Switzerland is offering 47 2nd hand Tigers. The US- Navy has ordered 32 afaik. So there’s plenty available for the Austrian need of 12 rental jets without touching operational machines. Catalogue (in German)
Originally posted by Arthur Considering the JSF program was specifically set up with a (relatively) low-cost unit price of the aircraft, the whole program slowly turning into a pig should only be a shock to those who believed the original BS concerning the project.
But i don’t think anyone who remembers a certain other ‘joint’ combat jet from the 1960s would be surprised. Aardpiglet, here you come!
I think the parallels are even more striking with the F-22: It started out as an air-superiority fighter project, collected a few additional tasks as years went by and now they already start talking about turning it into a bomber. Doesn’t this sound like the story of the good old F-111?
This was meant ironically: If you check 5 posts further up the thread, Sauron was calling him “the odd reporter”. I think he does a pretty good job. At least he seems to know what he’s writing about.
And I was more thinking about old Persian and Greek traditions of killing the messenger of bad news, not referring to the Wild West. (Even though the differences might have been marginal).
My suggestion: send the future JSF pilots to Weight Watchers, it’s cheaper than reducing aircraft weight.:D
Seems like the “odd reporter” from Texas is reporting again. Making allusions to the Comanche program is not a good idea. Fortunately he’s not living in antique times, else he might get lynched, soon…:D
This journalist can obviously read the stars… :rolleyes:
Maybe he had to cut back his lenghty article and scrapped “possibly”.
So: the Gripen deal in the Czech Republik will be finalized end of March. Does anybody know how far the evaluation in Brazil has progressed?
The U.S. do them because they need them for combat operations and they barely keep up-to-date. In Europe developments and upgrades are done to keep the industry employed and happy, not to provide the troops with additional capabilities. It is about industry politics, not about real world capabilities. The European industry simply doesn’t know what actually works in real world combat.
BS!
With our limited budgets upgrades are generally made to keep old fighters longer in the frontline. The industry would benefit a lot more if we’d purchase new airplanes all the time.
And what’s wrong with European companies choosing to profit over an upgrade market?
Nothing at all, but if you’d followed the thread you might have noticed Distillers claim that Europeans were generally neglecting aircraft upgrades, which seems to be rather off the truth.
I’d rather say (European) buget limitations make upgrades more attractive, since lots of countries don’t get a new model every other year.
The Swiss Hunters come to my mind as an additional example. They were upgraded repetedly. At the end, they even got a few Mavericks. They were phased out in ’94 after 36 years in operation. Pretty amazing!
But this contradicts their signing the JSF- contract.
They might not want to depend on the US entirely in the future, though, which is indeed a good political argument against the F-15.
One other limiting factor might be the advent of stealthy- and stealth aircrafts. If you can’t detect them long range, long range missiles are of limited use.
BVR- IR- missiles like the MICA in combination with good IR- sensors could profit from this.
Are you so sure about this?
Nominally it’s a Skyhawk replacement, I know, but it sure looks more as if they’re looking for a multirole- fighter to me. They seem to be procuring the JSF in the near future, an airplane more suited for the fighter bomber role. They might want to start phasing out their F-16 at that point, which would leave more of a gap in the air- superiority cathegory.
I suspected that this was a EADS marketing department text. Nevertheless, if there’s a grain of truth in it, the story could hurt Boeing in the Singapore competition.
The news indeed must have come handy at the moment. ;)Thanks John for confirming!
Or should I put the objectivity of your arguments regarding US made equipment in question?
Well, he should be professional enough to be aware of where he is speaking.
Back home, asked by a MPA about the need of the F-22 he is more likely to voice the other opinion, though.;):D
PS:Since I’m living in a bilingual city, “Marc” is fine.
PPS: I seriously doubt that a USAF- article is behind all this. It looks more like a British or EADS viewpoint to me…
On the other hand a USAF pilot should also state that the F-15 won’t be good enough in the near future to defend against 5th generation fighters (like Typhoon and Rafale) and that the US is desperately in need of the F-22.
In short they have to be sort of schizophrenic nowadays 😀
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