Congrats again to Saab, and the Gripen team as well as the Swedes…they have got to be proud!

I for one am glad this outcome occurred…gives yet more credibility to what might be the most underrated fighter in the world right now.

All anyone ever talks about on this forum in terms of European fighters are the Rafale & Typhoon…funny how the Swedish fighter has now garnered five international orders while the Rafale & Typhoon combined have gained a whopping two international customers…even when you add in all the parnter nations on the Typhoon program, the total number of nations operating Typhoon or Rafale is 7 whereas Gripen alone is 6.

With any luck the Gripen will get a few more orders in before too long.

one should compare what is comparable.

the gripen is a light fighter, rafale and typhoon are medium fighters. the first is designed to be a light and cheap air defence alteernative, while the two others are made to be the backbone of an airforce with much higher capabilities and also much higher needs (especially offensive)

for any small country, short on budget and with little to no involvement in other nations’ business, the gripen is much more suitable as such, while the rafale and typhoon are closer to a high end product for wealthy guys out there.. having the budget (or the need) to play with these toys.

the switzerland is a bit of an exception: a small country, surrounded by countries which have no business going after them and never going anywhere outside its borders, it obviously had no need for a high end solution.. but having the budget they had high expectations. (that last point has obviously changed a bit lately 😉 )

there could have been one competitor to the gripen in the form of Novi Avion, a yugoslav project made in coopereration with the french, a sort of “mini-rafale”… single engine (M-88), some bits of rafale technology or derivatives were to be incorporated… had there been no war in ex-yugoslavia and had that project go to its end (probably in mid 90s’), there would have been two european medium fighters and two light fighters on the market, and it’s not sure the gripen would come out as the best or cheapest of the latter.

anyway, with the events over there, the project never materialized and never will, so, gripen remains the only one it its category in europe

oh dear….. economics again?!

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Anyway…..On topic…

Really going to miss this baby :

why miss it?

it’s not like the tomcat which was retired and scrapped..; for te raptor, they jsut stopped production, but the aircraft will continue to fly for some time (a couple of decades at least)

it may as well be in the news because journalists have nothing special to talk about and they take any small bit they can and inflate it to create a “scoop” 😀

sometimes maybe (I don’t have all their cards to be able to tell you)

now about a bad loser, what statement you talk about?

as for korea, you can’t argue that with japan (similar market – “buy USA or USA…”) they stand by their word until now… “if japanese want some sucker to waste time and money to get them a better deal with the USA, they can go and look elsewhere”…

as for UAE, I answered in my previous post

nothing new here, every seller does it anyway 😀

but talking “bang for the buck” is a bit misleading.

gripen is the cheapest, yes (that’s why it was chosent by the swiss as the government aknovledged clearly), but “bang for the buck” means “is it worth it?”

you can look at the car market for a similar comparison:

a Dacia Logan will be really cheap, but with about everything you might want inside as an option. a class C mercedes will cost a lot more… if you ask me, if I can aford it ‘(ie: have the money) I’ll go for the mercedes as it’ll give me more “bang for the buck”. it costs more but the safety, comfort, etc are worth it..

all fair points, but it is generally acknowledged now that the gripen in the competition is not the gripen they bought right?

yes, but that goes against what they said themselves (the chosen aircraft will have to be in operational service already… which can’t be the case for an aircraft that still has to be developed 😉 )

anyway, government has picked one aircraft, and now most if not all political parties, the military, the media started a campaign against it… as there’s a high chance of a popular vote for or against it, it looks that, in the end, no aircraft will be bought at all and that there’ll be another competition in, say, 8-10 years from now to replace the hornets

the gripen is the best choice for F-5 replacement, but the problem is that the swiss want to have one “do-it-all aircraft (meaning replacing also the F-18 later on) and that’s where things start to be a bit complicated, as in their own evaluation, the gripen scored less operationally (their air force’s chief’s words) than their current frontline fighter, the hornet

Another thing is that they stated that the aircraft had to be in operational service in order to be evaluated, yet, only the rafale was operational as a fully multirole fighter even in 2009.

The Typhoon still had to be cleared for most of its A2G capabilities, as for the gripen, the version that was “operational” was way behind, and the one being selected doesn’t fit the profile (it’s not in operational service anywhere, since nobody bought it and its development isn’t completed yet…

So, there was already a little “curiosity” in the selection process… i’d better understand if they’d had taken into consideration, say, an F-16, the Sh and the Rafale, for example, considering their “initial requirement for bidding”

and the last thing, about downplaying gripens victory, It’s Ulli Maurer who, himself, stated “we can’t afford the best aircraft”, saying clearly that aircraf performance wasn’t the reason for their choice.

I have a feeling that the military must feel bad for saying in the first place that all three fulfiller the requirements, while, if leaked reports say true, wasn’t the case…. Now, why would they say that? maybe hoping that gripen’s presence would motivate the other two contenders to try to keep their price “reasonable” since the swiss military budget isn’t necessarily extensible as much as they’d like, and that the policitians would then buy the aircraft they (the military) have chosen in the fist place