The source from that is a 2008 article saying that the Gripen NG will be able to supercruise with the new engine, not that it’s actually achieved that. The plane has changed since then.

Seeing as how the Gripen has a much higher wing loading than the P-40, clearly the Gripen can’t reach the altitude of the P-40.

Hey actually the article had claimed that they scored a direct hit on the F-35 with a missile, yet it was able to return to base. In other words, clearly the F-35 has superior armor compared to the A-10 (which wouldn’t stand up to a direct missile strike), so clearly the F-35 will be able to do “down in the weeds” CAS just fine.

I don’t see how any of the other contenders can approach the procurement cost of Gripen E, nor the operating cost.

Isn’t the Gripen E supposed to be around $85 million each? That puts it pretty close to the other aircraft.

Operating cost depends wildly on what assumptions are being used and what’s being included so it’s difficult to make apples-to-apples comparisons.

Yeah there are plenty of problems with the Saab marketing brochure.

Since when F-35 only carry 2 AAM?

More importantly, who in the world would use that mission profile? It assumes that the plane needs to supercruise to the CAP area, but then it assumes the pilot wants to maximize CAP time. If so, wouldn’t it make much more sense to get to the CAP area at cruise speed of around M = 0.8-0.9 so that you’re not going full military thrust on the way there and the way back? You’re only saving a few minutes anyway by supercruising with this mission profile, but you’d more than make it up with a longer CAP time.

It’s stuff like this that makes people not really take the Saab marketing seriously. Sounds good “on paper” to get the results they want, but makes less sense the more and more you think about it.

Compare wing loading and Thrust loading without knowing lift coefficient and equalize combat radius?. No surprised F-15E looks so much better than F-16, F-18

The 2008 RAND report claimed that the scatter plot was based on 50% internal fuel (which disadvantages higher fuel fraction planes like the F-35 and benefits lower fuel fraction planes like the Gripen). But not only that, it arbitrarily added or subtracted weight to different aircraft at whim. For example, it only added about 7400 lb to the empty weight of the F-22 when calculating T:W and wing loading when the F-22 reportedly carries 18,000 lb of internal fuel, plus the weight of weapons. It only added about 8500 lb to the F-15E when it carries over 23,000 lb of internal fuel (including from its CFT’s) plus weapons. In other words, not only is “50% internal fuel” a bad assumption for comparing the performance of different planes, the scatter plot itself didn’t even adhere to that! If it had, the scatter plot would have shown the F-22 to be “double inferior” (lower thrust to weight, higher wing loading) to the PAK FA, F-15C, and Typhoon, but people would’ve noticed that and called BS on the plot. So instead the authors arbitrarily changed the loaded weights for each aircraft to get the results they wanted.

My favorite example of this is the MiG-29M. The authors gave it a wing loading of 70 lb/sq ft. Since the MiG-29M has a wing area of 409 sq ft, this means that they assumed its loaded weight would be 70*409 = 28,630 lb. Yet wikipedia (I know, I know…) lists its empty weight as 29,500 lb, so the loaded weight they used for it was even lighter than its empty weight! Now, granted, they might have used the stats for the MiG-29 (rather than the M variant); but the original RAND powerpoint (not the Saab) clearly states it’s the MiG-29M, and not only that, the F-35 actually has pretty similar T:W and wing loading as the MiG-29! So any such scatter plot that has the F-35 not very close to the MiG-29 should immediately raise suspicions. But again, they didn’t want to admit that, so they just made up numbers until they got the desired results. No wonder why RAND themselves disavowed the report shortly thereafter.

Additionally, at the time, Saab was claiming that the Gripen E would be 15,700 lb empty with 7300 lb internal fuel. As of 2015 they were saying it would be 8000 kg with 3400 kg internal fuel, or 17,600 lb empty with 7500 lb internal fuel, an increase of 12% to its empty weight, with the requisite decrease to its flight performance. Who knows what they’re claiming now…

Pure BS. F-35 were not there during first week of Atlantic trident

Do you have a source for that? I mean, it’s easy enough to find contemporary accounts such as here talking about the F-35 flying during the first week. It’s more likely that the Greek article mistakenly wrote April 12 – 18 instead of the correct dates of Atlantic Trident (April 12 – 28).

On the other hand, contemporary reports do talk about that the F-22’s, F-35’s, Rafales, and Typhoons were “blue air” and not fighting against each other.

But tbh, if it happens it will still be a big failure of program management.

If you truly believe so then shouldn’t you also be in the Typhoon thread posting about how not upgrading their Tranche 1 planes is also horrible program management? Not to mention the F-22 and (IIRC) the Block 1 Super Hornet as well.

If France decided to upgrade all Rafales to the current standard then it would be the exception, not the rule. More likely a waste of money for France than anything else when few others bother to do that.