Blue apple,

Yep. The fact that PWIV capability is the RAF’s theatre entry standard weapon is official. That’s part of what caused the delay in Tornado GR4 taking over from Harrier. In many circumstances, of course, PWII is adequate, or EPWII (both are still used by the RAF, and both are still used by the RAF in Afghanistan), but the RAF judges that PWIV marks the new theatre entry standard, and it will not deploy aircraft which cannot use it.

How is it better than EPWII, as used by the RAF, USAF or AdlA?

1) It meets the latest requirements of NATO’s Insensitive Munition safety policy. EPW II does not.
2) It’s more accurate
3) It has more fusing options and can be reprogrammed while airborne
4) It produces less risk of collateral damage, and the late arm system ensures that an off-course weapon will not arm
5) It’s lighter, smaller, but just as lethal
6) It’s lower drag
7) It’s less jammable
8) It’s more supportable and maintainable
9) It’s cheaper
10) I wish I had a point ten to hand….. It’s IV, not II?

Specific enough?

Rom’un,

Sufficient thrust not to be under-powered, which Rafale is now.

RVT may be here, but ….

Without the right weapon, and without an LDP, you can’t hit a moving target in particular scenarios.

As to the 7-1 stuff, it’s nonsense. There’s no need to deny such unsubstantiated tripe.

well, let’s see.. on one side we have pilots who were there (and who most certainly have the thing recorded, and on the other side you (well known rafale-bashing poster) behind your computer screen… who would I believe?

definitely not you…

Listen to/read what those who have ACTUALLY FLOWN THEM have said…

oh, you mean the guys who are selling it?

man, I’d love to have you as a customer… You’d buy a fridge while living on North Pole if the vendor told you it’s good for you…

Why not compare it to the numbers the Brazilians came up with? They reflect the costs for operations under the Brazilian conditions, not Dutch…

So we’re down to $10k for the Rafale vs. $4k for the Gripen… still a big gap.

According to the source below, it’s $11k per fh for the SH.

http://www.istoe.com.br/reportagens/32608_O+CUSTO+DO+ADIANTAMENTO

thing is, apparently those the projections took SAAB’s numbers “for granted” (making you wonder whether it was the brasilians or SAAB comercial department who made the “projections”) while the dutch evaluated by themselves.. so it would seem the dutch nombers are probably closer to the reality.

Besides, if it was true that the cost goes down by 60% with “brasilian version” (made in brasil instead of sweden), why the brasilian built rafales don’t benefit from the similarily lowered prices when “built in brasil”?

Doesn’t it seem a bit strange to anyone?

The F-35 is NOT a lumbering truck! COMBAT LOADED (thats ~23,000 lbs of weapons & fuel) will “almost exactly match a clean Block 50 F-16” Try loading up ANY remotely similarly sized 4th or 4,5 generation fighter similarly & see how well they “fly”…

well, I guess there’s no reason to keep arguing about that… stay in your “dreamland” if you wish… when (IF) the plane becomes operational, we’ll see how well it performes in reality

ah, and yeah, next christmas santa will come to you and deliver from a brand new shiny F-35-derivative slade also… sure.. he will…

of course, as it’s extremely well performing machine, cheap, affordable, on schedule, and so on, I guess you’ll say also that you know better than lockheed, the defense sercretary and others quoted in this article:

http://www.military.com/news/article/report-f35-behind-schedule-and-over-budget.html

in short: it reminds that the aircraft is way behind schedule, has big costs overruns which caused decisions like several prorotypes building cancelling, tests flights’ cancelling, etc… and that, in the end, if you don’t perform proper frlight test program, the problems that should have been found during flight test will, necessarily, be found later, by operational users…

then you have this article:

http://www.key.aero/view_news.asp?ID=1373&thisSection=military

again, as it’s “on schedule and cheaper than expected”, my guess is that you’ll find some outside reason like “leftist journalist” or other crap like that to justify why the article says things like:

“The F-35 programme is at risk of breaching the Nunn-McCurdy Amendment to the Defense Authorization Act of 1982, a piece of US legislation introduced at the proposal of Senator Sam Nunn and Representative Dave McCurdy in response to runaway cost overruns in US defence procurement. Any programme that reaches a unit cost overrun of 25% of original budget is required by law to be terminated, unless the Secretary of Defense can convince Congress that it is critical to national security.”

Well my friend, noticing how “easy” it has been so far for Dassault to sell Rafales abroad one must ask: “if the Rafale is so expensive for a Brazilian sized military budget, would there ever be another South American country able to foot such a large fighter acquisition bill?

Always keeping in mind that the Venezuelans are solely buying from China and from Russia now, that Chile just bought TEN brand new F-16C/D(!) and Argentina is disposing of its obsolete military means at an alarming rate in order to desperately save cash… Colombia is a good US customer and recently got some revamped Kfirs from Israel and Ecuador is looking at China and Russia for new aircraft… As you see, Dassault could just as well offered Brazil the exclusive Rafale sales rights to the Moon and Mars and it would do us the same good as “The whole South American Market”…

No one outside the Ministry of Defense is taking seriously the “export potential” of the Brazilian built Rafales.

Also differently from what you are assuming there is just no guarantee that the Brazilian-built aircraft might cost less then the planes now built in France. The costs to set up a new production line with new local suppliers as well as the garanteed margin for Embraer here in Brazil will certainly jack up unit prices. Slo if the price is not going to go down the idea is to get the most ToT out of this deal so we can make it all pay out in the end. If it doesn`t pay out then this local production idea makes absolutely no sense.

Do you agree?

Regards

Hammer

well, on one side, there’s a speech about “learning to make and sell aircraft in the future” and on the other “there’s no market in south america now”

if the first fighters to reach FAB are to come by around 2014, the last aircraft of the first batch should be produced maybe around the end of the decade… if you can say how politics and economic situations of all countries in latin america will be in ten years, then fine, but for now, I don’t think anyone can say for certain who will ask/need what about then.

As for “production costs” is they even come close to the levels of the costs in france, then there’s something very wrong in the production program put in place…

I just quoted one official (the first I came across) and on french side there were such statements as well at the time… so, latin america, is not “only 36 aircraft”, especially if one considers that, in the end, the total FAb buys should reach about 100 aircraft (if produced locally, again, that should bering costs way lower)

and if they have their own production facility, their costs certainly won’t be anywhere near the “french built stuff”

Do you have any sources to that?

I have not seen any such statements from Dassault of the French… They promise a lot, but read carefully their statements — and think about how to interpret what they say. The devil is as always in the details…..

Also think about the logic behind it — does it make sense to you that Dassault (and France) would give up all their military secrets, more or less give them away to another country, and let that other country do whatever they will with it? Of course not… and then the questions becomes, how much will the Brazilians actually get? and what are the constraints?

As it turns out, the ToT offer from Saab w. partners seems better to Brazil than the ToT offer from the French… At least according to those that have access to all the details and not just marketing statements from the competitors…

most sources are dated from september when the announcements took place, like this one:

http://www.e24.fr/entreprises/defense/article130562.ece/Le-Bresil-negocie-36-avions-Rafale.html

especially the part:

“L’Elysée a précisé que les six premiers appareils, dont le premier exemplaire sera livré en 2013, seront construits entièrement en France et que graduellement la technologie serait transférée pour permettre aux Brésiliens d’assembler les autres avions. Le Brésil pourra ainsi assembler les Rafale et les vendre dans les autres pays d’Amérique latine, a expliqué le ministre brésilien des Affaires étrangères, Celso Amorim. “

“Elysée (french presidency) said the first six aircraft would have been assembled in france, and the technology transfer would gradually to brasil allow the assembly of other aircraft. That way brasil will be able to build the rafales and sell them to other countries in latin america, the brasilian foreign affaires minister Celso Amorim explained”

Well let me explain why I said that above.

1) France has absolutely no NEED for the Brazilian Industry`s participation in order to keep churning out more Rafales.

2) If Brazil wants to have its own assembly plant for Rafales and it comes as a natural assumption that such a plant should not be restricted to manufacturing planes just for Brazil, that with this considerable investment Brazil ought to at least manufacture some components for French and foreign ordered Rafales in the future. Maybe even become the single source for such assembly/component.

As part of its bid offer Boeing offered to us the single source manufacture of all F-18 nose barrels and folding wingtips in the next production round. Such a deal is absolutely contrary to the Rafale program’s idea of building up demand in the French aerospace industry sector.

If the Rafales were selling like hot cakes in the worldwide fighter market farming out component production might make sense, but this is far from the current situation, right?

I had the chance to read a Dassault PPT presentation that argued quite enthusiasticaly AGAINST the setting up of a Brazilian manufacturing line for Rafale. This document reafirms pepetedly that such a choice would only make the Rafale costlier for Brazil. But in reality final assmbly and component manufacture are secondary advantages for the quite advanced Brazilian aerospace industry. What interests us in reality is learning how to use new materials and how to leverage new processes that could be used in other industry segments like the commercial and business jets we are developing and manufacturing right now…

In Brazil we are coming to the conclusion that only by taking part of the full development process can we full absorb the lessons that make up the development of a high tech item such as a fighter plane.
Now look at Saab…

Sweden does not need or want the Gripen NG at this stage, who knows? Maybe later…

Brazil is by far the closest thing they have in terms of a prospective, viable client. If our industry doesn`t participate in its development or our government doesn`t fund this programa Saab might realy be forced to exit the fighter building arena for good.

Boeing is sitting on tons of F-18 orders from the US Navy, of course they like the idea of wining in Brazil but it really means very little for them in the end.

This why I see Saab much more suited to respond to the current Brazilian needs than Dassault or Boeing at this stage.

Do you agree with me?

Regards,

Hammer

I see your point… of course, it would be more intersting, from a financial point of view, for brasil to get more numerous orders than only 36 aircraft…

What I said is that, if brasil has its own production, they’ll be able to make rafales at the price they want, basically… look:

– the first batch (36 aircraft) is at a price fixed by dassault and takes also into consideration the costs for the development

– once they finished building these, as they don’t have to “get back the development money”, the cost for each rafale would be what it costs to build it in brasil. Salaries aren’t the same (far from that) than in france. various parts, as they are made in country, would be much much cheaper than overhere. Assembly just as well, which means that, in the end, the rafales “made in brasil” could be much cheaper aircraft to build and buy (and that’s most certainly the reason why dassault “gave” south american markets “only” to brasil in case they take the rafale. Had there been no such limitation, dassault wouldn’t be able to sell any rafale anywhere, simply because, even if the country wants the rafale, it’ll buy the brasilian one…

of course, that “cheap” argument would benefit to any fighter they buy.. for as long as the production can take place in brasil

However, saying “you need to be involved in the development to learn how to build an aircraft” is a bit strange… if they take a “finished” aircraft, when learning how to make it, they’ll also learn “why this” and “why that”, and also “why not that”.. the theory in various domains (aerodynamics, fluid mechanics, etc…) is part of it. Once they know it, if they want to make an evolution, the only limit is their ability to imagine new solutions and new formulae… then, do your math, and go through trial an error, like everybody else…

LM builds the F-35, and even if they’ve been building world class aircraft for decades, they still have issues, difficulties etc… mistakes and errors are made… and that’s the way it goes for everybody. What brasilian industry needs, is to close the gap with leading nations in fast jets technology, be it with the rafale, gripen or the superhornet, and then manage itself on its own… the idea of “learning while developing” is beside the point, and even deceiving, since if they are to develop themselves, it will necessarily lead to delays and probable unnecessary problems, and if the swedes do the development job basically, it comes back to “who is teaching who”, which goes also for the two others IMO