YellowSun

But if, as you say, there is no budget available in the upcoming years then that is the end of the story. The aircraft have to be bought now because the line WILL close – and of course the 1 January 2008 deadline for the Battlegroup gets closer every day.

Well eh, the budget is not presented. Of course there’s a risk they do not buy now, but the risk is smaller than the chance that they will buy.

The manufacturing line is open at least until the end of 2009. They have allocated parts from subcontractors for 18 jets, of which two have been identified as going to Sweden. Should Sweden not pick them up they will go to the USAF as one if the 10 new jets the congress ordered last month. It took Boeing less than 5 months to build the first Australian C17.

If the date moves further to the right then the A400M becomes a bigger and bigger factor in the decision (assuming that it stays on schedule which I admit is a big IF). But Sweden has an industrial stake in the A400M and that has to be a factor when it comes to making airlift decisions for Sweden.

You have no clue what you’re talking about. SAAB has a stake in Airbus but SAAB has also a stake in Boeing’s production, as does Volvo on the engine side. Still, these are private corporations. It’s not “Sweden” this and that.

A400M will never be a factor, there’s simply impossible to get planes to Sweden before 2015-1018 (depending on financial investments).

Have you even followed the protocols from the defense commitee over recent years or even read the manifesto of the Alliance For Sweden ?
Have you read F7’s Airlift study 2012 ? Read Svenska Freds report? Those by FHS? If had you wouldn’t make such a comment.

Don’t confuse the money Sweden spends on Gripen with money for Boeing. Gripen is a huge national asset that guarantees jobs, industry, technology, security and independence.

? That’s beside the point. The point is, the delivery of Gripen jets is coming to an end and have cost the military over 1 billion USD per year since the first annual delivery. That’s in their regular budget. The allocation of new airlift will if it happen come from the government budget.

The Gripen numbers is an indication of price management. Where the state guarantee over contract to industry a multi-year commitment. We bought 5 Visby corvettes for 9.6 Billion. Just ordered HTM Koster for 1 Billion, just invested 1 billion into Gripen UTV. C-17 otoh is a cost that will be distributed over 30+ years. How do you think we could afford NH90 choppers?

Buying C-17s just boosts Boeing’s share value.

Eh unlikely if you knew anything about economics. It would otoh boost SAAB and Volvo share quite a bit since they will receive offset deals.

SEK400 million sounds like a lot – but is it enough to cover crew training, spares, mission support, rebuilding F7 and all your day-to-day running costs?
It’s only USD54 million…but you still need to find 10 times that amount to buy them in the first place.

See here you’re talking nonsense again, the 400m is the combined operative costs allocated annually in the defense budget for strategic airlift. If the gov otoh buy C-17s the cost would drop since there’s no need to buy expensive fly hours from a foreign provider.

When is the Supreme Commander’s request due to be signed off and when will the budget actually be nailed down?

You don’t know the decision making process either. First off, the Supreme commander doesn’t get a say. The RFI for new Airlift capability was ordered by the defence commitee last year and FMV came back with the offers in February, the commitee then had negotiations with all parties.

All but V and Mp supported 2 new C-17. Since S wanted a deal with the left and not with the alliance, they accepted the decision by Mp to investigate matters further. The investigation has thus concluded that Sweden can not participate in NATO pooling.

The budget will be laid out on the 16th like I already said. In that one, the gov can decide to order new airlfit to the defense. This is OUTSIDE the regular military budget. (The next big defense agreement will happen fall 2007)

The government will add more money into the defense budget for international operations. That’s a election promise. 400m, 650m, 1150m the first 3 years. And in every proposition, in every news article, in every manifesto from members of the Alliance they talk about a need for a new capability. I don’t think you quite understand how serious the new gov is to restore credibility in the military and make sure we take more of a lead on international missions. For Them it’s hard currency used to buy political influence in Europe and the UN. Not my guess. All in their manifesto and propositions.

The discussion and the need is not in question. As I said, *the Nordic battlegroup concept will not work without strategic airlift*, but the fact that this has been under discussion for so long in Sweden shows that it’s not an easy question to settle – and that’s because of the enormous cost.

The NBG element of the discussion on airlift only arised much later, the demand for strategic airlift was a factor before (F7AS2012, i.e what kind of fleet we should have from 2012 and forwards) but NBG and also the Kosovo riots 2004 really made it clear that we need to get this sorted out NOW.

Swedish C-17s will NOT be put into a European pooling, where did that idea come from? And let me tell you, Ireland, Switzerland, Estonia, Norway don’t have any money either…and just how do you divide two aircraft among five or six users??

See I don’t know how you can even comment without knowing basic info.

The European Airlift Center (EAC) in Holland is where member states add spare flyhours into the center and other states can charter airlift. This can be for military operations, humanitarian, or domestic. “We” (state owned corps) used the system to fly generators and other equipment from Germany to Sweden after the Gudrun Storm.

This is proposed by the defense commitee and common sense. Read their protocols.

In a similar event in Norway or Finland, they could check the database and see if Sweden has airlift hours available and rent by the hour. This is nothing new. this is called pooling. NATO has their own pool on the side (under buildup). Not everytime this system works when we need much larger capability, it took us almost a full month to fly in reinforcements to KFOR.

Why it didn’t work: The enourmous shortage of airlift capability in Europe.

The money IS a problem. Funding has been requested but not approved so it’s not in any budget – yet. Now maybe that will change…maybe the need for these aircraft will override all other considerations but all of the signs so far point otherwise, despite what it says in the Boeing press releases.

Boeing hasn’t issued any such press release so again you’re factually wrong.

From what I have read here in Swedish news media there will be no C-17 purchase.

Apparently your Swedish news is not the Swedish news us other Swedes read.

Anyway, on the 16th we will know. A purchase or a lease is likely.

The offer was for 24 aircraft as that was the requirement. There was no exception for the Swedes. There was a better offer from Saab later yes, but its not very trusty to come up with a high price and then later saying “oops ok we see you don’t take our product, now we make a fair offer”. The competition was lost. Dassault also made an offer after the decision for Eurofighter which looked quite cheap, but such a procurement includes more than only the aircraft… And as said all came up with better offers after they lost due to their crappy opening offers.

The fact here is, Saab and other bidders were not allowed to rewise their bids like Eurofighter. Remember the final contract was for 18 jets not the airforce requirement of no less than 24. This is what Saab offered 28-30 jets:

— The first solution is based on the supply of 24 new single-seat
and six optional dual-seat Gripen fighters, and an associated
interim solution of 12 leased Gripen fighters.

— A second, alternative solution proposes an early delivery of 24
new single-seat and four dual-seat Gripen fighters. This solution
avoids the need for an interim leasing period.

Source: http://press.arrivenet.com/autos/article.php/319658.html

LM offered 30 F-16A/B jets.
Source: http://www.dsca.mil/pressreleases/36-b/Austria%2002-19.pdf#search=%22f-16%20offer%20austria%22

The then government of Austria refused the calls of the people and refused to enter negotiations with Saab for a 18-jet contract.

The deal was opposed by the opposition parties (social democrats and greens). Even a petition was organised in order to halt the deal. More than 620.000 Austrians did sign the petition and as a consequence the Eurofighter deal was discussed in parliament.

http://www.oeog.at/themen/austrian_security-politics.php

Any source on the current deliveries of the engines?

But it seems like China is making lots of hype around FC-1, as seen from youtube videos, it would be hard to imagine they actually abandon arguably their most advance airframe.

Of the 100 Al-31FN ordered in 2005 a confirmed 60 has been delivered until June 2006.

36 J-10’s going to Pakistan.
54 engines in stock from previous deliveres.

i.e 154 Engines. Remove ~10% for spare
140 engines. Remove 36 to Pakistan
106 engines.

First production run ~50 jets (2002-)
Second production run ~50 jets (2006-)

So it may differ a jet here and there but in no way figures in the several hundreds. They should if all is well, have 3 divisions (per 20 jets) now.

Adding half-divisions annually. There has been valuable lessons from the J-10 programme but there’s nothing to indicate that this is the platfrom they want to bet the farm on. The cost benefits vs operative effect compared to J-11 (and also FC-1 in some aspects but not as much) is just not there and imo they go forward in a low-rate to allow for more indigenous technology to spring out and mature before hitting the big button that will modernize the airforce.

But this is a EF thread so…someone else hijacked it. not me. 😀

Sources:
http://www.sipri.org/contents/armstrad/REG_IMP_CHI_89-05.pdf/download#search=%22sipri%20china%20j10%20conventional%22
http://www.sinodefenceforum.com/showpost.php?p=35400&postcount=203

[B] PARIS (AFX) – Deliveries of the Airbus A400M military transport aircraft being developed by EADS(European Aeronautics Defence and Space Company) are likely to be between 18 and 24 months behind schedule, La Tribune financial daily reported, citing industry sources.

Anno: Wednesday, 19th July 2006 08:13

Old news. False news. I expected more from you BiO.

Airbus Military says A400M programme on track

PARIS, Sept 21 (Reuters) – Airbus Military said on Thursday its A400M airlifter programme had met its contract “milestones” and the group was giving top priority to fully meeting the seven-nation military project’s commitments.

The comments came as Britain inaugurated a wing factory for the future rival to Lockheed Martin’s Hercules C130, and came on the same day Airbus Military’s sister commercial planemaker unveiled embarrassing new delays to its A380 superjumbo.

Airbus Military has been fighting a rearguard action for months against press speculation of a delay to the 18 billion euro A400M programme, which it has always denied.

“To date, all the A400M contract milestones have been met on time and we are giving top priority to continuing to fully meet our programme obligations on this exciting and important programme in the months and years ahead,” Airbus Executive Vice President Programmes Tom Williams said in a statement.
http://today.reuters.com/news/articleinvesting.aspx?view=CN&storyID=2006-09-21T131808Z_01_PAC006955_RTRIDST_0_ARMS-AIRBUS.XML&rpc=66&type=qcna

http://www.gao.gov

115% above 1.5 x supersonic.

This decision was a political call by the defense-hostile leftist gov who stepped on the Flygvapnet 8 months into the planning of this particular exercise. Sweden just elected a new right-wing government with a different view on how the military should operate and they also plan to hold a more favorable view on Israeli relations.

So don’t take this one-time incident as some kind of established policy.

We usually don’t exercise with any country not in the EU or NATO/pfp partnerships, but have exercised with Israel in the past (Maple flag) although with C-130 divisions.

There’s many extra layers of carbon fibre composities in the area around the axis… what might look like a damage is actually a stronger part 🙂