F-35A versus Saab Gripen NG

[vilters]

I can not understand that anybody who has 2 brain cells spends one of them on the Gripen.

How can you even start to compare lifespan costs between an airframe that will be build in only 100 units to one that is going to be build in the 3.000 numbers?

Even a retarted 5 year old can answer that question.

They have been trying to sell that thing for decades.

Even when given away for free they are too expensive.

[hythelday]

Swiss assessed even MS21 Gripen with AESA and Meteor could not match their 1997 Hornet in Air Policing missions). Slovakia wasn't looking for "14 Falcons or 28 Gripens", they were looking to replace their Fulcrums at about 1:1 ratio. But we all know that Gripens were passed over because of US pressure, not because F-16 offers more bang for the buck.

I have some corrections for that.
1) AESA and Meteor are useless for AP and the Swiss did not evaluate that; the reason why they gave the Gripen lower marks is because, being a single-engine fighter, it's climb rate and acceleration are worse, and when you use afterburners you quickly deplete the limited fuel it carries. There are definitely better interceptors on the market. That doesn't mean Gripen can't do air policing. MiG-21 can do air policing

Wrong. Swiss eval was a a two part affair. They evaluated *current fighters* and the promised updated fighters. The thing is that back in 2008 SAAB was selling Gripen NG as an upgrade to Gripen C/D, not a different airframe. The Swiss did evaluate Gripen with "with 98 upgrades" and said it still could not fulfill even the minimal requirementas. By the way, AESA would be beneficial to AP because it would allow for better target diacrimination and NCTR techniques. Meteor is relevant because "MS21 Gripen" aka what ia now known as Gripen E failed to impress Swiss in every mission, including AP, DCA and OCA. Single or two engine has nothing to do wirh it, it's endurance/range/time on station that matters and apparently Gripen E failed to address these shortcomings. Needless to say that Finland ia a much bigger country than Confederazia Helvetica.

2) I don't know if Slovakia was pressured, I think nobody is claiming that. They themselves asked the US for an offer.

Slovakia could afford 1,8 billion USD for 14 most modern Vipers, while Botswana was offered 12 Gripen C/Ds at 1,7 billion for a fighter that is supposed to be significantly cheaper.

True, that does raise eyebrows. But we don't know what the two contracts include.

Thanks for the comparison with Portugal. As you can see, their GDP and defense spending as % of GDP are higher than those of Czech Republic. But yes, I don't think 30 or so F-16s would break the bank. I'm sure our defense budget could allow for more aircraft and some foreign deployments. But it could be that we decide to spend less on the air force and participate in other meaningful ways, with ground troops.

@lukfi, this discussion has been quite active on three separate threads for a while now, but I still don't get what are arguing about. Maybe you can answer a couple of questions for me:

1) Do you consider Gripen a better plane than a F-35? If yes - is it overall? Certain missions? Performance vs cost?
2) Do you think that Finland or Poland or Swiss would be better off with Gripen rather than F-35?
3) Will the Finnish/Swiss choice validate that F-35 is the most cost-effective/best performance plane on the market right now, or will do think that those contest were in some way skewed against the Gripen?

1) "Performance vs. cost" is how Saab is trying to sell the planes. I'd like to get an idea how much it really costs to fly a Gripen vs. an F-35, but it is difficult to get comparable numbers, especially when the latest Gripen E is not operational in any air force yet.

2) Poland wants to be best buddies with USA, so they need to buy American. Gripens would be useless to them. Finland, depends. If they emphasize self-sufficiency, it will come down to who can offer that, and Sweden could be more flexible in this regard than the JSF program. Also, a Gripen by itself is maybe not that good, but a Gripen backed by a GlobalEye, hmm… If they emphasize air-to-ground capabilities and payload capacity, Gripen is out. I liked it for Switzerland. There are people saying Switzerland should not keep an air force (or military, even) at all so a cost efficient fighter would be good for them; also the Gripen is small, so it would fit into their mountain bunkers. As a neutral country they don't have to care about foreign deployments. In the end, though, some people voted against it because they are anti-military and others because it was not good enough.

3) Gripen is not participating in the new Swiss contest. If Finland chooses the F-35 over Gripen, that will definitely be a big debacle for Saab. I think there are valid reasons for choosing either one, depending on priorities.

You still didn't answer my questions. You are "defending" Gripen across three threads but here you acknowledge that it all "depends" on various circumstances. Let me re-iterate the question. ""Let's say the country A is serious about self-defence against a neighbour with strong conventional military. They want around 60 fighters. They can afford both F-35 and Grpen E. Which should they go for?"

[marsavian]

Gripen is not participating in the new Swiss contest. If Finland chooses the F-35 over Gripen, that will definitely be a big debacle for Saab.

Not necessarily. It's a big stretch to ask a relatively big country like Finland (bigger than Vietnam, Norway, Poland or Italy)* that already has a medium sized fighter (Hornet) to switch over to a smaller fighter (Gripen E) whose range will at best only equal it with less payload. Which is why F-35A and F-18E are really the front runners in Finland with probably F-35A as the top favorite due to its stealth modernity and long future production life.

The way I see the whole Gripen model range is as a modern replacement for the F-5E and those type of users is where it should be looking to pick up future sales. It doesn't even have to be Gripen E it could be Gripen C with the Mk 4 PS/05-A radar with Meteor missiles. Gripen provides a very potent modern small cheap fighter for Western allies and provides a very decent F-16 alternative for the world market.

* https://www.worldometers.info/geography ... the-world/

[XanderCrews]

I'm wondering what exactly did they get in that, since the flyaway is just $70M or whereabouts.

FMS sales include additional fees, plus the buying nation usually has to contribute R&D fees. I've explained this several times along with whatever package they're getting.

The US Navy which has no foreign fees, and paid for all the R&D decades ago just buys em up at a lower flyaway than a Gripen and growler too.

I'm not trying to be deceptive. But we both know the flyaway cost of an F-35 is nowhere near $52M even nowadays after the price had gone down.

I'm still amazed the key point about that eludes you. we also know, and i'll never tire of saying this, that a Gripen E costs more. so whatever saab was pitching, was also "nowhere near. " but wait wait... you don't think that norway realized the saab company numbers weren't legitmate do you? and then incorporated that into their comparison?

Now, I know what you're going to say. "I gave you estimates from Switzerland AND Norway of what the Gripen costs, and you still refuse to believe it!" Well, sorry. We have nothing to compare the Swiss number against (not even the Rafale or Eurofighter which would be more expensive, but we would see how much more expensive and could perhaps compare that to other numbers that we can find for them). And the Norwegian estimate… is simply weird, and possibly fake.

I like how on Planet Gripen when an Air force that actually flies the things for a living assesses costs and that could be just a "fake" number, but when Saab pitches a paper plane that hadn't even flown in Demo form yet and in the year 2020 still isn't in service, thats concrete. you can take that to the bank. I mean its a big bank because it costs more than an F-35 turns out.

why doesn't Norway trust Saab!? Have they not seen the powerpoints?! how many Computer Generated image Gripen NGs do we have to show you?!

Conversely, what if the nation that operates it is making the plane expensive and not the airplane itself. That was exactly my point. If Poland has enough money, they should be able to operate F-35s for a lower CPFH than Denmark or Norway. Unfortunately, the problem with poor nations is that they seldom have enough money. If there's any truth to what has been recently published about Polish MiGs and F-16s, their F-35s may end up being hangar queens.

There can be any number of reasons they're showing that readiness number.

Oh yeah, the whole world is wrong and unfair to the F-35 and you are the only true champion of light

A lot of the world was wrong about the F-35

I admit there are things I did not know when I came here, and now I know, thanks to you.

But you preaching about an open mind, well… just remember that you can be affected by confirmation bias, too

don't be so open minded your brains fall out. There are things about Gripen that fly in the face of even slight plausibility

I am curious, though. Do the F-15 or F-16, which were both designed cca 1970, have the same amount of auto-diagnostics and sensors that indicate malfunctions, as the Gripen which was designed 20 years later? Even if the overall maintenance concept with LRUs and SRUs is the same, if an aircraft can tell you what needs to be replaced that could save a lot of unnecessary work and replacing parts that are still good. Together with designing the parts for higher MTBF, even if it means higher cost or higher weight, it could be a clue as to why Saab can claim the Gripen costs less to run than an F-16, and at least for the C/D this seems to be true.

I think you misunderstand what the Gripens now dated maintenance practices were doing. The bolded part is what modern practices are now. Ironically the bolded part there is what ALIS does, but you said you didn't want that. Theres nothing magical about Gripen, its using the same 4th generation practices. Gripen is not self diagnosing.

I also came across a source claiming that Gripen has on average 1 malfunction per 10 flight hours while the F-16 has 1 per 7 fh. I don't know how much truth there is in that. This article (in Czech) says 112 malfunctions in 890 flight hours which comes out to 7.9, but this was published just one year after the planes were introduced in service:
https://www.novinky.cz/domaci/clanek/gr ... e-40115885
Some later articles say the reliability grew, but no precise numbers are given.

It really depends on the malfunction. I had one pilot tell me no pilot should fly without some kind of gripe on the aircraft to write up when he parked.

And yet here you are, claiming the Gripen E will for sure be expensive to fly because it's expensive to buy. Make up your mind!

1. I was pointing out other people and the changing narratives team gripen is bringing now that theyre little champ cost more than the notoriously expensive F-35 (Saab should apologize to all their little unwitting shills the last 10 years)

2. the mere fact that the Gripen E who's primary objective is cost and affordable ownership cost more than the famously expensive F-35 should be one helluva red flag. I'm actually amazed those shills are carrying on frankly.

what makes you carry on?

for 10 years we heard that the F-35 uber expensive, impossibly so in most cases. and for 10 years we've heard the Gripen NG/E was the opposite. now that's turned out to be utterly untrue, but we are clinging to the idea that all the other stuff they claimed was completely spot on eh?

"oh just because it costs more than the F-35, is no reason to think it won't be cheaper to fly guys!"

lol yes.

Gripen is supposed to be optimized for cost, and it costs more than an F-35. MORE THAN AN F-35. that the plane i heard for 10 years was ridiculously expensive. its more than that one. The ridiculous one. the one all of planet gripen agreed on was the worst example of costly.

the most important part of the Gripen E. its whole reason to exist is lower cost, and they botched it. Does that not give you at least a little pause?

I honestly don't know. The information I found was on the Gripen C, which technically speaking is a late-1980s design. I assume they kept the basics the same. If it works for them, why change it.

Reduced cost, increased availability, better performance, safety.

That's true, but the F-5 is obsolete.

So are Gripens. More on this soon.

Yes, that's definitely good point when you want to do foreign deployments, and Sweden also saw this in 2011 when they sent Gripens to fly over Libya but the Sigonella base on Sicily didn't have the correct fuel for it.
But it is only relevant if you plan to participate in such missions. And I have some doubts that Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria which are all switching from MiGs to NATO-common F-16s, will ever use them to fight abroad.

The joined NATO to not participate in NATO missions with NATO common aircraft?

even in terms of exercises it brings convenience. They have F-16s at Nellis and NSAWC.

What threats are we talking about here? Chinese/Russian stealth planes? SAMs?

Yes. among other things.

Those are all reasonable points. As for 5th-gen warfare, the only thing Gripen does not have is stealth airframe and internal weapon bays, it can have everything else - sensor fusion, networking, passive sensors, …

[/quote][/quote]



No. It really can't.

I'm going to write something about this soon (its late here and I've stayed awake too long already) but I'm basically going to go over why they're not the same thing. your quip in the Canada thread about the "freedom and democracy dispenser" its cute, but it really highlighted just how out of depth you are on this.

[optimist]

"Gripen is supposed to be optimized for cost, and it costs more than an F-35. MORE THAN AN F-35. that the plane i heard for 10 years was ridiculously expensive. its more than that one. The ridiculous one. the one all of planet gripen agreed on was the worst example of costly."

That's more than the F-35 and then you have to add the pods as well. It only gets higher.

[marsavian]

If Gripen is more costly how comes Saab is throwing in two AEW aircraft in Finland HX contest and LMT isn't ? The placard cost that LMT keep advertising to US taxpayers that is falling is pretty immaterial to export buyers if they have to pay additional price above that to recoup R+D costs and FMS fees. How about comparing apples to apples and you have to pay well over $100m to get a fully supported F-35 as an export buyer. Rafales are well under $100m too for the French government but that's pretty immaterial to everyone else.

[lukfi]

Wrong. Swiss eval was a a two part affair. They evaluated *current fighters* and the promised updated fighters. The thing is that back in 2008 SAAB was selling Gripen NG as an upgrade to Gripen C/D, not a different airframe. The Swiss did evaluate Gripen with "with 98 upgrades" and said it still could not fulfill even the minimal requirementas. By the way, AESA would be beneficial to AP because it would allow for better target diacrimination and NCTR techniques. Meteor is relevant because "MS21 Gripen" aka what ia now known as Gripen E failed to impress Swiss in every mission, including AP, DCA and OCA. Single or two engine has nothing to do wirh it, it's endurance/range/time on station that matters and apparently Gripen E failed to address these shortcomings. Needless to say that Finland ia a much bigger country than Confederazia Helvetica.

Air policing sorties are primarily intercepting an aircraft that is not communicating or whose transponder is not working, etc., and standard procedure is approaching to visual range. Why would you need BVR missiles for that? Czech Gripens on NATINADS duty carry Sidewinders, not AMRAAMs.
The Swiss chose the Hornet as the baseline for comparison. The leaked report makes it sound like that's also the bare minimum they would accept, but that's clearly not true - they did not kick out the Gripen from the competition and in the end they selected it anyway. Sure: in endurance/range/time on station, Hornets are better, but that doesn't mean a Gripen is incapable of air policing a country the size of CH.

You still didn't answer my questions. You are "defending" Gripen across three threads but here you acknowledge that it all "depends" on various circumstances. Let me re-iterate the question. ""Let's say the country A is serious about self-defence against a neighbour with strong conventional military. They want around 60 fighters. They can afford both F-35 and Grpen E. Which should they go for?"

I'm sorry, I can't give you a clear answer. It does depend on many circumstances. The assumption is that Gripen E would be cheaper to own overall; if this wasn't the case, then the whole argument for it falls apart, obviously.
To defend yourself against a "neighbor with a strong conventional military", you need more than just fighter jets. You need a balanced mix of air, ground, and possibly naval power. With the F-35 you're getting a more capable aircraft, but if Gripen is cheaper, you could afford better equipment for other parts of your military. Maybe that's more valuable to you than what the F-35 brings over the Gripen and maybe not. Not my place to say.

Not necessarily. It's a big stretch to ask a relatively big country like Finland (bigger than Vietnam, Norway, Poland or Italy)* that already has a medium sized fighter (Hornet) to switch over to a smaller fighter (Gripen E) whose range will at best only equal it with less payload.

Yeah, I mentioned that already somewhere, that the Gripen may be a tough sell to current Hornet users because of this.

The way I see the whole Gripen model range is as a modern replacement for the F-5E

Incidentally, that's exactly what the Swiss wanted to replace when they started their 2008 evaluation

I think you misunderstand what the Gripens now dated maintenance practices were doing. The bolded part is what modern practices are now. Ironically the bolded part there is what ALIS does, but you said you didn't want that. Theres nothing magical about Gripen, its using the same 4th generation practices. Gripen is not self diagnosing.

Gripen is self-diagnosing and was doing it 20+ years ago. This is from an article from 2001 (quote translated from Czech):
https://www.abicko.cz/clanek/casopis-ab ... ipenu.html

One of the significant advantages of this aircraft is its low operating and maintenance costs. All systems relevant to operation are automatically checked before the airplane is started and the result is shown in the cockpit display. The system informs the pilot about a possible defect, and if it is unable to remedy it itself, it will at least offer a solution. The aircraft is composed of a series of easily removable components, so if one unit is damaged or malfunctions, simply remove it and insert a new one. Every aircraft should be checked after landing to make sure all systems are operating without error. With gripen, this work is almost no longer needed. During flight, all systems are checked by the BITE test system and, after landing, give the pilot a complete picture of the work of the aircraft.

From 2019:

The MS20 software makes maintenance and ground handling even easier by simplifying certain procedures such as engine test or integrated self-diagnostics.

Welcome to the 1990s

Gripen is supposed to be optimized for cost, and it costs more than an F-35. MORE THAN AN F-35. that the plane i heard for 10 years was ridiculously expensive. its more than that one. The ridiculous one. the one all of planet gripen agreed on was the worst example of costly.
the most important part of the Gripen E. its whole reason to exist is lower cost, and they botched it. Does that not give you at least a little pause?

It does give me a little pause, but you don't really need the F-35 to make this argument. The Su-35 costs less, and is a heavy twin-engine fighter with much more payload capacity, maybe also endurance/time on station… @spazsinbad posted a link to an article where Thai Gripens trained against Chinese Su-27s and they won in BVR, but if you look for the whole story they apparently lost in VWR/dogfights. It helps to have more powerful engines, I guess? Su-35 is supposed to cost in the $50-$70M range (according to Turkey), less than a Gripen E, and one could make the argument that with a modern radar (that the Su-27 did not have) it could be a comparable or better fighter than the Gripen. None of this matters because the acquisition cost is the smaller part of the lifetime cost. Denmark bought F-35As for $3B and expects that over 30 years the planes will cost $10B. The KPMG audit for Canada also estimated lifetime operational costs several times higher than the acquisition cost.

The joined NATO to not participate in NATO missions with NATO common aircraft?
even in terms of exercises it brings convenience. They have F-16s at Nellis and NSAWC.

In case of Bulgaria, I don't think they'll do any foreign missions at all, as they only will only have 8 aircraft in total. Romania will have 17 and Slovakia 14, so they could send a small force abroad. But you have to consider that these are relatively poor countries. Any foreign military deployment costs money, has to be approved by the parliament, and may be unpopular with the general public, hence politicans would be hesitant to make that decision.
In terms of exercises, you can make the argument that F-16/F-35 pilots and technicians train with a NATO ally while the Gripen guys train in Sweden. On the other hand, if Slovakia went with the Gripen as originally planned they could probably do a lot of training in Czech Rep., which to a Slovak doesn't even feel like travelling abroad.

What threats are we talking about here? Chinese/Russian stealth planes? SAMs?

Yes. among other things.

And you are saying that if you had all NATO forces at your command, you would keep the Typhoons, Rafales and Super Hornets grounded and send only the F-35s into the air? Even the F-35 is not invincible. All you need is a lower-band radar and its stealth advantage is largely gone.

If Gripen is more costly how comes Saab is throwing in two AEW aircraft in Finland HX contest and LMT isn't ?

Right! I wonder whether it gives @XanderCrews at least a little pause

[optimist]

If Gripen is more costly how comes Saab is throwing in two AEW aircraft in Finland HX contest and LMT isn't ? The placard cost that LMT keep advertising to US taxpayers that is falling is pretty immaterial to export buyers if they have to pay additional price above that to recoup R+D costs and FMS fees. How about comparing apples to apples and you have to pay well over $100m to get a fully supported F-35 as an export buyer. Rafales are well under $100m too for the French government but that's pretty immaterial to everyone else.

Boeing said the Super Hornet was $55m. I think I will wait for the facts of what the costs are, released by Canada
You have no ideas on how the FMS works. R&D

[marsavian]

Did Australia buy Super Hornet for $55m and what year was that in ? Did Australia buy F-35 for under $100m ? Canada got sticker shock on those 18 interim 'cheap' Super Hornets when they came in three times as expensive ! Let's deal in reality here, what they actually cost a foreign buyer if we are talking about the attractiveness of these planes to other countries.

[spazsinbad]

Back in the dreamtime before time was born (a fortnight ago on this forum) a PDF about F-35 SENSOR FUSION landed:

viewtopic.php?f=55&t=11311&p=434066&hilit=sensor+fusion+explain%2A#p434066

Here is the fILLUM of the CLIFF NOTES below: https://www.yourdictionary.com/cliff-notes

VIDEO FILLUM: https://twitter.com/billieflynn/status/ ... 53/video/1
__________________________

F-35sensorFusion&helmet02feb2020 PRN pp63.pdf (PDF 3.5Mb): download/file.php?id=32265

GRAPHIC Below: download/file.php?id=32266

[XanderCrews]

And you are saying that if you had all NATO forces at your command, you would keep the Typhoons, Rafales and Super Hornets grounded and send only the F-35s into the air? Even the F-35 is not invincible. All you need is a lower-band radar and its stealth advantage is largely gone.

Well I guess this is as good as place as any so lets start here.

there are 2 in service 5th generation fighters in the West. F-22 which is no longer produced and illegal to export and the F-35.
so concentrate on F-35 obviously. 5th generation is not just a marketing term. Theres some important things to understand like for example scope and depth. The details here matter. Airplanes have been flying since World War II with Radars, but comparing it to a modern AESA and saying "well they both have radar." is grossly oversimplified. so it pay to remember that even in some cases where there is overlap between 4th, 4.5, and 5th Generation fighters, the 5th gen fighters tend to have features at such extremes of depth and scope as to leave the competition behind. Gripen may share some features with F-35, it may have some things here and there that are similiar but the simple fact is the F-35 has levels of sensors, avionics, electronics that the Gripen NG will barely scrape the surface of.

The entire purpose of the A2AD concept is deny all those aircraft listed above a chance to interfere and the enemy then controls the battle space, or massive amounts of large and coordinated operations (with high risk/casulaties-- basically alpha strikes) piling up to do even basic missions. beyond the fact that airpower is a huge trump card and force multiplier in western doctrine, the simple fact is that we also don't want the enemy to control the air and succeed in their aggression while wrecking havoc against our grand and sea forces, and of course our airfields to achieve air supremacy.

The F-35 is an actual multi-role fighter. and believe it or not, you can use air to ground ordnance defensively. The same characteristics that make the F-35 a superb offensive weapon make it a superb defensive weapon. dropping bombs in support of ground troops, or to stem the enemy offensive at key choke points. so the rather idiotic notion that its "air policing" is best for neutral countries is silly. We seem to be in this bizarre headspace where neutral countries buy water downed stuff since theyll never need it. If they'll never need it, why buy anything. You can pull an airliner over with a Hawk Trainer. We presume that any enemy offensive is going to bring air and SAMs along with other A2AD assets (anti air/access denial) along with the FLOT, that artillery and logisitics will also be protected.

The simple fact is the same features that make the F-35 a lethal strike fighter, also make it a lethal air to air combatant, and yes even defensively. The blind fight the sighted. its not much of a contest. this is why "neutral" countries are at the very least having a very close look at the F-35. The idea that its only some "first day of war gut punching bomber" are extremely narrow. this is why even the F-35 which isn't exactly the fastest bird out there can still be a devastating interceptor. Its basically the best air to air and air to ground warplane in the world short of the F-22, which isn't available for export.

The F-35 is the best tactical option. its really that simple. Ok so its won. and not by a little. the only question now is the logistics, costs, sustainments and other stuff to see if it fits and is affordable and authorized. This is where team Gripen tends to run into trouble, because they'll (usually) cede this important aspect one way or another sometimes with pride, Bill Sweetman for example said the Gripen NG was wonderfully constrained to not be like an F-35 and keep costs low. Other bitterly complain the F-35 is something dirty (the dispenser we mentioned) as it actually operates beyond the borders of its buyers or its features are unneccesary. but unfortunately, this moves the argument to cost and the inevitable CPFH, before devolving further into the things that a lot of airplanes do category, but saab propoganda makes it sound wholly unique to the Gripen. so who cares if the F-35 is devastating and some people have said its 4 to 6 times more lethal in the air than an F-16, how long does its runway have to be? while I enjoy the attention to detail I would concede these are the wrong details.

The Gripen E/F has to win the argument on cost, or barring that, industrial opportunity.

Cost and Maintenance are their own distinct animals as we have, and sadly its the hill that most Gripen fans choose to fight on with little knowledge of the differences and other aspects that go into aviation maintenance and administration in general. we also run into the same issues as above the F-35 is utilizing maintance practices that are the first ever on a fighter (though would not look new to those in the civil airline business more on that later, along with costs)

I won't get into the politics of American wars and their validity, but I will say this. Since 1991 The US has basically been at constant war in the air up to today, in several different nations and in many cases simultaneously. It has drastically increased its lethality by orders of magnitude. The Freedom and democracy dispensers as Lukfi called them have decades of expereince and investment and say what you will about America, we take this war stuff pretty seriously and throw gobs of money at it to make it work and continually improve. That's one of many reasons why nations are willing to throw their lot in with American made aircraft and a primarily US Military program. Our stuff tends to work, because we tend to use it and we test the bejesus out of it as well. We then invest big bucks to keep everything upgraded and in good order and modernized generally. Even as Harriers are nearing the end of the road we bothered with AMRAAM upgrade for example.

So basically American aircraft are all but "garunteed" these days. I bring this up because Sweden, and Saab simply don't have that same pedigree. some people will say thats good an neutrality should be envied and all, which I agree is admirable, but don't be upset when people buy a WARplane from people who are serious about WAR. If you labor under the idea that lethality and survivability matters in combat, especially when outnumbered or taken by surprise neutral or not you want a WARplane.

If Gripen is more costly how comes Saab is throwing in two AEW aircraft in Finland HX contest and LMT isn't ?

Right! I wonder whether it gives @XanderCrews at least a little pause [/quote]

The HX requirement, which once specified 64 fighters, has been relaxed so that bidders have more freedom to offer what they see as the best solution, and the number of fighters has been removed.

The next post we will address sensors, and sensor fusion and electronics from the big picture (IE there won't be tons of abbreviations) and how Saab and the F-35 don't match up. The F-35 is basically a Flying AEW aircraft itself. it doesn't need Global eye help, which again is another clue about the Gripen E and the F-35 not matching up.

I'll also hit on maintenance and then cost comparisons in the future time permitting.

[optimist]

Did Australia buy Super Hornet for $55m and what year was that in ? Did Australia buy F-35 for under $100m ? Canada got sticker shock on those 18 interim 'cheap' Super Hornets when they came in three times as expensive ! Let's deal in reality here, what they actually cost a foreign buyer if we are talking about the attractiveness of these planes to other countries.

That is my point and it needs to be apple for apple.
The LER loss exchange ratio, is also considered important. As well as how many aircraft and what assets are required to complete the simulated mission.

[lukfi]

I don't know why you keep insisting on this! It's not only stealth that differentiates a 5th gen plane from a 4.5th gen. (…) implement a sensor fusion "ala F-35" on a 4.5th gen fighter aircraft. But then again this wouldn't be a 5th gen fighter aircraft because such aircraft MUST COMBINE sensor fusion WITH Stealth.

You literally are making the point that stealth is the only difference. If you build the most advanced 4.5th gen fighter, like an F-35 minus stealth, with all the advanced sensors, networking and data fusion that the F-35 has, then the only thing missing to be 5th gen is to combine this with stealth.

just because you put features of newer generation aircraft on older generation aircraft that doesn't make the older generation a newer generation

It sort of does, though. The most important part of what defines a generation are capabilities. Not whether the plane is a biplane or monoplane. Obviously you can't tack stealth onto a 4th generation design (you can reduce RCS but never to the extent of stealth airframes), so that's kind of special, and that's why the 4.5th gen moniker exists. But you can take a 3rd generation airframe and give it pulse-doppler look-down/shoot-down radar, RWR/EW, HUD, BVR and air-to-ground capabilities, and what you have is a 4th gen fighter.

…whose information is merged thru an advanced sensor fusion engine. For example in 4.5th gen fighter aircraft the "sensor fusion" is done thru cluttering. If you have a contact that it's detected by a Radar and EW, the "sensor fusion" of a 4.5th gen fighter aircraft will show the contact with the highest confidence which in the example above would be the radar (and hides the EW track).
In the case of a 5th gen fighter aircraft, the data if merged thru an advanced sensor fusion engine so in the end what you have is a single contact generated by the (merge of) information of each sensors as opposed to only showing the most reliable track while hiding the others.

You can laugh at me all you want because I know nothing about aircraft maintenance and the like. But you can take my word on this. The idea that other fighters do "just de-cluttering", while the F-35 has an "advanced fusion engine" with near-magical properties, is a myth. I work with data, that's my day job. Integrating data on the same entity from different sources and combining them into a single record is part of that job. What sensor fusion in fighters does is not all that different and it's not rocket science.

In order to do de-cluttering, you must have some way to determine the two (or more) sensor tracks are in fact the same target to hide all but one of them. Probably the only way you can do that is based on their reported position. Imagine a radar is telling you there's a plane and IRST is telling you there's a plane at the same spot, neither sensor sees two aircraft, so it's probably just one target. At this point you could choose to hide one of the tracks but you've already done the hard work of de-duplication, so if the second sensor brings any useful information that the first sensor does not have, or can increase precision, putting it together is easy. There are ways to do it better and ways to do it worse but it comes down to rules, priorities and weights and stuff like that.

@XanderCrews, you have some excellent points about the air-to-ground defensive role and the fact that nobody else throws so much money on defense projects as the US. Though it doesn't mean anybody else can't build a moderately good plane, or that their plane wouldn't be able to drop bombs on advancing enemy troops.

We then invest big bucks to keep everything upgraded and in good order and modernized generally.

Don't you still have lots of F-16 Block 30-ish or something of the sort? Or is it just the ANG?

[basher54321]

Don't you still have lots of F-16 Block 30-ish or something of the sort? Or is it just the ANG?

What is left of Block 30 appears to be Aggressors, test jets and drones in active. The ANG & AFR have them and they are very upgraded in the ANG and have been deploying in combat up till recently - but they are late 1980s airframes.

[optimist]

But you can take my word on this. The idea that other fighters do "just de-cluttering", while the F-35 has an "advanced fusion engine" with near-magical properties, is a myth. I work with data, that's my day job. Integrating data on the same entity from different sources and combining them into a single record is part of that job. What sensor fusion in fighters does is not all that different and it's not rocket science.

So it shouldn't be too hard for you to read up and understand the F-35 sensor fusion. Then present facts and not opinions, that are being corrected in your every post.