"cool and distant" is an understatement. russia is regarded as the "one and only" enemy and Swedens actions, diplomaticly and militarily, are driven by that fact. Finland is not another story - please, do read Finlands history. Who is Finlands arch enemy? Same as for Sweden and of course, intelligence is to a large degree shared.
hey Grand, first i want to ask if the rumour is true, that Dansih pilots prefer F-18 over F-35?? ?He's trying to relay that the competition is fair; there has been a number of serving and former staffers from the Norwegian AF in the Norwegian press recently who have been in favour of the F-35 not only on ground of capability, but in particular on the issue of cost of a future shared development and sustainment of a platform with a production run of less than 500 and spares guaranteed out to 2035.
Case in point from the posted article:
Når det gjelder pris, er generalmajoren opptatt av å se på de totale kostnadene for kampfly i et 30-40-årsperspektiv. Poenget er å ikke stirre seg blind på hva det koster å bare anskaffe flyene, men å se på drift og oppgraderinger gjennom flyenes levetid på 30-40 år. Det henger også sammen med det siste punktet om samarbeidsforhold.
As far as cost is concerned, the Major General is looking at the total cost of the combat jets in an 30-40 year perspective. The point is not only to look at the acquisition cost, but also the cost of using the aircraft, as well as upgrading it over its lifetime of 30-40 years. The last point is also an issue of "working relationships."
In short, Saab has not guaranteed supply of spares and further development - it cannot. Thus the Swedish Govt does this - but only for the first 20 years. And the total number of Gripen NGs are not going to be that great - there are hidden costs to the Gripen NG here.
Haven't heard that. So don't know if true or not.
No they can't - and they have explicitly said so publicly, see earlier in the thread. However, the Swedish govt can issue such a guarantee and it also guarantees that Sweden will not impose sanctions on spares and support if Norways goes to war - even illegal wars.
That guarantee runs for 20 years...IIRC it will be around half of the existing SWAF C/D's which will have E/F avionics... So you're looking for about 400-450 exports.
That was not the point - the point was that unique customer reqs can be expensive and cost is a big unknown post 2035.
To a non-expert like me, after reading a lot on this forum and also other places I would have thought that capabilities would be one very important differentiator between the two air crafts. Nodeland does not indicate that one has more or better capabilities than the other, instead he says that they both have their weak and strong points and that the new Gripen is a significantly enhanced version with "basic capabilities that a lot of people appreciate". He makes no similar statements about F-35. I am surprised if it turns out that costs and not capabilities will become the main differentiatior?He's trying to relay that the competition is fair; there has been a number of serving and former staffers from the Norwegian AF in the Norwegian press recently who has been in favour of the F-35 not only on capability, but in particular on the issue of the cost on a future shared development and sustainment of a platform with a production run of less than 500 and spares guaranteed out to 2035.
Case in point from the posted article:
Når det gjelder pris, er generalmajoren opptatt av å se på de totale kostnadene for kampfly i et 30-40-årsperspektiv. Poenget er å ikke stirre seg blind på hva det koster å bare anskaffe flyene, men å se på drift og oppgraderinger gjennom flyenes levetid på 30-40 år. Det henger også sammen med det siste punktet om samarbeidsforhold.
As far as cost is concerned, the Major General is looking at the total cost of the combat jets in an 30-40 year perspective. The point is not only to look at the acquisition cost, but also the cost of using the aircraft, as well as upgrading it over its lifetime of 30-40 years. The last point is also an issue of "working relationships."
In short, Saab has not guaranteed supply of spares and further development - it cannot. Thus the Swedish Govt does this - but only for the first 20 years. And the total number of Gripen NGs are not going to be that great - there are hidden costs to the Gripen NG here.
There are probably at least 5 "differentiators". Cost is only one. Nodeland is very diplomatic and careful about what he says. He does not indicate what choice they're going to recommend from a military professional POV.
1) There are of course also extra costs attached to F-35 like the cost of hedging exchange rates - normally the buyer would pay tis insurance premium, however I'm a bit confused if this is actually the case for the JSF (i.e. LM is untertaking the risk of currency variations - which is unusual).
Avionics and engine will differ from the C/D. Those typically account for 70% plus of the fly-away cost on "4.5 gen jets". Interchangable aerostructures - less than 30%.
Like 70% of the value of the aircraft.
I don't expect the F-35 to stay on target on fly-away cost, but I don't expect it to slide that much either.My female intuition tells me there are more hidden costs to the JSF here
So you don't expect current C/D users to do an MLU some time around 2015-2020 or so? And don't you think Saab would then simply offer the C/D users to upgrade to NG avionics, instead of developing a separate upgrade path for the C/D users?
I don't remember reading that in the SINTEF report of Dec last year - where did they get this from?