10 of the 12 F-35Bs on deck

1/3 the equipment.. nice guess but no proof.

That “big eye” is what allows you to buy a stealth aircraft and operate it in environments that your Gripen could never hope to go.

Oh yeah, BS on the WACO requirement.

how is all this gonna work with increased defence budget?

It worked out fine when Reagan did it.

Getting rid of most (if not all) of ObamaCare will also help a lot as will revamping a lot of onerous regulations, taxes, etc.

When is next Red Flag due?
So, any takers on where the first F-35A deployment will be?

Previous announcements have said F-35B are headed to CENTCOM in late 2017, but nothing definitive for the F-35A.

Dynamo is a software radio (like the F-35’s CNI) so yes, it can work with FMVs and NATO countries if someone wants to pay for the integration, which will likely happen.

Northrop has a software-defined terminal that handles both F-22 IFDL and F-35 MADL traffic to and from 4th gen networks (“J Series messages”) and is based off of F-35 CNI hardware (30 MHz to 2 GHz capability).

Freedom 550 can support all of the functions of the F-35 CNI, and more waveforms, channels and functions can be added as needed. Because they are software-defined, waveforms can be loaded and unloaded to serve individual missions.

Remote electronics and a dual band multibeam aperture are also being developed to simultaneously handle both MADL and IFDL waveforms. Freedom 550 will enable translation of F-22 and F-35 sensor data and provide the information to Link-16 participants. Freedom 550 is designed to support either two IFDL nets or one IFDL and one MADL net.

http://www.northropgrumman.com/Capabilities/SDRs/Documents/Freedom550_JointEnterpriseTerminal.pdf

Here is a butt-ton of info on voice & datalink networks
http://www.northropgrumman.com/Capabilities/DataLinkProcessingAndManagement/Documents/Understanding_Voice+Data_Link_Networking.pdf

Britain Must Send Its F-35s to Italy for Heavy Overhauls, Decrees US, and ship the engines to Turkey for overhauls and upgrades (excerpt)

Then they should have built a FACO like Italy did.

you’re obviously ignoring (on purpose I guess) that the price includes support infrastructure. The F-35 will be supported outside the country for most big repairs (less infrastructure to build in country at the price of less independence) and in the same time, you divide that price per the number of units sold.

I the end, if you remove the independant support infrastructure price (we can call it “price of freedom”) and look at what the aircraft costed, you won’t have the same picture

Both contracts include “initial support” that is done in-country… so they represent the same thing. The initial support contracts will not be long enough for “heavy support” to be needed. Neither represents lifetime or even long term support contracts. I would love to do an apples to apples comparison, but since only the Indian Flyaway (id “bare fighter”) cost was leaked (ie $103 mil) that is not possible.

Until the Rafale competes against the F-35 directly (Canada unless Rafale bails again), you will not get a perfect comparison.