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.
Spitfire9ROK Join Chiefs of Staff decided to opted for twin engines KF-X design despite worries of Higher Development costs.
Fom the link:
The KIDA assessed the KF-X development would cost about 9.6 trillion won (US $93 billion), but it expects the cost would be doubled if the jet is a twin-engine design.
The numbers must be wrong. US $93 billion for KF-X development is inconceivable. IIRC F-35 development costs have not reached US $50 billion yet.
Spitfire9Before BAE stood up its F-16 upgrade business, operators looking for upgrades had exclusively dealt with the original manufacturer. The emergence of a rival has given operators options, Bean argues, and he believes that the Korean order is “the first of a lot more to come.”
Speaking here at Farnborough, Bean (ed. John Bean, a former Lockheed staffer who was appointed as BAE Systems’ Global Fighter Programs business vice president and general manager 15 months ago).said he estimates the potential market for F-16 upgrades to be somewhere between 1,000 and 1,300 aircraft over the next 10 years, with a potential total value of around $10 billion. Enhancements are required by customers who wish to prolong the life of their F-16 fleets ahead of the introduction of the F-35, and/or who plan to field their F-16s alongside the Joint Strike Fighter and need upgraded cockpits and other avionics capabilities to facilitate easier interoperation. Bean is confident that BAE will win “a majority” of that business.
If, as this article states, there is a market for 1000-1300 F-16 upgrades then the value is not going to be $10 billion. It will be several times that amount. Great business to be in!
Spitfire9In 2012 India was to have completed capacity to manufacture engines for the MKI from beginning to end.
Interesting but a bit ambiguous to me. You say “In 2012 India was to have completed…”
Does that mean
(a) it was scheduled to happen and did?
(b) it was scheduled to happen but did not?
Spitfire9My article on the Brazilian industrial arrangements for Gripen production. Many answers here… http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/brazil39s-f-x2-supply-chain-takes-shape-401333/
I note that the last paragraph talks of Brazil’s veto on foreign sales of the aircraft.
Saab and the Brazilian Government will jointly own intellectual property of all new technology developed under the contract.
The Brazilian Air Force Technical Command (CTA) is to be the holder of these technologies on behalf of the government. This shared intellectual property on items like the still undeveloped Gripen NG twin seater will allow the Brazilian Government to collect royalty payments from sales to third party nations or even to veto the sale of aircraft containing those same developments to whatever nations it chooses.
I can see several South American countries taking an interest in Gripen E as a replacement for their current fighters. What happens if Brazil does not want Gripen sold to a South American country that Sweden would like to supply?
Spitfire9Neither of those quotes suggest that the Mk. I variant is less than fully operational or that it does not meet IAF requirements.
Mk I may have received its FOC but while 2 production aircraft were scheduled for delivery by end of Q2 2014, 0 were delivered. I understand from a poster earlier this year that the position has been changed so that now 2 are scheduled to be delivered by the end of 2014. Can an aircraft be seen as being fully operational with 0 being operated?
Spitfire9To me it looks like: India made provision for $12Bn in 2012… but as they use rupees, the provision was likely in their currency.
if the rupee drops, the provision has to be increased… if it´s twofold, any so called journalist looking for a scoop may very well translate it into twofold the amount of dollars needed…
I can hardly imagine the bill to pass from 12 to 20 for a finished product, whose price is stable in its original country, and with requirements that remained known for all the time… there just must be something wrong with these numbers
It is complete nonsense to claim that weakening of one’s currency against a foreign currency has any effect on the price of goods/services quoted in that foreign currency. It appears that there are journalists who do not have any basic understanding of what they are writing about.
Spitfire9Originally Posted by hopsalot
I think we can all agree that these types of failures are a major problem in the industry, and not some kind of F-35 (or Rafale, or Eurofighter) specific phenomenon
Originally Posted by MSphere
This phenomenon has become common in other industries, as well, I am afraid. Getting a deal by promising completely unrealistic price figures and then trying to squeeze additional cash by whatever method there is (from pure rational argumentation down to blackmailing or bribing) has unfortunately become pretty much standard even in building or construction. Just try to get a simple four-stock office building for mere two-three mil and see the initially affordable plans skyrocket in few months, especially after you have ran out of other options.
IMO governments have suffered the consequences of a broken procurement system for many, many decades to the detriment of their ability to organise the defence of their states and their ability to prosecute their foreign policies militarily. In terms of military aviation I think they should look to dismantling their current procurement systems and rebuild them following models used elsewhere that work far better. Sweden comes to my mind.
Spitfire9Buying up or leasing secondhand Typhoons gives them an edge over Pakistan and China now and buys them time for future programs to bear fruit. They should be discussing this with Typhoon operators now, using secret talks and keeping money off the regular budget, to buy assurances.
Typhoon T1 cannot realistically be described as a multi-role combat aircraft. It’s an A2A aircraft with high operating costs. However buying 100 from the Eurofighter partners would be very inexpensive compared to 100 new Rafale and would allow the MKI’s to be tasked for more A2G missions. Might be worth considering if India decides to re-examine the MMRCA requirement.
Umm, this Typhoon discussion is completely irrelevant. If, hypothetically speaking, MMRCA were to be scrapped and emergency measures required, by far the most sensible option would be to extend Su-30MKI production past the planned exit date of 2018 and to explore options for scaling up Tejas Mk. 1 production.
That looks like a sensible option. However, is Tejas MkI a complete dog? Does the IAF yet know, given that it has no experience of operating production aircraft?
Spitfire9the French foreign minister Laurent Fabius met Indian political leadership, including prime minister Narendra Modi, pressing for sealing the multi-billion Rafale combat aircraft deal, New Delhi has raised serious concerns over the cost escalation of the fighter jet deal. Struggling to pay the heavy cost of the deal, the ministry of defence (MoD) is considering an option of down-sizing the deal from 126 to 80 fighter jets.
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-mod-mulls-downsizing-rafale-contract-1999002
Merde!!!
Spitfire9Nine Major German Defense Projects Under Civil Review
The nine projects to be reviewed are the Eurofighter combat aircraft, the A400M transport aircraft, the successor to the halted Eurohawk signals intelligence UAV, the Tiger attack helicopter, the NATO NH90 transport helicopter, the tactical air defense system to succeed the Medium Extended Air Defense System, the Puma infantry fighting vehicle, the F125 class frigate and the armed forces joint radio equipment.
Spitfire9The Boeing Co., St. Louis, Missouri, is being awarded a $1,939,160,819 fixed-price-incentive-fee contract for the full rate production of 11 Lot 38 F/A-18E aircraft for the U.S. Navy and 33 EA-18G aircraft for the U.S. Navy (21) and the government of Australia (12).
So the line stays open!
Spitfire9Interesting, Eurofighter GMBH is going to upgrade a T3A and a T1 with an AESA set. So much for the RAF´s “the T1´s cant be upgraded” theory? How much must a partner spend to stick an AESA set into a T1, well that might be another story.
What’s the idea of modifying IPA5 to take an AESA? Modifying UK T1 aircraft to use AESA was dismissed years ago, wasn’t it? I presume that it was seen as being prohibitively costly by the UK government. Perhaps Eurofighter hope that with the non-implementation of T3B they will get income from a very expensive modification of some partner nation T1 aircraft. I guess Saudi Arabia would also be a target.
Spitfire9He brings up an issue that should be part of every debate actually: sortie rate, availability.
As of now, F-35 availability is 50%, meaning if you need 25 fighters for an air force, you need to buy 50.
Time will tell how much this will improve, compared to others, this may indicate a 75% availability at its peak
Valid points. To me there is a more fundamental dilemma with F-35, being the unknown cost of operating the type. Some of the countries ordering it may discover that it is so expensive to operate that to do so will require major cuts in other military programmes leading to a substantial fall in overall capability. The question is: is it worth risking having to substantially diminish one’s military capability in order to acquire an aircraft whose main virtue is improved survivability in a scenario where the enemy’s air defence system is still functional?
Spitfire9The fact that the F-35 continues to win export orders while most of its competitors are contemplating shutting down their production lines is a simple product of the fact that the F-35 is a far more competitive aircraft, as one might expect given the vastly greater resources devoted to it and the fact that it is a full generation (and 20 years) newer design than aircraft like the Rafale.
It is not a far more competitive aircraft. While a superior striker, it is far more expensive to procure and operate than its competitors.
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