Damn!

RIP 🙁

Sometimes people stare themselves blind from looking at the products as individuls.

One of the main roles of the new Gripen is obviously to offer long patrol time, the entire fleet will not be doing this at the same time. The rest scramble when needed. Considering that the METEOR, RBS15 and NSM offer 150+ km engagements using both radar and datalink information the added heavy stores mean a nice upgrade from the current jets as it offers both the longer patrol times AND a larger weapons load to be delivered per each jet.

It’s not like any euro canard need awesome dogfighting capability for the METEOR, the most desirable trait is speed and they all got it. In a post merge situation the IRIS-T TVC missile can help out if there’s agility issues.

But point is, the air force fly like a team and not as individuals.

Is any AF still using the Draken operationally? Austria maybe?

No AF… A few has been transfered to the Swedish Military Technical school and one (the ’56) is part of the Heritage flight. It flew on the big anniversary airshow last summer.

And then yes… civilian ones in the US. I think it’s more than one but not sure.

So in other words you can say that they are working with three different kind of AESA radars for the Gripen now, all whom wich may be offered for sale in the future Gripen?
1. US MMIC
2. Swedish/Italian M-AESA
3. “Nora” Improved PS/05 with AESA technology.

I´m guessing the SwAF will go for the NORA but wich radar is offered in the deal to the danes and norwegians?

Well my understanding is something like this:

Demonstrator project AESA “Nora” – researching on

..US MMIC
..SAAB/Selex MMIC

Output products:

1. AESA
2. M-AESA

Saab/Selex will start building the prototype M-AESA after 2010, they have not reached a hardware stage yet.

The antenna built with US MMIC’s is to fly 2007 and up for export 2010. Can’t really see any other option for the Norwegian/Danish jets. This radar might also go into the SwAF jets, operationally from 2015 in Edition 21.

And then 10 years later in the SwAF Gripen MLU the introduction of a M-AESA. (keep in mind that the SwAF is slower to integrate new products than what’s technically possible for export..)

Is the antenna with US modules just to enable the development of the back end, while waiting for Swedish/Italian developments?

Well afaik yes and no. They have been using complete Raytheon antennas hooked up to the PS/05 over the last few years and before that they used a Ericsson developed antenna called TILE. Flown on Viggen and the Raytheon out of a C-130 in container.

But they can buy just the modules and built their own antenna, and this is what I expect them to do. When the European modules are ready they will just replace the source, my understanding is that these modules will be smaller so they can fit more modules into the same space and also offer the Multi-channel capability out of the same project.

AFAIK the SwAF is not too interested in the single-channel AESA and want the complete MSI39 package M-AESA/MIDAS all in one go from 2020 or so. Gripen has otoh said they will offer AESA to export customer from no later than 2010.

Selex is involed in the development of all eurocanard fighter radars, there was talk back in 2005 that the Eurofighter AESA project AMSAR/Caesar would merge with Ericsson NORA probably because of the ‘cousinship’ to Blue vixen and BV related derivates. But still has not happened yet. They also work on RBE2 for Rafale.

I wonder what the status of the AESA radar is?

Just to clarify, there’s two AESA development for the Gripen. One using US MMIC and one Swedish/Italian funded development for M-AESA.

The one built using US modules is to fly 2007 in Gripen.

I think there’s more info about this in the latest Gripen News Magazine.

When did Rafale lose its pitot?

1) Yeah tell us something we dont know

2) Buddy like it or not the jets are coming. Atleast 200 of them.

3) And what does this have to do with anything? Do you even understand what the production rates are determined by?

See? You are proving by the minute you are an idiot. LCA is different from MRCA. They are not competing for orders. MRCA is not for replacing 21s. That is the LCA’s role. MRCA is to replace the 23s and increase squadron strength. You really have no clue.
Secondly might want to do some research on the significantly more capable part. AFAIK Tejas is just about as capable if not more than some of those aircraft being offered including the Gripen. India AESA efforts are going as planned. All the rest you were ga ga over is already present in LCA with some features being much more advanced than what other aircraft have. Do us all a favor and go do some research. You are really wasting time. Unless you have something intelligent to say in your next post I’ll start ignoring you.

It’s nice that you are enthusiastic about your little jet but real life is something completely different. I mean really, you need a reality check. Just be lucky if there’s no more broken deadlines and cost overruns. You also got the info wrong on air craft replacement, the whole MMRCA tender was initiated just because of the depleting squadron size due to problems in the LCA development. MMRCA was intended as a stop-gap solution. That’s why the order is so small at just 126 jets.

As for the engine. While the engine diameter is the same The F414 has 16 percent higher airflow than the F404. Can you tell me that Tejas is already desiged to deal with this issue?

It’s common practice. Rafale had work done on its intakes when it got M88-3 engines. Kfir-C1 was designed with larger intakes than Mirage due to the use of J79. Gripen is unlikely to need it as the RM12 already use a larger fan than the F404.