities?
Canada isn’t somehow obligated to lower their requirements to something one of the European planes can meet.
Requirements are requirements. Again, requirements are not supposed to be geared to the performance of particular aircraft. Neither a European aircraft nor an American aircraft.
It isn’t Canada’s fault that Europe has collectively decided to exit the fighter aircraft business.
I suspect that what you are saying is that the fighter aircraft being produced in Europe are worthless because they are not LO aircraft.
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