The availability and use of F-35s have been lower, in some cases much lower, than those of other fighter aircraft of the same age, concluded the Congressional Budget Office, the government agency that provides financial data to U.S. lawmakers.
“For example, the average availability rate of a 7-year-old F-35A has been about the same as that of a 36-year-old F-16C/D and a 17-year-old F-22,” it added in a report released in June.
Gripen supporters counter that their plane has a much lower cost to operate than the F-35s and has high availability rates.
I addressed that already. When switching aircraft you're building new logistics for it. It's always a very big deal. Every base, every squadron that receives the F-35, must make local adaptations for it. That means for the duration, and for a while until they're fully climatized to the new aircraft, there will be lower availability. It is also affected by the fact that the USAF/USN are still transitioning to the F-35, and as the earliest adopters with the biggest fleet they are also using a lot of aircraft in need of upgrades.
These issues of scale do not apply to Canada, and I've already provided one example where a smaller force can make the F-35 work with very high availability.
The cost per flight hour is significant. One can argue that for highly contested airspace, the higher operational cost for the F-35 is justified but for Canadian sovereignty patrol in North America, Gripen is a viable and less costly option.
The E/F variant of the Gripper already doubles the flight hour cost of the C/D (reported $4k -> $8k). It lives a shorter life and costs more up-front. You won't keep it flying for another 40-50 years like an F-35 because it's already on the obsolescent path. So you gotta keep that in mind, that it's not as economical as it seems. If we assume it flies for 20 years before it's re-exported, you're only saving money through flight hours for half that time.
Is this not so big saving worth the money?
True flight hour costs include more than just the wear and tear. They include expenditure of munitions, and perishables like EFTs.
An aircraft like the Gripen doesn't discount these. The fat F-35 hauls huge fuel stores, an internal bay that's more than enough for the usual CAP, and powerful internal sensors and effectors that substitute pods.
Meaning if the F-35 is advertized with a $33k flight hour cost, you can be pretty sure that a full internal load remains in the region of that.
But if you do CAP with the Gripper and take EFTs for the range, a quad pack of AAMs, and an IRST or self protection pod, then you can bet you're going way over that $8k tag.
The JSF is also built more globally, and its robust network of users and suppliers also factors into the costs. Not only are parts going to be more available to you, simply because they're manufactured in a larger volume, but every partner nation that manufactures parts taps into the profits, and can offset some of the associated costs.
In the end, flight hour cost is a very superficial argument.
