@ 21Ank

So you know what’s in the RFP then ? Well I know for a fact that the AESA flight demonstrations being evaluated by the Indian air force is not planned until at least next year. It’s the absolutely last trials they will do and do them in the manufacturer country of origin. That and weapon tests.

And I’m not going to excuse myself for attacking the multitude of delays in the MMRCA process. I’m barely supporting the Saab bid in the first place.

but looking at how they managed to roll-out a Gripen Demo JUST before the MRCA RFPs were sent out,

Wrong. The RFP had been received long before that. In 2007. Did you also fail to notice that the Saab Demonstrator was rolled out FOR NORWAY who was a investment partner on the aircraft and with the NoMOD as guest of honor with Gripen escort flights. The show was 70% for norway and 30% for everyone else. The following week Saab submitted two offers on the same date, one to Norway and one to India (the return-RFP).

There’s also issues here that has frequently been mixed up by most often private blogs.

It all began with finding a front-end for the Gripen Demonstrator AESA flight test demonstrations to countries such as India. Demos was to begin from summer mid-2009.

The accessable market (slimmed down to Thales, Raytheon, Selex and IAI’s Elbit) offered frontend systems to be connected to the Saab PS-05/A Gripen radar. Raytheon had a advance position there as Saab has already flown in 2007 the PS-05/A radar with a Raytheon array on a C-130 rig configuration.

Raytheon fell away because the US couldn’t offer a aesa export license to 3rd parties on a foreign fighter aircraft and Saab had already access to 2 arrays which is used for the Saab AESA programs. But not on the coming customer demonstations since they need to consider future products.

Thales had the advantage of a already tested product from a radar program with good governmental backing. This was especially appealing to the Swedish state who is putting up alot of the funding for the Gripen AESA demonstrator. The Thales system didn’t work well with the ground rig as they mated the components which could have been sorted out of course but as French politics was now in play to block the array after the demonstrations Saab felt it was not worth spending time trying to get the Thales front-end ready for demos as it would not properly represent the finished Gripen NG product anyway being unable to do the swashplate installation possible with the other arrays.

Selex could have been used from the start but was more time critical as they didn’t have a product in place that early in the talks. Saab was looking for as much off-the-shelf as possible for the demonstrations as time and money was to be spent on products that would actually become sellable and operational products.

Elta’s front-end could have been used but would likely mean criticism from the usual political groups that the Swedish state was wrong to entering into a military development project with the Israeli state. The advantage was the Indian-Israeli relationship.

And to repeat, France has not blocked the Thales array for the Gripen Demonstrator aesa. Saab had also said even as they signed Thales for the demonstrator that they would most likely not be part of the future Gripen NG radar.

For the future Gripen NG radar Selex was top candidate not only for being technologically wise but also for using a European source for the module constrution in series production, a source Saab/Selex will improve upon. And had they been able to offer a more ready practically off-the-shelf frontend almost 2 years ago, like Thales could offer, then Selex would have been more sure of getting picked also for the demonstrations.

Now some time has past and Selex has not only produced their 850E, exported the Vixen 500E to a first reference customer but also close to getting over the Vixen 1000ES to Saab. Looking at the time schedule for the demonstrations they have been set back a few months but the demonstrated product still to fly in just a few months will be much more like the planned Gripen NG radar and also cleared for exports.

I am thankful to the French politicians who have speeded up the development of the swashplate’d Raven 1000ES radar.. 😎

And people.. stop reading the POS blogs.

Perhaps indirect offsets by virtue of the Israeli components sourcing Indian parts?

Not saying that the situation presents itself like that exactly, but that was the take on it that made the most sense to me. Whether it’s true, I don’t know.

It made sense to you even when it’s not true ? OK….

I read that blog post a few times to really see if anything made sense and nope, nothing. Just your typical inaccurate garbage. I forgive the Jerusalem Post article though since it’s a non-industry media and they often present military news less than accurate and often make the story bigger than it really is, perhaps because their “source” had that wish. Did Saab talk to IAI about using their systems yes of course just like they talk to all other companies on the accessable market. Did the Israelis look at the Gripen as a way to sell more components and weapons if India would select that jet yes of course. IAI and other Israeli companies is always tagging along as a possible supplier for countries looking at Gripen, they do it in India and they do it in Brazil.

But the bottom line is that Saab (without BAE systems) is offering the Gripen NG with a European suite that alternatively can be adjusted to fit for instance Indian or Israeli components if the customer so require as part of a deal. It’s no more strange for Saab to offer Israeli radios instead of German ones as it is for them to offer AIM-9X integration next to the Python V. The customer selects the final kit. Also, the whole Gripen system (not just individual components) is also sanction free from the United States as long as the US has no weapons embargo against the receiving state. There’s alot more to say about the Gripen offer to India but almost all comments on the M-MRCA story is pointless IMO. The blahlablahblah just never ends and soon another story will get forums and blogs going with everyone of course being the expert analyst.

Eh sounds more likely that France will take them off UAE’s mind to get the Rafale deal. And they might never fly again. Write-off’s… politics can work that way. And only half of them is manufactured to -9 standard, so we’re talking old and older that has to compete on a already saturated maket. And that entire market spans from free to expensive.

The US offered free F-16s to a few countries such as Croatia and the reply has been “thanks but we can’t afford them”… Colombia picked up Kfirs for barely any money at all, Belgium and Holland is getting rid of decent F-16s at bargain prices. China got africa covered with various junk. And then there’s states that could use them but won’t take them because they don’t fire stockpiled US weapons.. And Taiwan will get their F-16s eventually.

So even if you try to donate them countries can say no. No, this is probably a write-off unless as said, they get broken up and ‘sold’ in small pieces here and there… no worries tho, just add it all to the Rafale’s marketing expenses and print some more money. 😎

Well same was done by SAAB also 🙂

Where did you hear this?

Awesome! 😀

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090612a3.html

Andy Latham, BAE System Inc. vice president in charge of Typhoon exports, told reporters that since the Typhoon costs only about ¥10 billion, it presents “an effective non-U.S. solution” with significant benefits for Japan.

Easy to convert yen to dollars… makes about US$100 million.

I guess that’s around 60 million UKP and 70m EUROs.

What a joke……….as it say nothing about the advantages or capabilities of the F-35. Further, if Norway is just looking for “cheap”. She is wasting her time on any 5th Generation Fighter. As you “get” what you pay for…..

Regardless, the Norwegian Goverment, Leadership, and Aerospace Experts all support the JSF Program…………Nothing is going to change and the Norway will get its F-35’s.

Just the same old “Politics”……….laughable really!

Eh, everyone has said since the beginning that Norway is to get the F-35 or even a flying pig if only that would have been offered by the Americans.

You’re obviously not capable enough to understand what this is all about.

If it was so awesome, so cheap and so capable, why didn’t they conduct a proper and fair tender process? They had to manipulate every aspect of it so other candidates would leave in anger, and classify most of the documents. Why didn’t they tell the people and its parliament the truth? Because they didn’t care about the capabilities at all! They would select the F-35 no matter what. Pig or no pig.

And “politics” everything has to do with politics. You think the F136 engine program is still funded because it’s good? No it’s funded because it’s politics just like Norway selected the F-35 because its politics.

The video says alot.

…

I believe Norway has been happy with the success of the F-16 Program. So, why would the F-35 be a hard sell……………Sound more like internal politics to me.

Regardless of their motives and ability to win support for their opinion it’s still the 2nd largest political party and their opinion adds weight to the long running position by foreign companies, analysts and industry journalists that the Norwegian tender was not done in a professional manner.

Even the pro-JSF Danes scratch their head when looking at the Norwegian JSF costs, for one the purchase price is too low (later revealed to not being a fixed price but just a estimate) and then the operating costs is several times as high. There has also been almost no information on how they came up with their conclusions, not even on a classified gov-2-gov level has the Norwegian state informed Sweden.

Same goes for the Norwegian parliment who has only received a few pages informing them of the decision. So FrP got some honest cause to object being taken for a ride by the socialists.

Per Ove Width (Frp) in the defense committee said it was the thinnest proposition he had ever received in all of his long parliamentarian life.

Just 11 pages.

For the largest material tax expenditure program in Norwegian history.

When he asked about exchange rates since that was not included in those 11 pages the reply was made confidential to the public.

No one except a handful people in the norwegian gov and their consulting firm know how they calculated the prices.

As for F-35 being more capable, certainly for US defense doctrines. I would never accept that my country bought such a failed and costly multirole jet. The fact that Norway who is usally a very open society refuses to present any decent material on the decision making process is quite telling. The only way to make F-35 the winner as a cost-efficient alternative is to manipulate the tender process and selection.