CastorYou gotta figure in gas and the typical maintenance the jet needs after landing, I’m guessing.
Yeah, I would also think that fuel is the minor part in this cost,
most money would go to maintenance and economic write-off. By the latter I mean that if you buy a fighter for 50 million $ you’ll have a write-off cost of 50 million $ divided by the maximum number of flight hours (or flights).
CastorThe reason for the Mirages is that the French government wants to sell the RAFALE in near future with the participation of Embraer (Dassault is a minor shareholder of the company). Brazilian AF and the government are very interested on the RAFALE.
Then I have one very simple question; why did they not offer the Rafale during FX tender?
Castorit was 45 million in fy2000 dollars (i think) over th entire production run..the early batches will obviously be exuberently expensive.
I would be extremely surprised if the price is lower than 90 million dollars for the export variant. Honestly.
Another quite interesting article I read about was in norwegian newspaper VG (Verldens Gang) 13/5 -05, where the norwegian general inspector of the norwegian airforce stated:
“We have given priority to buy american fighters even if the Eurofighter might have made larger steps in it’s progress towards a fully operational fighter”
So, I suppose there is something more to these deals with Lockheed than just expected performance. Both the danes and the norwegians seems quite biased towards JSF out of no obvious reason. The norwegian industry ain’t too happy of this though, as they still wait to receive work packages for the money they’ve put into the JSF project. This criticism was so hard that the norwegian secretary of defence made a new deal with Lockheed where the norwegian fee was reduced by 50% for year 2005 and 2006. Norway should otherwise be obliged to pay 100 million norwegian kronor (1 $ = 6.50-7.00 Nkr) per year for ten years.
This reduced fee has not been made public according to one source in the norwegian parliament since other countries might be upset about it. He points out UK as the most obvious example.
Source: http://www.vg.no/pub/vgart.hbs?artid=237687 (in norwegian)
CastorOne must congratulate Lockheed for having an extremely good PR-department. Normally, you would start a tender and buy the cheapest and best solution according to the outcome of that tender. But Lockheed has managed to twist this by telling everyone that they’ll have this ultra-super-duper-fighter on the market if you just wait a little bit more. And oh, they want you to pay a little amount to be able to participate in the program.
This is absolutely brilliant. The danes might end up with a down-graded export variant of an overweight, overpriced and delayed JSF. And there is nothing they can do about it since they’ve put a lot of money into it already.
The funny thing is that they don’t really understand that just as superior JSF will be in 15 years, the UCAV will be in 30 years.
CastorHmm why would the fact that the Mi-28 was considered superior be uncomfortable.
– It was a russian helicopter and swedish armed forces had from day one trained warfare against russian invasion forces. Not a very good move to buy stuff from the country that is most likely to go to war against you is it?
What was the basis of the Mi-28s superiority anyway?
– From what I reckon there were at least two things.
1. Apache was a nightmare to maintain compared to Mi-28. This might not be a problem for USA or UK since they operate out of “safe” bases during the Iraq war for example. But Sweden expected to fight it’s war in Sweden – and against Russia. So that would mean zero time for maintenance and rather basing helos in the battlefield.
2. The Apache failed badly on the firing range – they simply missed their targets. I’ve heard some explanations about this but I don’t know how true they are. One is about that they failed to calibrate their positioning system (so far up north you work in polar mode on gyroscopes (correct english term?), but the americans missed that fact).
Also about ten years ago the Swede’s may not have been offered the Longbow radar and associated Hellfires whereas the Mi-28 has the missile radar in the nose, so maybe thats it?
– They were offered the Longbow variant, and they had access to the Hellfire.
1. The armed forces were explicitly only interested in the Longbow variant.
2. Sweden were at that time the only country buying american Hellfires which they modified and sold back to the US.
And btw, I wouldn’t believe that they would have bought russian helos with russian electronics. Most likely, Ericsson and Saab would have developed swedish radars and fire guidance systems for the helos.
Sorry for hijacking this thread!
regards,
Castor
CastorScandies do not seem to be interested in any better asset than basic HOT/TOW-capable civilian upgrades, Swedes will either go for Tigre or nothing at all
Let me remind you that swedish army tested Mi-28 against AH-64 about ten years ago, and they ranked Mi-28 as the better one. That was a quite unpleasant fact for a country that had prepared for the past 50 years to take on a russian invasion. So there were no swedish attackhelicopters at that time.
Today, I would rather say it’s an economic reality as well as lessons learnt that prevents Sweden from getting Apaches or whatever. The glory days of the attackhelo are over.
Nevertheless, in 2008 all 20 Hkp 9’s (Eurocopter Bo105?) will be retired. Either there will be no attackhelos or there will be a cheap solution at that time. Mangusta could be that cheap solution, especially since they bought A-109 as trainers.
regards,
Castor
CastorThat article on DEFESA clearly says “2000-5 used from France” … “in six to eight month”. But who says 50/60 million Euros? The article says 100 million Euros.
Still cheap isn’t it?
Castor50 million $ for 12 Mirages? If that’s quite new planes – it’s cheap. But is it a great thing to get those? On a short term basis I would definetely say yes – on a long term, I would hold my horses.
Getting Mirages for a short term usage will make you better prepared for getting Mirages once (or maybe if?) the real fighter tender begins. If you intend getting those russkie jets later on, I’d rather lease a couple of Su-27’s or whatever until they’re delivered. In that way you will save time and money on training technicians, training pilots, and infrastructural costs (hangar, tools, etc.). But hey, my name is not Lula, so how does it matter…
Castorwe should be careful that we do not always assume that arab = terrorist.
I fully agree on that!
Castorwe should be careful that we do not always assume that arab = terrorist.
I fully agree on that!
CastorI know that. I was simply making the point that just because the person was getting distressed in Arabic does not mean he is going to blow the aircraft up.
Then we should discuss the matter of which one of the following is the most likely to blew up a plane:
a) An arab praises Allah and acts nervously.
b) A white person praises God and acts nervously.
Well, let’s look at history then.
1. The christian suicidal mission pretty much ended with the crusades at about 1400 A.D, whereas the muslim holy war (Jihad) is a fact in modern time.
2. UK has been involved in the war against Iraq and Al-Quaida – which has drawn a lot of interest from certain muslim terror groups. UK and UK interest are quite clearly a target for these groups.
3. The latest three suicidal hijackings have been conducted by muslim terror groups (9/11).
So, just because the pilot or security crew considers an arab as more interesting than a white guy it mustn’t necessarily need to be out of racist reasons.
CastorI know that. I was simply making the point that just because the person was getting distressed in Arabic does not mean he is going to blow the aircraft up.
Then we should discuss the matter of which one of the following is the most likely to blew up a plane:
a) An arab praises Allah and acts nervously.
b) A white person praises God and acts nervously.
Well, let’s look at history then.
1. The christian suicidal mission pretty much ended with the crusades at about 1400 A.D, whereas the muslim holy war (Jihad) is a fact in modern time.
2. UK has been involved in the war against Iraq and Al-Quaida – which has drawn a lot of interest from certain muslim terror groups. UK and UK interest are quite clearly a target for these groups.
3. The latest three suicidal hijackings have been conducted by muslim terror groups (9/11).
So, just because the pilot or security crew considers an arab as more interesting than a white guy it mustn’t necessarily need to be out of racist reasons.
CastorGood point. What if they were saying the same in Spanish or Basque, would they be thrown off for being ETA terrorists?
ETA are not religious fanatics, they are claiming independence for Basque.
CastorGood point. What if they were saying the same in Spanish or Basque, would they be thrown off for being ETA terrorists?
ETA are not religious fanatics, they are claiming independence for Basque.
CastorSo if a white person sits there going “Oh my God, oh my God” and rocking back and forth, would you say that was sufficient reason to kick them off too? Because I sat next to a nervous traveller who did just that.
Who is to say this chap wasn’t doing exactly the same?
Christian suicidal bombers and terrorists are quite rare these days. I think you’ll have to take a trip to 1100 A.D in order to see a crusade or two.
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