Spitfire9AMCA report in Aviation Week
http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article-xml/AW_03_04_2013_p72-548182.xml&p=1
Spitfire9Typhoon in re-opened competition for Danish F-16 replacement.
The evaluation process and final recommendation will reportedly be ready at the end of 2015. Denmark originally sought to acquire 48 fighters, although the number has been reduced to approximately 30 aircraft.
http://www.key.aero/view_news.asp?ID=5797&thisSection=military
Spitfire9Right now i am not willing to believe that canada is 100% committed to get out of the JSF, LMA will likely make a strong push to keep them in, while everyone else will look to pull them out. 2013 will be a key year, and i think Canada might look at how the program performs in 2013 before deciding either way.
Even if all goes well on the F-35 development side of things in 2013, that won’t affect through-life costs much, will it?
Seems to me that Canada should KPMG the through-life costs of the other contenders, too, so that an independent appraisal can be made.
Spitfire9Or maybe SAAF having less moneyz than expected?
The SAAB offers are always on budget and almost always on time (last known delay was 20 years ago) so I think it has more with changes in the budget/allocated funds to do than anything else.
SA is run by a government that is reported to have crippled SAA due to its incompetent financial management. I don’t know if that means installing incompetent people / installing friends of government members / reducing budgets so that other budgets can be increased to the advantage of people in power. It may not be as bad as Zimbabwe but I suspect there are those with power milking their positions for what they can get etc
It’s not surprising to me that half the country’s fighters are grounded.
PS I once lived in Africa for a few years. The Minister of Supply where I lived sadly died after two or three years in his post. When his will was published his estate was worth more than 1000 times his annual salary IIRC…
Spitfire9There is nothing like a same upgrade path for all user as claimed by the USA including the British F-35s. Some come even along with hardware changes as well. 😉
So why not send the hardware to the aircraft in Europe rather than the aircraft to the hardware in the US? If it is going to cost say $250,000 to fly each F-35 from Europe to the US for an upgrade and the same to fly it back, just the transport cost of updating a squadron will be near $10 million. That is a ridiculous arrangement.
Spitfire9What…like the F35 needing to be returned to the US for a software upgrade?
Which raises the point: why return an aircraft containing programmable computers to the US for a software upgrade? Why not reprogram in situ? If the answer to that question is that it is necessary for security reasons, I would ask why it could not be done at any location in Europe considered secure.
Flying an F-35 to US from Europe would cost what via Iceland, Greenland, Canada? $200,000? $300,000? More?
Spending hundreds of thousands of dollars more than needed to move an aircraft to the US to do something that could otherwise be done at a far lower cost makes no sense to me. Come to think of it, with secure networks it should be possible to do it without the aircraft even needing to leave its base. How many flying hours would that cost?
OK, you need to test…
Spitfire9High price what’s the cost of the Typhoon, Rafale, or Strike Eagle???:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
I would say that some of the countries looking for F-35 alternatives are looking because
(a) F-35 promises to be very expensive to buy and extremely expensive to operate
(b) F-35 is many years behind schedule and they have fleets of F-16 reaching the end of their service lives
(c) when it will be sufficiently developed to be useable as a combat aircraft is unknown
Typhoon and Rafale are available by mid-decade at full production rate prices. I guess Strike Eagle also.
Comparative costs? I would expect the all-in cost of buying and operating a fleet of Rafale for 6,000 hours to be much lower than F-35:
Rafale per airframe: $80 million(ish)
Cost to fly per hour: <$10,000
Cost to fly 6,000 hours: <$60 million
F-35A per airframe: $100 million(ish)
Cost to fly per hour: >$20,000
Cost to fly 6,000 hours: >$120 million
Spitfire9Nice, more or less what that same MOD said in 2008… “The costs are coming down”… (If i am seeing correctly, its a Norwegian translation, taking the 2008 report the numbers have multiplied by almost 3X)
Now the real question is, how many jets will the Norwegian MOD be able to acquire and operate without slashing operational capabilities in the Navy and/or army?
Norway has no national debt. Norway can increase the budget for F-35 without reducing the budgets of the army/navy.
Spitfire9Actually, that is the “Swiss Air Force” that had a preference for the Rafale in 2008/early 2009. The “Swiss Army” rightly preferred the Gripen, because the Rafale would have been to expensive to operate and cut would have been done in other part of the “Swiss Army”.
That is the problem emerging to confront countries. The cost of the latest sophisticated fighters is such that military budgets do not extend to their acquisition without other military capabilities needing to be sacrificed.
Spitfire9It’s speculation, but not wild. It’s speculation based on solid logic. Australia wanted a combat aircraft force of 100 aircraft (including reserves), & declared it would buy 100 F-35A to meet its requirements. But F-35 wasn’t ready when the F-111s (which were meant to be replaced by F-35s) had to be retired, so it bought 24 F-18F. It’s now struggling to keep enough of its old F-18s operational (they were meant to have started being replaced by F-35 by now), so wants to buy another 24 F-18E/F/G. Like the first 24, they’ll replace some of the aircraft originally intended to be replaced by F-35.
For anyone capable of thinking logically, this casts doubt on the requirement for 100 F-35A.
Indeed. If Australia planned a force of 100 aircraft comparable in purchase and operating cost to F-16 to meet its requirements after F-111 and Hornet retirement, ii seems somewhat unlikely that that it is going to raise the number of frames to 150. Firstly, that would result in a fighter/strike force 50% larger than planned with a capability greater than planned. Secondly, the cost of those aircraft would be double, triple or more than would be a fleet of 100 aircraft at F-16 cost.
Spitfire9Agreed. Only in the real world there’s nothing saying the most deserving contestant gets the prize. SAAB needs a big win, but I don’t know where it’s going to come from. 🙁
SAAB have a bit of time to find orders. 2 or 3 little wins of 10-15 in the next 5 years would be good. Denmark or Netherlands would be great (40+?).
Spitfire9Bogdan’s tough remarks sent shock waves through the Pentagon and U.S. industry on Wednesday.
Lockheed said it was “singularly focused” on executing its contracts to develop, produce and sustain the new warplane, and insisted it was on track to finish development by 2017.
“We do this in partnership with Lieutenant General Bogdan and the entire JSF Program Office and strive daily to drive costs out of the program,” said spokesman Michael Rein.
…
Pratt & Whitney issued a strongly worded statement late on Wednesday, saying it had invested heavily to cut the cost of the plane’s engine and was shouldering more risk than usual.
Spitfire9F-35 Fighters to Cost $90m Each (edited excerpt)
(Source: The Australian; published February 28, 2013)
The Joint Strike Fighters to be bought for the RAAF will cost about $90 million each — much more than the $67m claimed by its manufacturer, says the American general appointed by the Pentagon to straighten out the struggling program.
…/…
After briefing Australian defence officials on the JSF at the Avalon air show in Victoria, General Bogdan said some of the problems he encountered with the program were ugly. But he said an effective remedy had been to force the manufacturer, Lockheed Martin corporation, to share the cost of fixing faults and covering delays.
Once the company had “skin in the game”, its performance improved significantly, General Bogdan said, and he was confident the program was getting better “not as fast as I want it to but it is getting better”.
Spitfire9Pratt & Whitney expects to test an upgraded version of its F135 afterburning turbofan later this year, a top company official says. The engine is installed on the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
“We’ll run a demonstrator this year that will demonstrate hot section technologies in the combustor and the turbine that could provide another 5% thrust,” says Bennett Croswell, president of P&W’s military engines division.
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/pratt-whitney-to-test-upgraded-f135-this-year-382781/
Spitfire9“The Pentagon program chief for the F-35 warplane slammed its commercial partners Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney on Wednesday, accusing them of trying to “squeeze every nickel” out of the U.S. government and failing to see the long-term benefits of the project.
U.S. Lieutenant-General Christopher Bogdan made the comments during a visit to Australia, where he has sought to convince lawmakers and generals to stick to a plan to buy 100 of the jets, an exercise complicated by the second grounding of the plane this year and looming U.S. defence cuts.”
His comments about LM and P&W may not be the best argument to persuade Australia to stick to its commitment to F-35 but they are refreshingly candid.
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