YamaThe M777 ran out of USMC orders a long time ago, so it was a mistake to pursue it through the FMS channel in the first place. And the current deal is on (very good) commercial terms.
Incorrect, M777 was still in production for US services when the Indian acquisition project was started and was for many years thereafter.
The point is that there is nothing in history of Indian acquisition projects to suggest that any prospective F-16 or F/A-18 project would go smoother. They might just as well be unhappy about the cost there too.
YamaOnly the engines, weapons and some avionics for the Boeing aircraft are being bought under the FMS procedure. The rest is a direct commercial sale. The M777 will be localized and assembled by Mahindra in India (under a cheaper deal) and follow-on orders are very likely. Very different from an FMS deal for fighter jets on terms similar to that for the Rafale.
But that is exactly the point. It took them like 7 years to arrive to that M777 deal. Indians were unhappy with rather outrageous cost of the howitzers (4 million apiece – you can get a self-propelled howitzer from Europe for that price) and spent years to haggle price down in one way or another. Sound familiar?
YamaAgain, the deal isn’t stuck in bureaucracy, its stuck on terms. I imagine if other vendors offer better prices, negotiations will go more easily. In the US’ case there is also the advantage of the streamlined FMS system. (Under which they managed to sign the P-8I & C-130J contracts within 12 months.)
There is little to suggest deal with US would go any more smoothly. M777 and Boeing helicopter order were examples of recent US deals where Indians haggled and dragged their feet for years, until agreement over price was made at last possible minute.
Indians tend to have unique requirements regarding technology and manufacture which are not easily covered by standard deals offered to most other nations.
YamaThe RAAF paid just over US$100 mil per jet for the SH in 2008 at the height of SH production. 15 years later with inflation, a production rate a quarter of that in 2008, only two nations operating the type, a necessity to pay FMS fees and probably a more capable product and I am supposed to believe that US$122 is not a realistic number? They will never pay the price the USN does. Not only that, the Kuwaitis were expecting to pay US$3 billion for 28 aircraft, over US$107 million per jet.
Compared to that F-35 will be at the height of production with probably 150 jets coming off the line a year, will have at least eight operating nations, the Danes are not liable for any FMS fees and the product will have been FOC with the primary customer for over three years.
I’m not saying Super Hornet acquisition cost is incorrect. I am saying that the acquisition costs for F-35 and Super Hornet in Danish report are not comparable as 1/ explicitly stated in the report 2/ as shown by F-35 acquisition cost per airframe which is exact same as projected unit flyaway cost in F-35 SAR. Thus it cannot include any spares or support.
Of course it isn’t in use with the Danish Air Force for the F-16. The jet is 40 years old and clearly wasn’t designed with the same maintenance philosophy. Should the Danes force an antiquated logistical footprint on the F-35 because the competitors don’t operate the same way?
Probably. F-35’s maintenance model makes lots of assumptions which may prove incorrect. Life seldom offers free lunches. Also, it increases the dependancy from supplies to much higher level than previously.
YamaBecause if you pick publicly available ramdom numbers, more precisely the SAR CPFH for DAVE A, the US Navy CPFH for the Super Hornet and the Germans numbers for the Phoon (and i am willing to bet that this was precisely what the Danes did), and compare them, you end up with an entirely flawed comparison, the methodologies to get those numbers are vastly diferent.
German audit report can be found from the net. I’m not sure what it includes, but I highly doubt that Eurofighter is two to four times as costly to operate than Tornado or F-4F. I think it includes some capital costs which are minimal for older a/c at this point of their careers.
That said, the Danish report says that their estimates are also based on RBI responses. RBI was something like thousand pages.
YamaWhere did you find that? The report lists on page 84 that they assessed each candidate on a URF cost as well as subsequently the spares load required for each aircraft. When measuring URF only the SH was cheaper than the F-35.
It is stated on page 82. Also it’s obvious when you calculate the unit costs from procurement costs: 28 F-35’s 15.4 billion krona (1 USD = 0.15 Krona) equals to 82.5 million USD per plane. 38 Super Hornets 30.9 billion krona, 121.9 million USD per plane.
Sorry wrong again. With the F-35 there was still a requirement to establish a minimun baseline of spares but by having access to the global pool of spares they are able to reduce the overall cost. Not only is this maintenance profile very common in civil aviation but it is a common issue and practise now for Militaries today, moving from a traditional heavy spares model to a lite on demand model. This type of management is hardly new, http://www.smi-online.co.uk/defence/uk/military-spares-inventory-management
This is not what the report says, see “Logistic Concept” on pages 82 and 85. Clearly, this “common profile” is not in use in Royal Danish Air Force currently, and neither Eurofighter or Boeing offered such concept.
YamaHow should that model work in combat conditions? Would LM fly in the parts directly into combat zone?
Doesn’t need to. F-35 is so superior that no one will dare to start an armed conflict with F-35 operating country.
YamaAnd yet we have a price for the SH which is pretty consistent with what the RAAF paid.
As explained in the report, Super Hornet and Eurofighter acquisition cost included initial package of spares, support equipment and so on, which is normally prerequisite for starting to operate a new aircraft. By contrast, F-35 acquisition cost included bare airframes and nothing else (not sure if it included even engines). In F-35’s maintenance model, national air forces only own the airframes and all spares are delivered ‘on-need’ basis. Operators do not need to keep around large stores of spares but just buy what they need, when they need it. This is supposed to bring major savings in lifecycle costs, and the report is calculated under the assumption that it does. Whether it does in real life, well…
The Danish report actually notes that Super Hornet has lower unit flyaway cost than F-35, and also lower “external maintenance” cost, whatever that refers to.
YamaLast of the bridal-launched jets. Sad to see it go.
It was probably retired because they had shot all the cables into sea :dev2:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]246011[/ATTACH]
Brazilian Skyhawks are still launched by this method.
YamaSob, SuE is one of my favourites. Faithfully flying on decade after decade, bombing Le Tricolore‘s enemies to bits. It is amazing how much mileage they got out of 1950’s airframe mated with 1940’s engine. All end-users used them in combat and to my knowledge, none were ever lost due to enemy action.
YamaTwo new Gepards for Vietnam?
YamaIt appears that, although I cannot confirm it, that the F-16 figure from 2013 to 2015 has not been adjusted. What likely happened, given how formatted and regimented these reports are, is that they simply cut and pasted the old data in and didn’t adjust for the new F-16C/D figures,
So to get a relative comparison; let us look at the 2013 and 2015 F-35 unit operations figures which saw the largest drop and likely where fuel use is calculated. The difference is the 2015 figure is 65% of the 2013 figure. That figure includes both a reduction in fuel cost as well as a reduction in fuel burn although we don’t know the impact of each.
If we use that 68% figure for the F-16 C/D unit operations figures for 2013 to 2015 we get a change from 5.632 to 3.83. If we considered the change just as fuel cost reduction the F-35 CPFH dropped a total of 9% from the 2013 figure, 32.554 to 29.806 while the F-16C/D dropped 7% from the 2013 figure, 25.541 to 23.739. If we add a slight bump to the F-16C/D unit operations figure to accommodate the fuel burn reduction of F-35, moving F-16 to 24.00 then we get a 6% reduction from 2013 to 2015.
In total the CPFH difference, adjusted for fuel cost and fuel burn, between the two platforms is approx 19% compared to the current figure of 15%.
That seems pretty fair to me.
Yes, alas we don’t know what fuel cost they used. It may have been small adjustment or they might have cut it like by 1/3, no idea. Fuel burn change is likely small (1 to 2% at most). They also adjusted other costs so change to ‘unit operation’ may include other changes than fuel, though they aren’t mentioned.
Heck, they may have even calculated actual figure for F-16, then copypasted the old report and forgot to change the old value. It’s known to happen before *cough cough* :p
YamaRegarding the Danish evaluation
Does the document state why 34 EF-2000 or 38 F-18E/F would be acquired? Why the different numbers? The document states the difference in performance/parameters is marginal.
Typhoon and SHornet were calculated to need 6 extra airframes to make up 2000 hours shorter service life. Because Hornet is two-seater, they estimated they’d need more flying hours for training the extra crewmember. This extra attrition was then modelled for requiring 4 extra airframes compared to Eurofighter.
Pages 85-87 have ‘what-if’ calculations, assumption that F-35 has only 6000 hour service life which would necessite 5 extra airframes [why not 6 like Eurofighter?], what if they selected single-seat version of Super Hornet, which cuts required airframes to 35 [why not 34 like with Eurofighter?] and so on.
YamaSure, but is there any evidence at all that the same fuel costs weren’t used for both?
Check for example F-35 SAR 2013, page 94: F-16 CPFH is $25 541, same as in newest 2015 report.
YamaBut Fuel costs are all over the place ATM.
I remember 10 years ago how we would be at peak oil by now with oil going hundreds of dollars per barrel. Now we have a glut of oil. This is the problem with guessing sustainment prices 50 years ahead.
Of course it is, problem comes when you attempt to do apples-to-apples cost comparison between two planes, one should assume same fuel cost for both, otherwise what’s the point?
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