Where do you get that ridiculous figure from ? Its pure speculation. Saab says the price is 37,5m$ and you say its not. You and others split an industry deal figure with the number 36 and think thats the price. Ridiculous.
Do you also get the factory with the car you are buying ? Or if you buy 10cans of beer in the store plus alot of other stuff like food for 50 days and a computer. Then you split the price on the bag you got from the shop on the 10cans beer? expensive beer in that store ! holy shi* !
In this case with the gripens many of you do.

Because it is not 37.5 million and any reasonable person who follows aircraft contracts would know this number is pure fantasy, sorry. I think that Tomcat made a good point with saying that the in the best case scenario, the airframe alone would be 37 million. Tell me in what world would a Gripen C cost 58-70 million in todays dollars and a newer fighter with AESA and a new EW system amongst other upgrades cost 40%+ less. It is a fantasy… period.

For example, the F414G is cheaper than the RM12.

That very well may be, but 37 million in 2015 dollars for the Gripen E/F is just not realistic. If you take the F-18 E/F which is analogous to the Gripen E/F as it is essentially a new airframe based on an older fighter. It has a production run now approaching 600 aircraft(which is large by modern standards). In the multi-year contract signed covering the years 2010-13, the APUC was 72 million and the PAUC was 83 million.

Even if the Gripen E/F was the cheapest of new western fighters (which it very well may be), 80 million per would be very low, 37 milliion is absurd.

Note- Why use the F-18 E/F as a comparison? Because it had reasonably low development costs, mostly proven technology, large production batches, and again was based on an earlier fighter. Given that the Gripen C’s cost, even IF the E/F was cheaper (which, honestly, I doubt, it is not 37 million in todays dollars).

http://www.institut-strategie.fr/Moteurs_10.htm

The multirole needs for the Mirage 2000 led to one of the most uncommon feature of the M53: the variable section in the cold flow that makes the M53 the first variable engine ver put in service.

This item enables a variation of the bypass ratio. Closed, it increases the specific thrust of the engine at max settings, especially in supersonic. Open, it optimizes the Cs at medium thrust at low altitudes or during holding patterns.

It’s called the DSV (Détendeur à Section Variable) makes the bypass vary roughly between 0.4 and 0.32.

That’s a bit misleading. The M53 had the variable area mixer to control the tendency for a single shaft compressor stalls from throttle changes. Same concept, but really not the same effect as the adding gates to vary airflow to a 2 spool multistage turbofan. The M53-P2 had low compression compared to the multi stage compressors of contemporary engines, hence the DSV to had reduce bypass ratio while controlling the risk of compressor stalls.

Addition- The variable cycle engine they are talking about now with the adaptive fan and “third stream” that passes through the compressor but not the turbine hot section of the engine. From what I could find about the M53, it seems the DSV controlled how much air was fed to the compressor and how much was bypassed after the fan and into the fan duct.

I doubt an AIM-9X has enough enery to run after a bandit in that configuration;

– either you locked and shot before crossing, if the missile missed him, chances are it won’t have the energy to turn around and catch him
– you locked him but didn’t have time to shoot, if you shoot at the very moment of crossing, maaaaybe the missile manages to turn and hit before the separation is too great
– you didn’t lock him before crossing, forget it, better turn, lock and shoot when he’s more or less going your way (turned after you), or he’ll just extend, eventually pulling somewhat up and let your missile drop below as it won’t be able to follow

It does and has in tests, and is probably not unique in that ability. Obviously, the tests were at short range.

Or maybe the IAF knows why they want Rafales better than you insisting on their buying either obsolete fighters (Typhoon T1), unreliable ones (Su-30) or Powerpoint warriors (F-35).

RII is right, this deal is a bit of a disaster.
Winners- if the details such as the French transferring new production Rafales from the AdlA to the IAF are correct, the French gov is a winner because they get out of their commitment to buy 11 Rafales a year.

Even- Dassault, they get the guaranteed number of production through 2020, maybe a few added in production numbers, but nothing like the license production under the MMRCA deal. Perhaps they come out ahead, but not like a huge win the original MMRCA contract was supposed to be.

Losers- IAF they get 36 aircraft in the next few years to arrest a drastic fall off the cliff that comes in 2017 with the retirement of the Mig-27, 21. For that, they also add the expenses of operating a new type with new training costs, supply etc. Even if they add to the order in due time, is it anything like what they expected to get from the MMRCA contract? A follow on order would come at a time when money will have to be allocated to the MCA, FGFA, and Tejas II. Something is going to give and the IAF is going to be on the losing end.
AdlA- If the rumors are accurate, they will lose adding the most modern production Rafale, does this impact the 180 total order? Will, for instance, money be found, and the political will to continue by 2020.

It’s not about the aircraft they are ordering,or if it fits the IAF needs. It’s about a band-aid for a serious shortfall in airframes and the loss of a modern production base that India could have built on. They are now at the mercy of the supplier, that was entirely what the MMRCA competition was supposed to avoid.

Thanks. That is one of the best examples of outright lies used to promote the F35. That and cherrypincking in 4th gen is just superb. I wonder how… say the Flankers fit in? Or the F15 (a fighter of similar weight class as the F35).

About 4½ gen… :stupid: Yes, i used that emoticon as this might be among the most blatant lies in the F35 promotion campaign I have read. And it is not directed at you.

I think you missed what the AVM was saying. Given the DI of a similarly equipped fighter in the class of the F-35, it would take longer than 63 seconds to accelerate from Mach .8 to Mach 1.2. I don’t know what he was trying to say with the 4.5 gen fighter. Frankly, drag does not care if your gen 4, 4.5, 4.75 whatever.

When they say the acceleration KPP was written on a F-16C, most likely (based on the numbers) it was comparing the F-16 having a DI of around 100 (sounds high, but really as shown on previous page, pylons and 4aam gets you to around a DI of 50).

The F-35’s acceleration, based on it’s range and load it’s carrying, is good (also considering that for any strike mission legacy aircraft would also be carrying a targeting pod with all the limitations that places on the aircraft). Now stripping off that legacy fighter, it’s acceleration would improve dramatically as the drag would decrease. Hence an F-16 with a light load and four Amraams will beat the F-35, as the F-35 can lose weight but not drag.
(Again the F-16 may be 30+ years old, but if there is one area that it is still very competitive, it’s acceleration. It may be a tick off the EF-2000 but that’s nothing to be ashamed of)
Edit- about the only numbers I’ve ever seen for the Eurofighter came off the old Typhoon site and gave the following (0.8 –> 1.4M:62 seconds for standard air to air configuration at 36,000 feet)

That jives with what pilots have said, the F-35 “feels” about the same laden and lightly loaded. One way or another you’re going to pay a penalty (external weapon drag, or larger fuselage).

@ Msphere- quoting some POGO crap from an “un-named pilot source” is not in any way credible, yet we do have the actual testing that says “Mach 1.67” and the DOT&E report. I can give you lots of “unnamed pilot” comments. Sorry not the least credible. Not to mention there “B” carries two tons less fuel and a ton and a half more weight, and less thrust than the “A”.

Edit- Why do they use the F-16C? Because it is a benchmark for excellent acceleration, sure some may have eclipsed it, by how much? Just because the basic design is 30+ years old, it is still a small fighter with a very large engine and a good balance of moderate lift/ low drag.

From Pak Fa – T 50 thread.

Why would the F-35 A & C need the be compared with the aircraft it is replacing instead of the fith & sixth generation aircraft it may have to someday try to survive against in combat?
The F-35 A & C sustained turn performance will never be as good as it would have been without the design compromises required for the F-35 B, B design requirements that a future opponent will not be compromised with.

Freddy.

That is some of the conventional wisdom is that the requirements of the “B” compromised the aircraft, though it was acceleration not sustained turning. The aircraft had to be big enough to meet the requirements for range and internal weapons. Simply giving it a bigger wing would have improved sustained turn performance at the expense of just about every other metric as the “C” variant shows. The “C” has good sustained turning at the expense of mediocre acceleration, buffeting, probably worse roll rates.

The questions is: Would increasing wing area for some improvement in sustained turning been worth the degradation of other parameters. Considering the research on ACM that has been done since the end of the cold war, the importance of roll rate, pitch, acceleration, instantaneous turn performance, ability to transition from one maneuver to the next quickly, have superseded sustained turn performance as critical metrics. An aircraft needs a two degree per second turn advantage in sustained turn to be considered superior to it’s opponent. That was in the days of the rear aspect missile, think about the all-aspect missile and it’s implications. You have an aircraft that needs to meet a variety of criteria (load, range, size, cost), there has to be a balance. The F-35 was not designed to be an uncompromising air superiority design, that was the F-22 (for the USAF), I’m not sure anything would be worth compromising to gain a few degrees of sustained turning in this day and age. Again, if you look at the “C” variant (which I hate, as think is really the compromised version as there was no way to meet the requirements in a single engine for a carrier fighter without serious implications on performance), putting a bigger wing on a relatively small fighter has a cascade effect on other performance indicators.

Here is a good explanation of the sustained “g” spec change:
http://elementsofpower.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-f-35-and-infamous-sustained-g-spec.html

As far as the “B” version impacting the performance, they have stated that the had envisioned a longer airframe which would have improved the fineness ratio, with it better area ruling, etc.