The F-35’s price is currently inflated due to the early stage of production it is in, but when all is said and done it will cost similar or less than aircraft like the Typhoon, Rafale, etc.

The future reduction of F-35 price is no help to countries wishing to replace F-16’s (remember, it was to be a comparable price to F-16). Because of all the F-35 delays some countries are under pressure to order F-35 ASAP at inflated prices. Either that or pay a lot of money to extend the life of their F-16’s. Or consider different aircraft.

F-35 will not cost less than Rafale or Typhoon for many years and will cost more to operate.

UAE close to deciding between British and French fighters!

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/20/emirates-jets-idUSL6N0BJA1Y20130220

“Industry experts and firms who have done business with the UAE say it may wait to see which manufacturers land $11 billion in fighter jet deals with Brazil and South Korea, expected in the first half of this year, before making their own call.”

Mmm… Brazil deciding first half of 2013? Don’t think so. I don’t think a Korean decision is imminent either.

BAE Systems’ Laurie Hilditch said …
“The goal is to maintain a multipurpose, high-performance, cutting edge technology aircraft and we have the only fighters in the world to be interoperable with the advanced United States F-22 raptors.”

http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/advanced-fighter-jets-to-have-uae-parts#ixzz2LMDMaIlu[/QUOTE]

Why is only the Typhoon interoperable with F-22?

Are those UAE talks any more than then saying “Talk to us about how the Typhoon can help us get cheap Rafales”?

That’s possible, isn’t it? But I have the feeling that Dassault are only interested in deals giving a good return. Their raison d’être is to make money by all the means available to them (from their wide product range) whereas Eurofighter has only one product to sell. In that sense Eurofighter should be prepared to sell at lower margins. If they don’t sell more Typhoons their only product ceases to be manufactured when they have delivered outstanding orders.

However if through life costs of Typhoon are substantially higher than those of Rafale even an uncomfortably low price per frame for Eurofighter won’t win the deal for Typhoon IMO. And once the MMRCA deal is agreed, Dassault should be able to build Rafale at a lower cost…

Then there’s politics, too which can sweep aside thousands of hours spent evaluating which is the better aircraft for the air force concerned.

Re: UAE buying new fighters, defense-aerospace.com has 2 reports dated 17th Feb 2013.

– source Gulf News
“ABU DHABI — The UK and the UAE are in talks on Typhoon combat aircraft, Philip Dunne, UK minister of defence equipment, support and technology told the Gulf News.”

– source Middle East Online
“ABU DHABI — A top French defence industry official said Sunday that talks to sell Rafale jet fighters to the UAE were “progressing well”, expressing confidence that a deal could be reached with the Gulf state.”
http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/release/3/142757/uk%2C-france-both-optimistic-about-uae-fighter-sale.html

The RFI for partnership for Kaveri project is out.
http://drdo.gov.in/drdo/tenders/viewTender.jsp?paramMicro=4083

Would a 3 stage blisk fan turn the engine into a viable product or might this be the first of a number of improvements needed to overcome deficiencies in the engine? What about addressing afterburning thrust? The figures I saw indicated that static thrust was close to target but afterburning thrust fell a long way short of target.

…Eurofighter, the runner-up in the competition, is not abandoning the Indian market.

The company is quick to point out that a contract has not been signed between Dassault and the Indian government, and until it is, Eurofighter believes the competition is still very much open.

The Indian government “hasn’t precluded [Eurofighter],” a spokesman for the company told Defense News. “There’s no written communications on any of that front, so we’re still very much involved in the margins with the program, we’re still involved in it.”

http://www.defensenews.com/article/20130207/DEFREG03/302070014/Eurofighter-Stay-Active-Indian-Market?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

Eurofighter are “still very much involved in the margins with the program”. That’s news to me. I would say they ceased to be involved when Rafale was selected. To me the only way they could possibly become involved again would be if some insurmountable problem were encountered in negotiations with Dassault.

Kaveri cancelled
Not seen any other confirmation of this.

The page is no longer accessible. Perhaps the story was wrong?