What make me think they didn’t ask? Because they didn’t (at least to one of the contenders). LAst months news about leasing were from one unique only paper…

Wait, are you sure? Because the news I was talking about came from Reuters and was repeated by many other news outlet. While I’m not saying that Reuters is never wrong, Reuters is credible.

Now, the article says that BAE’s Group Business Development Director Alan Garwood says:

“What they have done is solicit leasing proposals from every major aerospace company. We will be submitting a leasing proposal next month for Typhoon together with a purchase option and expect to have further discussions later in the year or maybe even early next year around that,” he said.

The Malaysian government can’t seem to make their mind up regarding the replacement of their MiG-29, but it does seem to me that at least some part of the Malaysian government is asking around for proposals. Whether it’s an official or unofficial…, well, I have no idea what the political situation in Malaysia is like, so I can’t comment on that.

Ab initio purchases are expensive because you are paying not just for the planes, but for everything else that is needed on the ground before the planes can fly. However, despite Time’s report, the final price was at $2.3 billion with everything, not $4.2 billion. A follow-up order in 2013 for another 18 F-16 was only $830 million, presumably because everything else has been paid for.