Hey, Signatory’s post was good!
It wasn’t necessary to remove it.
I’m personnaly exactly on the same wave length concerning Eurofighter.com which pull me on the nerves very seriously on each of its “article”.

I’m too 200% with EF’s PR bashing better than the plane bashing in its technical characteristics… (as a program it’s more debatable) 🙂

Yea I erased it myself because A) it had already been up a day and B) I realised it might trigger some flames and it was too much abt EF in a Rafale thread. And I tend to forget smileys.. 😎

But I guess the story was eurofighter.com’s bashing others while playing the victim card and I wanted to give my opinion why they might behave like that more so than others simply because they don’t have the same history or need to worry about a long term legacy, being accurate etc.

Afaik the 2 Alenia/BAe/Eads setups for Panavia/Eurofighter has found two countries on the export market in some 30-odd years. Seems imo that EF will eventually go the same way as Tornado and with no new state funded European A/B/E-program in sight and industry/states instead ramping up with the Americans on JSF I feel it’s fair to say we’re talking about a temporary setup. That also influences marketing.

Development is more at risk than Rafale’s where the French state simply has no alternatives than continuous R&D, yes French do some bits at a faster rate, other bits slower. But it’s moving forward and there’s no other path or whole new 2nd fighter project to split funding on. The countries behind EF is otoh in a financial crisis regarding defense and there’s no clearly defined continuously running state-funded upgrade path. Now the consortium is spending its own money hoping someone down the road will buy AESA’s but so far there’s no move among the air forces.

I just don’t think Air Forces actually care about eurofighter.com rehashing news of a HMDs (as if it was unique.. in fact core technology from Denel and operational on Gripen without much fanfare) or cryptic talk of (state-unfunded) AESA and (state-unfunded) 2020-visions. Or swings at competitors so its a type of marketing I don’t agree with. Ps. aware people know I criticize Saab when they do stupid stuff too, alot of marketing in this biz is stupid tbh.

Plenty of life left in the EF project so not saying it’s not going to export new jets again but I think we can take their marketing for what it is and pretty much just smile at it. It’s there to serve journos.

Shave all that BS off and we (as well as Air forces) see a different story 😉

Saab Lansen had a fuselage tank, egg-shaped conformal. When it was empty the aircraft actually flew faster than same jet without a tank at all.

That is of course unusual but drag is not always so obvious just by looking. In the case of Lansen the tank gave the aircraft a improved airflow as it otherwise was designed like a cigar. Same principle as a airplane wing, it’s not flat as possible to ‘cut through the air’ it’s created for lift or look at Mirage’s huge tear drop external tanks.

Things like that can still happen today depending on the total end results. Stealth-designs often compromise on flying good vs flying silently for instance.

But yup generally speaking.. drop tanks on fighters? Draggy!

Anyway back to the subject, anyone know if SAAB have set up any JVs in India?

JV and/or strategic MoU’s with TATA TCS, Mahindra Aerospace, Mahindra Satyam, Wipro, BEL, HAL and Samtel.

Well an outsider (for one) called pepe Rezende who had access to the evaluation (I guess you know who he is) was pretty clear about that. And I am sure you know what I am talking about.
As for the indian comment it was just posted a few days ago and I am sure you have read it.

I dont read much here.

Pepe can say whatever he wants, quite often it’s inaccurate. He thought the NG radar was to be supplied by Thales for a long time eventhough that was never the case. The RAVEN radar has not been evaluated by Brazil because the radar didn’t exist at the time.

RAVEN is not being retrofitted to a existing production jet with all kinds of bottlenecks and limitations that otherwise might arise using contemporary technology.

RAVEN is for a new aircraft; new hull, new structures, new cooling, new electrical power. The aircraft itself is designed to accomodate a radar like RAVEN and new higher operational requirements.

If you don’t really know what’s in the works I suppose you’re in for a little surprise.

Can you prove me it is the real radar ? No. Just to point out that all this debate from aviation nerds is funded on air

I am pretty sure it’s a prototype radar like Thales (?) and the sensible Rafale fans says. I don’t know why some people call all these pics photoshopped or mockups though which is why I made a point of linking to the prototype. If people wanna judge future systems based on prototypes then sure have fun but don’t pretend like everything is a photshop just because it’s not looking as awesome as hoped.

radar blockers for a single engined aircraft with a Y-shaped intake? never heard of that before. got a source for that ?

JAS 39 doesn’t have Y-shaped intakes like that. It’s impossible to see the engine face from the intakes up front. The engine fan sits behind a ‘wall’ with split L/R-openings (where radar blockers sit (photo below)) to each S-like shaped intake duct canal.

(right intake blocker)

As for MMRCA, India seeing a need to have many light/medium sized multirole fighters with affordabel price. These are the ones they intend to really mass produce to expand squadron numbers. SU-30 and ‘PAK-FA’ making up the heavier side. It would be different if India only saw a need for heavy fighters but now they see a need for a large number of light/medium jets and Gripen comes out of the box as one of, if not the most integrated multirole jet in that spectrum for a good price.

Lots of weapon choices, recon options, maritime strike, experience with mig-21/29 conversion.. more flight hours for the money. Fewer parts in the logistics chain. Spending less on MMRCA integration work, flying and ownership cost also means more money towards LCA/AMCA and other programs. So if the jet can do the required work, then there’s no reason to pay extra.

About the jet, restrictions are there over safety and cost issues that the customer (SwAF) requires as they today see them as more important than to take delivery of a jet that requires more training and budgeted flight hours. Saab does state they can offer other settings to other customers, but expect more flight training. It’s also worth to keep in mind the FCS issues Sweden initially had and the bad press etc over the program. Rather do this safe than be sorry..

This aircraft as well as other weapon systems in use by Swedish military operates with lower performance in this forseen period of peace than its actual capability but there’s both operational and non-operational switches to uprate the systems when the customer has a change of mind. In Gripen this is mainly on radar, engine, ews and fcs.

I may point out that no one has lost his life in a Gripen. And that is despite heavy budget cuts over the last 20 years. Only recently has flight hours began to move up again.

(I pile up in one post cos I wont check back often)

mmm..this is an interesting comparison..

ermm..what does it mean there is no IFF in the swedish greek and mexico ones..:confused:

Sweden doesn’t even operate EMB-145.. a clue on how accurate this comparison really is? ESM/IFF is integrated in the Erieye SSR.