Spitfire9Contract is signed!
What’s the Swedish for WHOOPEE?
The report does not mention the lease of interim C/D aircraft. Would this and TOT account for the higher dollar contract value (US$5.5 billion rather than US$4.5 billion)?
SAAB strike me as being a lot easier to deal with than Dassault (try to squeeze every last penny possible out of the customer once you have got him hooked) or LM (sell the customer a bunch of promises re: capability timelines, future cost).
Spitfire9Nothing has been specifically mentioned. The sensible assumption is that it will be ball-park Typhoon or Rafale RCS but with a smaller radar. With an equal pilot it might be competitive against a Typhoon or Rafale but for BVR combat its manoeuvrability is unlikely to match a Typhoon realistically. Against a 5th gen aircraft, not a chance in hell.
Gripen RCS bigger than F-15? If not, what chance do you give F-15 against a low RCS fighter? Not much, by the sound of it. USAF would do well to scrap all their F-15’s ASAP. And the USN their F/A-18’s.
Not much point in spending a lot of money on continuing to operate fighters that don’t stand a chance in hell against 5th gen aircraft.
Spitfire9Let the Argies get what they want in term of UK radar and be prepared to render them useless if ever needed.
What methods can be used do that? Just curious.
Spitfire9The NGs for the FAA will be identical to those of the FAB in every aspect.
Without a change in British or Argentinian policy with regard to the South Atlantic Islands it will not be possible for the current proposed NG to be supplied to Argentina. Brazil is reported to be close to signing a contract for the proposed NG.
Spitfire9So the Canadian government has deferred FC-18 replacement….
Canada’s conservative government, which has spent four years pushing for a noncompetitive purchase of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, announced at the end of September it would delay retirement of the Royal Canadian Air Force’s Boeing CF-18A/B Hornets for up to five years, until 2025. Canada will, however, continue to support JSF.
With an election due next year, Prime Minister Stephen Harper appears to have passed the Next-Generation Fighter Capability (NGFC) decision to the next administration, after reports in June that the announcement of a JSF buy was imminent. “Harper was poised to pull the trigger,” one industry source suggests, “but he backed away” following negative public and media reaction. An F-35 buy could have been portrayed as an attempt to foreclose options before the election, and a decision to conduct a competition would be seen as a capitulation, the source suggests. The latest announcement indicates intent to maintain RCAF strength without rushing the NGFC choice.
The move is not a complete surprise. Lockheed Martin says it is “not news” and that planned Canadian JSF deliveries extend through 2025. (The schedule spanned 2017-22, based on late-2011 plans.) However, there are no programs under contract that support Hornet operations beyond 2020…
The future of the NGFC depends on the pending election: A decisive Conservative win would favor the F-35, while opposition parties could move toward a competition or delay the entire program. A September report stating Canada had short-listed the F-35 and Super Hornet has been dismissed as inaccurate. “It will either be the F-35 or an open competition,” says a source associated with a potential NGFC competitor.
The contentious next-gen fighter debate started when DND—then led by Peter MacKay—sought to bypass Canadian law that forbids sole-source procurements except under strictly defined circumstances. In 2008, the DND defined key NGFC requirements and concluded that two aircraft other than the JSF could meet them. But in 2010, to justify a sole-source JSF buy, DND issued a revised set of requirements that it claimed only JSF could meet.
After a scathing report in 2012 by the auditor-general, the government stripped the DND of authority over the next-gen fighter…
http://aviationweek.com/defense/canada-s-hornet-upgrade-delays-new-fighters
Right, looks like no Next-Generation Fighter Capability decision being made thanks to domestic machinations and contortions intended to obviate the possibility of anything but F-35 being selected (aided and abetted by LM failing abysmally to adhere to the development schedule). Which leaves Canada where? With weakened defences – the FC-18 will have to soldier on for years longer than intended with restricted use and limits on manoeuvres to reduce the effects of G on the airframe. Perhaps I am an idiot but I thought the idea of F-35 was to strengthen defences, rather than to weaken them. IIRC it was to be an aircraft offering a much higher performance than the F-16 at comparable procurement and operating cost.
But every cloud has a silver lining: for Canada deferment means that it should be clearer what F-35 will cost to procure and operate before a decision on procurement is made, allowing a better informed decision to be made. If it becomes clear that F-35 will not be the budget-draining monster it currently promises to be, then it could be a wise choice for Canada. If the pattern of the last 10 years persists and there are more delays to development and procurement and projected operating cost remains very high, it could be a stupid choice for Canada.
Up to LM now to change the habits of the last decade or so and come up with the goods and on schedule rather than a load of PR hype about how good the goods will be mañana.
Spitfire9Are you serious?
From an AN124 (150t + Volume) at 100M$* to an A400M (30t less volume) at 150M€ ? That would be weird.
When you go after a family van do you first try a Fiat500 ?
*Wiki – sry
What I meant was if India fails to order C-17 before it becomes unavailable, what other military cargo aircraft would India end up buying? A400M?
Spitfire9One would hope that if the IAF wants more heavy lift capability, they need to put their C-17 follow-on order in now or there won’t be anything left in the market.
If they miss the C-17 boat will India end up buying the A400M?
Spitfire9Another factor troubling the Indian defence ministry is the cost of the MMRCA. When the approval for procuring the 126 aircraft was given by the previous NDA regime in 2000, the cost pegged was `42,000 crore.
‘‘After one-and-a-half decade of that approval, it is but obvious that the cost of the planes would increase and it could in fact double, considering inflationary factors and the Rupee-Euro conversion. Though India has benchmarked the likely price of the planes and the cost increase has been factored in, the necessary approvals for budgetary provisions for the planes would need a fresh sanction,” a senior IAF officer admitted. That would mean the new Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) under Modi would have to consider the fresh cost and give a nod to it. That too could take about a month to three months, after the fresh price, based on the benchmarked price, the commercial bids from Dassault Aviation and the cost negotiation are taken into account. But, the CCS meet to consider the MMRCA price is still far away, officers said, noting that Indian government and Dassault Aviation have not even reached the cost negotiation stage yet.
Last, but not the least, this fiscal’s `2.24 lakh crore interim defence budget, especially the `89,588-crore capital expenditure for new assets, has not factored in the 15 per cent down payment that needs to be immediately made if the MMRCA deal is inked. Considering the cost of the MMRCA deal could go up to `1 lakh crore, that would mean at least `15,000 crore of down payment. But the IAF has got only `20,507 crore for its capital expenses this fiscal, under the interim budget.
Another source I can no longer find reckons the rupee cost will have about tripled from the 42,000 crore originally budgeted and that there were about 50 uncosted items when Rafale was selected. Additionally it is reported that about 60% of the capital expenses funds this fiscal are earmarked for existing contract payments. If true, that leaves insufficient funds for a 15% downpayment on contract signature.
In any event if GOI and Dassault had not even reached the cost negotiation stage when the article was published in July, contract signature is a long way away IMO.
Spitfire9Some F-35 Flight Restrictions Lifted
http://www.defensenews.com/article/20140729/DEFREG02/307290036/Some-F-35-Flight-Restrictions-Lifted
Spitfire9Schedules for software have slipped an average of more than six months a year since Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed beat Boeing Co. for the program, according to the review dated June 17 and labeled “For Official Use Only.”
Must be some kind of a record, mustn’t it? You have to perform really disastrously to achieve only half the progress scheduled on average over a multi-year period.
Spitfire9India To Sell Partial Stake in HAL
Hopefully it will be a strategic sale to an entity that can bring in more than money; like production know-how, plugging into global parts chain, etc.
I don’t see this as a particularly good idea. Rather than sucking more expertise into HAL the GOI should be doing the groundwork to set up a competitor to HAL.
Spitfire9Just as F-35 was designed around the United States’ unique requirements, KF-X is evidently being designed first-and-foremost around Korea’s requirements with export a secondary consideration, and this could well be a wise decision: the export market ain’t what it used to be, and most of it will have been gobbled up by F-35 or Gripen E before KF-X could take the stage regardless of configuration.
My comment that I found it pointless building something that would compete with F-35 was not based on export prospects being limited or non-existent (although I think that would almost certainly be the case). I simply do not see the point in re-inventing a wheel that has already been invented by LM. Not only would would KF-X be inferior to F-35, development costs would be very large – perhaps $20 billion to $30 billion. What would be the point of spending so much on KF-X when F-35 would probably do almost everything K-FX could do at a much lower cost?
Spitfire9I do wonder about the choice of Lockheed Martin as foreign partner when it comes to building what amounts to direct competitor to LM’s own F-35.
To me it is entirely pointless building something that would compete with F-35 whether it were done alone or in association with LM or any other OEM. Much more sensible would be to spend the funds on another project or not spend them at all.
Spitfire9Link edited in my post
Spitfire9SAAB pulls out of Denmark F-16 replacement competition – sees requirement as being rigged in favour of F-35.
http://aviationweek.com/defense/sweden-drops-out-denmark-fighter-competition
Sweden concluded that the RBI requires the F-35’s competitors to commit to specific levels of industrial participation, but does not impose the same condition on Lockheed Martin. “They just asked for the same rules to be applied to all concerned,” a Swedish industry source said.
Saab has become more selective in bidding since 2008, when the company responded to a request for information from Norway, which not only rejected Gripen but published deliberately inflated cost figures for the Swedish fighter, along with an unrealistically low cost for the F-35.
Given that Eurofighter withdrew from the Norwegian F-16 replacement competition because they saw it as rigged in favour of F-35, when can we expect them to withdraw from this one, too?
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