TonnycThere are a problem that has been little known ventilated during the competition for the 36 fighters in which it won the Gripen NG, once this problem was the definition of a new advanced training aircraft for the Brazil Air Force.
In this long competition of the 18 years the MB 326 and MB 329 had been removed from service, and now the Brazil Air Force does not has an advanced training aircraft to qualify the new pilots for the F 5EM or AMX, so those fighter could have been accumulating flying hours in reason of this too .
Thus in the next ten years the F 5EM and AMX will probably accumulate high number of flying hours in reason of the lack of an advanced training aircraft for the Gripen NG, which could result in the acceleration from end of the useful life of those F 5EM and AMX.
After all it seems a lot of procrastination about only mention that in future would be orders for the Gripen NG to replace the F 5EM and AMX as if there are a long time for this decision, indeed it had not even planned during competition, once this occurred with a defined number of 36 fighters.
When a country has commits 80% of its defense budget with the payment of its active and retired military personnel, the replacement of 110 legacy fighters for 36 new fighters could be described as: Downsizing.
For anyone who could be capable to find out the resources to purchase and operate a fleet of 100 Gripen NG in the budget from Brazil Air Force maybe would be indicated in the final list for the Noble Prize in Economics.
The Super Tucano qualifies as an advanced training aircraft. It is perhaps not as cost-effective as a purpose-built trainer, but the performance envelope qualifies. Brazil can simply build Super Tucano without the weapons and its support systems and have a decent advanced trainer that way. No, it is not necessary to have a jet trainer as an advanced trainer. That’s nice, but not necessary. Consider the Swiss Air Force. They use the PC-21 Pilatus as their advanced trainer before moving on to F-5 and F-18.
Brazil’s defense budget woes are political in nature. Solving them takes political will. You seem to be very pessimistic about it despite your claim about hoping for the best, but that’s your right. But that has nothing to do with FAB’s choice of the Gripen, nor the industrial offsets expected, nor the economy of Brazil as a whole (while it’s exacerbated by Brazil’s current stagnation, Brazil’s defense budget problem was around even when Brazil’s economy was booming). Solving them will not get anyone a Nobel Prize in Economics because the problem was never the economy in the first place.
Honestly, is it really about the Gripen, maurobaggio? Because as far as I can tell, your gripes will still exist whether Brazil chose the F-18, or the Rafale, or even the Su-35 or the JF-17. Are you sure you aren’t actually griping about Brazilian politics?
TonnycI am wondering if perhaps there was a misunderstanding where the fact that the FX-2 winner is intended to replace all three aircrafts (AMX, F-5, Mirage) somehow got distorted into a 1:3 ratio.
Tonnycmaurobaggio, you need to let go of this idea that Brazil will make 15 and only 15 Gripen NG. Reputable defense analysts everywhere predict that Brazil will need some 100 fast jet fighters in the medium term to replace the F-5 and AMX and restore the lost capability due to Mirage retirement. The winner of the FX-2 is expected to be that replacement. It turns out the winner is the Gripen NG.
You can argue that the Rafale or Super Hornet is more capable, and some people do make that argument. But the idea that Brazil intends to make only 15 jets domestically makes it hard for people to take you seriously.
TonnycThat is the point the preliminary feasibility study is already done by the UK team, so why offer something that is DONE as offset?
SAAB even told that they know what have to be changed to gripen NG be sea capable… so there is no study to be done the study is ready and cant be offered as OFFSET
I don’t think that Appendix D is the actual offset. It’s probably more like “according to our study, the Sea Gripen is feasible (see Annex D Appendix 22 for details) and we would like to co-develop it with you as part of the offset program”.
TonnycWell, maurobaggio, it sounds to me that you are expecting the worst while not doing anything to prepare for it.
Worried that a 2nd production line won’t be profitable with just 15 Gripen NG? Then advocate a follow-up order and start marketing them to friendly countries. Maybe Peru or Chile. Dunno. Heck, market the Gripen F back to Sweden. Brazil needs about 100 fast jets eventually to replace all the F-5 and AMX, so why assume that Brazil will stop after this order? Or are you expecting that the Brazilian Air Force will not replace those aircrafts? Brazil wants that production line precisely because it expects to eventually buy 100 fast jets.
TonnycAh, I see. If he meant the FA-50, that makes some sense. I personally think that Argentinian Air Force would prefer something with more bite, but they may not have the choice given their current economic situation. I am puzzled why the JF-17 negotiation fizzled though….
TonnycWhy not Korean TA50?
For what purpose? The TA-50 is an advanced jet trainer with some attack capability. Argentina already has the IA-63 PAMPA in that role.
TonnycThey are cheaper than Gripen, specially as price will be in Rubles and they could pay them in their national currency. They are fully Russian made, so no danger of any blockade or sanctions from EU or US.
I am not aware that the Russians are willing to be paid in either rubles or Argentinian peso. I have always been under the impression that the Russian arms sale is one of Russia’s main source of American dollars. Can you point me to where Russia has said that they will accept payment in rubles or Argentinian peso, please?
TonnycI saw this posted over in the F-35 thread, and it seemed to have originated from Saab. Is this legit?
What do you mean by legit? If you mean that it is something created by Saab themselves, yes, it was indeed part of Saab sales material in a presentation somewhere. However, it is ultimately a sales presentation and should be treated as merely that.
TonnycIs that a “No, Gripen C/D use ‘commercial fuel'” or No as in “Not a single Gripen C/D uses ‘commercial fuel'”? Because as I understand it the Gripen C/D supposedly can be tuned to accept commercial grade jet fuel and that the SwAF does that. As I recall, during their Libyan mission they had to procure fuel from Greek suppliers instead of using NATO’s fuel stock because of that.
TonnycSay what ? did the government actually say this ?
i’m happy to hear Gripen lost now, and wish every country not least my own had the right of the people to vote in detail
What the “No” proponent insists on saying: “billions of francs that can be spent on education, health-care, infrastructure, the usual”.
What the Gripen Special Fund law actually says: “over the next ten years, the defense budget shall set aside some money to pay for procuring the Gripen while still remaining under the mandated ceiling on military spending”.
The No proponent did not exactly lie. Technically if you don’t spend on defense the money can indeed be spent on other things. However, the Gripen Special Fund did not mandate a cut in anything. It would be funded purely from the defense budget. The great victory of the “No” proponents was in spinning the news so that it sounded like the procurement will cut into education, infrastructure, health care, and the usual. Case in point: maurobaggio heard the spin and believed it. Obligatory heard maurobaggio pass the rumor and believed it. The great failure of the “Yes” proponent was in not doing much to counter the spin.
TonnycIndeed you forgot to mention, perhaps you have been distracted while recalled of Ougadougou, that the T- 50 PAK FA also is a 5th Generation fighter just like the F 35A/B Lightning II.
As I could remember when it was revealed that the F/A 18C/D will replace the Mirage III there were a lot of criticism about the size of the F/A 18C/D in the mountainous terrain from Alps.
However the F/A 18 C/D has been superbly performing its missions in those conditions , so a fighter like T 50 PAK FA has been more maneuverable than the own F/A 18 C/D could also play well those missions from F/A 18 C/D and overcome this in all other parameters .
In my insignificant opinion when I saw the news about the Government of Switzerland had mentioned that would cut education funding to finance the acquisition of Gripen E, this literally burned must of the chances of vote from the population to approve the Gripen E.
Maybe this had happened with purpose to make way for the acquisition of the F 35A/B in the near future. The goal could be a downsizing now with the target to persuade the population from Switzerland to invest more in the F 35A/B when the time to replace the F/A 18 C/D come.
There is no plan on replacing the Hornet with the F-35. Your talk of preparing the population of Switzerland to invest in F-35 when the times comes is just baseless conspiracy theorist talk.
The Switzerland public does not care on whether an aircraft is 5th generation fighter or not. If you follow the debate you will not see a single sentence on that issue.
The Switzerland Air Force also wants an aircraft capable of using their mountain hangars. When they chose the Hornet they had to enlarge those hangars so it will fit. This costs money, PAKFA is bigger than Hornet. The mountain hangars will have to be enlarged again, costing even more money. Given that the Gripen referendum boils down to money, how is the PAKFA going to deal with that issue?
TonnycWhy not?
It you like to be neutral then you have to buy the aircrafts from a neutral country like from the vackra Sweden,
or build you own aircrafts,
or buy and operate from both side aircrafts and operate them along each other like Malaysian Air Force with the F-18 & MiG-29 & Su-30MKM, Indonesian Air Force with F-16 & Su-27, Pakistan Air Force with F-16 & JF-17. Even Switzerland did it in the spring 1939 with the Me-109 from germany and the MS.406 from france.
If I was someone from Group for Switzerland without an Army, I will clap my hand in glee because you just wrote dozens of attack ads for me. “No on billions for fighter jets”? Why, we’ll just have to update it to “No on dozens of billions for Russian fighter jets”. The Swiss will eat it up.
This is not a matter of “both sides”. Have you looked at what the “No” side in the Switzerland referendum put as their argument? It was about money. Unless Russia is able to bring the total lifecycle cost for PAKFA to something cheaper than Gripen, and I’d like to see them try, it won’t fly in Switzerland.
TonnycOk i think i found the source.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/02/20/bae-malaysia-idINWLB0079Z20140220
is it?
The 13th of March (taht is later), during the annual results conference Dassault CEO clearly denied having received any leasing sollicitation. The video is on the net.
So something is fishy. (either Reuters report is misreported, either one of their is a propaganda war).
if you look at recent Jane’s News, it seems that Malaysia will move to a leasing solution, but not decided yet.
http://www.janes.com/article/36730/dsa-2014-mrca-candidates-outline-leasing-options-for-malaysia
Yes, that is the same article that I quoted and linked. And yes, that news doesn’t match the other news.
I don’t think that it’s a big deal. Parts of the Malaysian government often says something while a different part says a completely different thing.
TonnycReuter’s repeated a local jorno.
But i may be wrong, and i’m very interested in your source about Ala Garwood sentence.
My source is Reuters and the link to the article where Mr. Garwood was quoted was already provided. Did you not click the link and read the article?
Reuters is a reputable news source. We are not talking about the Daily Mail here. While it is not impossible that Reuters is wrong about this, if you want to question the their credibility, you need to provide more data beyond just claiming “they were just quoting a local journo”. Show us a clarification from BAE, perhaps. I would think that BAE’s Public Relation department would react if news outlets worldwide erroneously quoted them.
Anyway, which local media were you talking about anyway?
The contradiction between BAE statement and Saab’s, IMO, is not a matter of which news source was wrong/right. It is likely reflective of the Malaysian government’s indecision on the MiG-29 replacement instead.
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