I thought the British transfered the “special” relationship to France?

Quite a few countries are transferring their special relationships, I think they are beginning to realise that just having one ‘special’ relationship is not a great idea and that having many relationships gains you far more respect and freedom of action.

India is a good case in point.

I suppose that happens when one party doesn’t act as if the relationship is special.

cheers

2. The current employer gets a lot of funding from a party who wants F 35 to get positive press.

Just speculation

(amended your quote as above)

Ok lets speculate, you have a reporter who is highlighting things that LM don’t want highlighted, so they become a much bigger monetary source to that reporters employer, and then exert pressure to have him not report on things they want kept quiet.

Just speculation.

regards

BTW an one of the largest Australian suppliers to the JSF went into liquidation recently, not helped by the constant delays and the enormous investments required to ‘compete’ for JSF work.

source http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/national/national/general/jsf-delays-ground-aust-parts-maker/2300341.aspx

There are other companies suffering from the same, not just in Australia – who’s next.

Cheers

how about the the European ones I posted, did each and every single one have a contest?

Just look for the ones that didn’t…;)

If Australia wants the F-35 then, well so be it, up to them. But if they’re not gauranteeing buying the things over worries on costs then theres at least two other options available that they would be satisfied with. If they put a bullet in the F-35’s head, then why not go for the Typhoon? It’d certainly be a better choice than the F/A-18 the way I see it.

Sadly for Australia they are very Amerocentric, For Australia the answer is the JSF now what was the question!!.

There was a competition in 2002, where all but the JSF was turfed out, the Eurofighter because it couldn’t guarantee capability and delivery by 2012. LOL but the JSF could?

So when the JSF which only existed in powerpoint form won, Eurofighter GmbH was not impressed, and the Dassault exec who was flying over to Oz to open their office only heard about it on landing!!.

So Oz waited and waited. and were full of praise for the JSF over the last 10 years and it was all fine and dandy… but had to buy Super hornets to cover the shortfall, and are now in the process of looking at a couple of dozen more super hornets and take that from the imagined JSF buy.

So the Air 6000 “competition” has cost nearly double or treble what Typhoon would have cost, and the group that has been responsible for all this are now under the spotlight for defence procurement mismanagement.

So no you won’t see Typhoons in Australia not because there not a great choice, but because it would prove incompetence from the top down.

Cheers

Everyone is being very tight lipped about this deal…

There not much to go on just circumstantial evidence, but the long lead items will have to start about 18 months before aircraft are put together, equipment for putting these long lead items such as 5 axis lathes, bore sighting equipment, autoclaves have to be ordered about now.

So look for Dassault or Eurofighter partners ordering large industrial equipment.

You’d think the UK would have enough bore sight equipment in light of their reluctance to buy tranche 3b, so its interesting news that means either there are unexpected maintenance issues with the UK fleet requiring such a large order or there are some anticipated exports.

Perhaps the USAF want a couple of hundred bargain Typhoons as a stop gap measure till the JSF arrives in ~2030 😀

Cheers

Hmmm maybe I am. But, there just seems a lot of news coming out all of a sudden when theres a huge deal due to be announced any time now – coincidence maybe.

How about this news

“AAI Test & Training’s ABE(R) Selected for Eurofighter Typhoon EF-2000 Boresighting $2.2 Million Award Includes Three Systems for the Royal Air Force ”

“ABE is a gyro-stabilized, electro-optical angular measurement system designed to align aircraft subsystems. Because the ABE system supports concurrent maintenance and does not require aircraft to be jacked and leveled during the boresight procedure, both depot- and operational-level users can maintain schedules and reduce phase maintenance costs. These features also support increased manufacturing throughput for original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs. “

Now The Eurofighter consortium has 18 of these already, and they are long lead items, and by a strange coincidence and increase of 3 units to the 18 original would be a 16% increase

Now in a totally unrelated matter:rolleyes: the number of contracted Eurofighters is 707 if you add the possible 126 unit Indian deal its 833 a 17% increase.

Coincidence????;)

cheers

but I have a hard time believing that EF hasn´t offered India a better price than Saudi Arabia payed BAE.

The offer of being a partner means there a 7% reduction as the consortium can’t sell planes cheaper to export customers, partners are different.

cheers