Is it worth it? Is it worth Dassault to make 34 planes for one customer and not anymore because no one will ever by them? Both Brazil and India have money and they are exploiting their gains- good for them. I don’t see Brazil getting into a fight with anyone soon and SAAB approached both Brazil and India about this idea so I guess the political ideals have been outweighed by economic realities when it comes to military hardware!

what 34 planes are you talking about?

Brazil has some advantages. It’s done them before (cf AMX), & as a result, both the air force & Embraer know pretty well what mistakes not to make. Also, its procurement system is probably not as difficult to deal with as India’s.

that’s an understatement… I’d say that any country has a procurement system easier to deal with than India… even when you have finally sold something, they are able to come back out of nowhere and cancel it just like that.. (look at their tankers deal cancellation)

3) Confidentiality agreements haven’t stopped French pilots talking about ATLC, nor about Singapore.

in regards to ATLC, the C/O of an operational unit doesn’t appear on a presse conference at the ministry by coïncidence… if he was there, it was on purpose (not his decision either) so the Confidentiality agreement” doesn’t stand as far as he is concerned for that declaration (his superiors maybe, it remains to be seen whether they had the authority to allow the conference.. but if it was the minister, I guess he, indeed, did have it).

Then again, we can continue to go in circles… again and again..

until now, the only change we had was

“pretty clear statement from an identified officer having all the data of what happened vs nothing” which changed into “”pretty clear statement from an identified officer having all the data of what happened vs hints of unnamed sources claimed by a forum poster” or “pretty clear statement from an identified officer having all the data of what happened vs an email from a company who sells the “other aircraft” “

And about “the eurofighter’s “we can’t tell you but tell you this”:

For decades, tobacco companies claimed their products are not a danger to their customers’ health and that they were ok… they had all the studies and data they needed to identify the hasards of smoking, and yet, did they communicate about it? Did they ever aknowlidge it without being forced to do so by law (like with the labels on cigarette packages) or court ruling (millions of dollars that they had to pay already in compensations)? Never. Do you expect the communications department of Eurofighter to tell you “yeah, they beat the crap out of our jets overthere”? Whether it is true or not, they’ll never admit it clearly, but always play it “under a comercially acceptable angle”… discredit the other side (“very french” part of the mail) or tell you that many things happened they can’t tell you about, or any other thing that may eventually make you wonder whether the other side told the truth… that’s what they’re paid for.

anyway, one can go two ways in that story:

– you can draw a conclusion by yourself based on elements you have (or don’t have, or imagine, or whatever you like)
– you can wait (eventually for a couple of centuries or more) in hope that some “new elements” may eventually come out.. some day… somewhere… god only know when

ok, let’s repost it for clearer vision:

January 12, 2010 10:52 min ISTOE
The Hunt for Leak

Government investigates disclosure of secret report on purchase of fighter planes and reaffirms French favorites in the race.
[…]
Lula and Jobim wonder how a statement of the Gripen NG, the Swedish company Saab, as the favorite to win the military competition – also held by the French Rafale, Dassault, and the American F-18 Super Hornet, Boeing – leaked the press at the beginning of last week, embarrassing the president and the minister and sharpening a crisis between them and commands the armed forces.
[…]
As ISTOE revealed in December, the full report of the FX-2 program, with 30 thousand pages, provides several tables showing the pros and cons of each plane using color coding (blue, yellow and red) instead of notes. Of the three, for example, the French jet introduced more comprehensive technology package, while the Swede is the cheapest. Armed with this paperwork, the Copac decided to make an executive summary and he attempted to register classification: Gripen NG appeared in 1st place, followed by the F-18 and Rafale in third.

The document passed into the hands of Saito and Jobim, who ordered the military to draw up a new version, without the ranking. This was done, but the previous document, instead of being destroyed, leaked. For the national security adviser Salvador Ghelfi Raza, the University of Defense, the academic arm of the Pentagon, leaks like this should be cleared. “We need to investigate whether there is a manipulation of the outcome of competition by vested interests,” he said. The fact is that there is an ongoing war of powerful lobbies, involving the world’s largest manufacturers, to grab a contract of up to $ 10 billion.

Until proven otherwise, there is nothing illegal about the action of these pressure groups. However, sometimes the interests seem diffuse. To try to craft the Gripen NG, the Saab has hired retired brigadier Fernando Cima, former coordinator of Copac the first edition of FX. With influence over many officers, Up is always received in the FAB with the reverence that his patent upon, right up to salute the committee members themselves. Another manufacturer hired by a Swedish engineer Anastasios Katsanos, who was vice president of Embraer.

Embraer has come to consider the purchase of part of the Saab through a swap of shares, considering the possible selection of the Gripen NG. Within the company, there is the understanding that the Swedish game gives the opportunity of a joint development project. But it is precisely the fact that only a project that brings uncertainty to the government. There is no way of knowing when the aircraft will be operational. Likewise, it is impossible to define what will be your final price. The value of U.S. $ 50 million, announced by Saab, is an estimate.

Quite different from what occurs with the Super Hornet (U.S. $ 55 million) and Rafale (64 million, $ 91.6 million), aircraft fully operational and the price stabilized. “You can not compare the Rafale, which is already operational, with the Gripen, a plane that does not exist”, responded the French defense minister, Herve Morin. This logic also wraps the discussions on the cost of flight-hours. The time of flight of the F-18 is $ 11 thousand, while the Rafale is 9.8 euros ($ 14 thousand). On the other hand the Gripen, according to Saab, it would be $ 4 mil.

The problem is that the very technical committee FAB, from calculations based on data extrapolated maintenance Gripen C / D (prior to version NG), found a different value than reported: $ 8 mil. In Norway, specialists estimated the cost at $ 10 mil. The divergence of information weighs against the Swedish option. Another important factor seems to have been forgotten in the summary that was leaked to the press: the test pilot.

In October, Jobim called the pilots who tested the fighters to give an opinion. The military stressed the performance of the Rafale and also praised the F-18, but did not say what the Gripen NG, the simple fact that they could not fly it.. What is available for testing is a “demonstrator”, a kind of prototype made based on a training model that has very little to do with the version

now, what I pointed out is that saab did not hire these persons “just like that”… their connections and their influence was waht was looked for.. not some vague advising about what FAB or Embraer would like to hear/have.

Considering they took the job, they either sit in their office and did nothing (thus, not really deserving their pay) or went out to do the job they were hired for: lobbying.. which means using all the influence they had to get the things done in favour of their employer: saab. It was their job… whether it was in brasils best interest is not their business as soon as they signed for one of the participants in the competition… they have a job to do for their boss

It’s not any sort of judgement but a simple constatation on facts. If i switch to another company, i stop working for the previous one. My new boss wants me to be 100% involved in my new company’s business, that is what he pays me for, and that’s how it works at saab (and dassault and boeing, and mcdonald’s, and nike, and any other company) too

now, if you can prove that these two gentlemen had no influence over that “leak” in any way, prove it… (and then, it would be interesting to see what saab paid them their salaries for)

So “I know the guy” is more credible than a public article in the press? I don’t know, but if what the article says is a false accusation, aren’t there laws in brasil permitting SAAB and named persons to sue the newspaper who published these “false accusations”?

The source I have was given 2-3 pages before on this very board.. if you’re too lazy to read it, I pasted teh part of it I base my writing on… what source do you have to say it’s not true?

FABs signature? If the article says true, its the “relations” of the retired brigadier who signed for the FAB..; so much about “FAB agreeing”

what did you show until know? a precise article is published, and you say “there are no sources”.. prove it

You still don’t get it.
I’m not sure of the electronic media laws, but the mail such as I got, is signed by EF GmbH consortioum and not some Lt.Col.
The difference is in amount of money which stands behind each one.

Tomorrow, Dassault can sue EF for slander based on such a mail.
Whom can the EF GmbH sue based on Lt.Col. deposition??

Sue for what? A mail copied on a discussion board?

If companies sued each others for every bit of misinformation the others claim against them, there wouldn’t be engouh law courts on this planet to process all lawsuits

an a mail signed by “eurofighter communications department” is just as anonymous as the employee who simply made the copy/paste operation to answer you… Their job is, as the name says it: “communications”… spinning information to look good

:rolleyes:

Where did Hammer say “impartial”?

It seems to me you keep twisting things….

What is your point exactly? Have you just discovered what lobbyism is about and now you want to inform the world about your discoveries? Surprise: most of us already know and understand what lobbyism is about and how it works.

sorry, I misread it, the two people the article points at are “honest, serious and professional” in his saying… what’s more, he’s saying SAAB hired these people just to hear what FAB and Embraer want to have, without them interveening in the process (not a “man inside”)… yeah… I know of a cheaper and simpler way to do it: just ask FAB and Embraer what they want :rolleyes:

now about my point:

I know what lobbying is about and that everyone does it, but the article gives names and positions of people hired by SAAB, what connections (-> influence) they have, etc… which explains also why they got hired in the first place and how that report got so favorable to the gripen, especially in taking into account things that are irrelevant to the FAB (even if the report was made by a commitee, it was presented to the public as the “FAB report”).

From there on, seeing gripen people or fans calling foul play from the french seems a bit inconsistent with facts.. it’s not like SAAB proposed a plane and said “let the best one win”… the preference of the political leaders went to the rafale (annonced months before that “leak”) and having such a “leak” in the press looks too much like a way to put the politicians under pressure.. it’s not as if somebody went to pee and forgot a report on the shelf where some journalist accidently came across it… it was obviously done on purpose

So, to conclude, everybody pulls strings and the ones SAAB took seem to have been shown in that article. Having them complaining as if they were cheated is ridiculous

Well, F35C is definitely on “thin ice” and today, some long time concerns became vocal.
Have there been any indications from US that they are thinking about getting foreign equipment like Rafale or navalized EF?

Navalized EF would seem unlikely for anyone… it would cost you way too much in modifications for the use one may have of it.

Rafale in the USN seems alos more than unlikely. While its operational value may certainly be good (especially if you could manage to add US equipment to the french one, keeping onboard only the best in each area), one just has to look at the KC-X competition to see what happens when a significant program goes, even partially, to a major foreign contractor… too much lobbying against it.

Chances are, if the F-35 doesn’t get to the Navy (wouldn’t be the first time.. remember F-111), they’ll go for another US based design, tailored by them for them…