Swedish media reports about problems with the supply of spare parts to Thailand’s Gripen fleet. Sweden might have to pay fines for not fulfilling the contract terms.

In Swedish.
http://www.svt.se/nyheter/regionalt/ostnytt/vite-for-uteblivna-reservdelar-till-thailandska-jas-plan

http://www.expressen.se/nyheter/kraftiga-problem-for-jas-i-thailand/

Engineering prob or a dysfunctional behavior in the supply chain? The first point will be interesting to watch in line of the Br contract.

On the subject of shooting Englishmen, are you suggesting that the USN should wait to see what answer the UK/France come up with for FCAS? Or am I missing the point totally?

Do we think the French are going to want FCAS to fly off their carriers (if it is a true Rafale replacement, this is a must is it not?)

“Messieurs les Anglais…. les premiers” refer to the Battle of Fontenoy during the 18th century (before the French revolution). It’s not an offensive comments. 😉 (I hope the ggle translation will be good enough).

Regarding the UCAV and the Fr Nav: Rafale is now a concept of operation. Like Kev said,If the Fr AF has it, the Fr Nav will get it. But nobody can say if we will see the same platform crosswise btw the Navy and the AF. Giving that’s it’s now getting toward a cooperative prog (internationally), I don’t see any other users pushing in that direction.

So I have no idea. Except that I don’t see the Neuron flying off a ship to land back.

Regarding the Eu program, you have to understand that aerodynamically speaking, the US are at least one generation ahead of everything that has surfaced in Eu. I don’t see that happening unless a truly marvelous design surface out of the BAe pockets (I believe this can still happen but not sure that it will in a near future).

naaaah, there is no such thing as politics in military purchases
I mean, why would the USN prefer Boeing and NG, who’ve been providing their aircraft exclusively for the last decades, over USAF favorite LMT? :rolleyes:

They could also be temporizing the time the concurrence/threat froze their design.

It’s not stupid to expect some improvement against the V-shaped uniformity in the design of naval stealth UCAV . That’s what I do. And I guess that the navy is thinking : “Tirez les premiers messieurs les Anglais“. 6 months to 1 year maybe could do the trick.

Frankly, having to deal with a low aspect ration low angled V-shaped flying wing is a bit counter productive for the naval sector (landing). Tech is there today to allow engineers to think out of the box in confidences.

@Sanem do you have some good links concerning the ship you hve mentioned ?

ooooh – now that is risky grounds for comparison.

x86 survives due to inertia within the environment. NOT because it is the fastest or most efficient solution.

Ah Sorry. I know… I know… Don’t wake up the dragon. (but it’s still working after 30years chhuuuut).

[…]but that US technical lead did not last – my current portable is Japanese.

Does the words “X86”, “Intel” or “AMD” tells you something ?

C’mon, get another coffee :very_drunk:

What if we renamed the thread:

“Is stealth really that cost-effective”.

Nic

This is the real question. I will had a “when” and a “What” to add a time based variable and a context in the end formula.

Obviously the US hve alrdy their own answer to that question:
– In a near future A2G: YES (see the ramping up of the 35 – if they really needed it right now, they would hve discarded all the fancy stuff that pose some problems)
– Right now in the discrete + Air Dominance: YES (the 22 + drones)

Please understand that you do have to include in the equation all the indirect costs like direct strike package support, tanker, CSAR, logistics, ELINT, avionics upgrades, manpower, corruption (disseminated process against a centralized one – imagine what wld hve been all those fighters competitions if the word STEALTH had been inked in bold) ….

Like I have alrdy said, if you like to buy big juicy tanker, rent/buy extra costly cargo planes, praise your direct ally to support you the day after you realize that you will hve to go to war alone etc.. etc… There is plenty of offers around…

Oh yes there is an open road for one or two 4++ all around fighters in the next ten years but then… You’d fall either in the ultra-specific, either in the stealth.

The major diff is that NASA/NACA did not outsource any production or test facilities in China. I am not saying that this the only reason why China is at the forefront of IT tech, but that it contributed greatly, yes.

You can see in the JXX design that aero is the weak part of the 5th gen equation. I don’t know anything about passive stealth and it would be fairly hard to tell just by looking at (blurry/sketched) pictures what level of tech they have reached. But aero, that’s concrete facts. And it’s easy to point the weak points.

In my view the fact that US are increasingly tickling the dynamics envelopes of future projects is a sign by itself.