Canada May Back Out of F-35 Purchase: Minister

[madrat]

If Canada looked for alternatives why wouldn't they honestly look at Gripen NG with Meteor?

[1st503rdsgt]

If Canada looked for alternatives why wouldn't they honestly look at Gripen NG with Meteor?

I dare them to do it. I'd love to see them go up against the F-35 at Red Flag 2021, assuming they'd even have their NGs by then (which they probably wouldn't).

[hb_pencil]

If Canada looked for alternatives why wouldn't they honestly look at Gripen NG with Meteor?

No stealth and a flyaway cost that rivals that of the F-35.

[m]

Saab expected to sell 400 Gripens and 500 Gripens NG
Sounds swell flying in five countries, but till so far Saab did sell only 38 Gripens
The other 24 are leased ones. Surely not a success.

Who will fly, order a Gripen NG?
Can’t mention a country, countries Canada will fly with on a mission, who will order a Gripen NG.
Not a best option for Canada. As well there probably will be only a few countries, if the Gripen NG will be build/exported, who ever will fly a Gripen NG.
The jet can be considered as a kind of a F16 and therefore is not an improvement. In that case Canada could consider an F16 as well.

In comparison both jets, Gripen NG and F35, are based on export expectations. The Gripen NG still has “probably” only one customer after all these years.
Compared with the F35, the F35 project started with at least eight customers. With an expectation of several other possible customers.
The Gripen NG project was/is based on hopes and dreams, while this is not the case concerning the F35.

[alloycowboy]

@M the problem with the Gripen and the F-16 as far as Canada is concerned is its short range.

[SpudmanWP]

I went back and looks at the docs provided from the CA government RE: the F-35. They have ALWAYS referred to it in a 20 year cycle.

Why are some acting like this is news now?

[hb_pencil]

@M the problem with the Gripen and the F-16 as far as Canada is concerned is its short range.

It was for the Gripen C, but not for the NG. However Saab acknowledged in parliamentary hearings that their fighter would not measure up to the F-35 in expeditionary warfare. Instead they were offering it as a complement to the F-35 for domestic ops.



One of the weird things was that they claimed an per hour cost of $4000 dollars... which is ridiculously low.

[SpudmanWP]

I wonder how the savings from lower cost of domestic ops for the NG would stack up against the increased cost of supporting two different airframes.

[m]

@M the problem with the Gripen and the F-16 as far as Canada is concerned is its short range.

It was for the Gripen C, but not for the NG. However Saab acknowledged in parliamentary hearings that their fighter would not measure up to the F-35 in expeditionary warfare. Instead they were offering it as a complement to the F-35 for domestic ops.



One of the weird things was that they claimed an per hour cost of $4000 dollars... which is ridiculously low.

This low cost of the Gripen did intrigue me for some time. Compared with a F16, some US $22,000- NL $26,000. This is a difference too much.
All kind of hard stuff, like for instance tires etc., can’t be that much cheaper.

Fuel costs: In 2011, the price of jet fuel was $2.10 for one gallon.


May be an aspect could be, the Swedish Airforce has / had conscripts? This will result in lower flying costs per hour of a Gripen. But still does not declare a $4000 per flying hour.

Don’t have the actual number of flying hours per pilot per year, but Swedish pilots fly less than 180 hours (Nato) a year


Another aspect, Swedish Gripens did not fly that many flying hours
This table shows Gripen flying hours (Swedish Airforce)

Total Gripen flying hours, after first delivery:

June 1993: The first production aircraft (39.102) was delivered to FMV on 8 June.

2000: 12,000 flying hours

2004: 45,000 flying hours (142 Gripens)

2005: 60,000 flying hours (159 Gripens)

2007: 96,320 flying hours (193 Gripens)

2008: 100,000 flying hours > In eight 8 years: 88,000 flying hours (100,000 -12,000)

http://www.cemus.uu.se/dokument/projekt ... so_far.pdf

Quote: January 2008
28 January 2008 saw another significant milestone in the Gripen programme, when the Gripen fleet
soared past the historic 100,000 flying hour mark.



Compared with a Dutch deployment in Afghanistan (4, 6 and 8 F16's)
10 years: deployment Afghanistan
o Total flying hours: 27,000 flying hours

Calculated this figure:
o Flying hours per year: 2700
o F16 per year: 540 flying hours (average number F16’s: 5 F16’s)

[muir]

M - Conscription in Sweden is gone now. The last bunch where discharged last year. When I served back in the mid 90's the number we we're told where 40 000 sek an hour for the Gripen which apparently where about 60% of what the Viggen cost, we weren't told what was included in that price tag though. Today that would translate into 6000$ an hour. Obviously that is a faulty number, 15 years of inflation, the oil-price has at least quadrupled and I don't recall what the exchange rate might have been back then, what would 6000$ equal in mid-90's dollars? One of the core requirements in the development was that the new bird would be easy AND cheap to maintain. All routine stuff was to be handled by conscripts. On a couple of occasions some Norwegian Vipers where diverted to our airfield because of adverse weather conditions. I was never close to them but our officers, the techs who trained us on our aircraft, made it pretty clear they considered them logistical nightmares compared to what they were used to and what we worked with. Make of it what you will, I can't vouch for the truth, that insight was a bit above my pay grade to say the least. On the other hand no one had any reason to flat out lie, some questions were simply answered with a "that's classified".

As for Gripens for Canada, never gonna happen. IF they don't want the F-35 for some reason the logical choice would be the SuperBug. Closest ally flys them, minimal retraining, existing supply chain and so forth. I think they should do what the aussies did, a gap filler that takes some of the pressure of the existing air frames that can be upgraded to become Growlers when the F-35 replaces the old bugs.

[outlaw162]

I'm not so sure that some of this border discord and reticence is not a result of the fact that instead of "Coors Molson", we ended up with "Molson Coors".

I think there's some legitimate concern that down the line we could see Canadian Tire Lockmart instead of Lockmart Canadian Tire.

[spazsinbad]

Conservative MP Hawn estimates CF-18 costs $12,000 less per flying hour than F-35 fighter jet
By TIM NAUMETZ 05/17/2012

"Conservative MP Laurie, who has been deeply involved with the $25-billion F-35 stealth fighter jet project, says the cost of operating Canada’s current fleet of CF-18 fighter jets is $12,000 less per flying hour for each plane than the current forecast costs for maintaining and operating the sophisticated F-35s.

http://www.hilltimes.com/news/politics/ ... f-35/30780


...Mr. Hawn told The Hill Times on Thursday, in an interview after Question Period, that the CF-18 operating costs are roughly $19,000 per flying hour.

“If you look at just the operating, fuel and oil (and other direct costs), it’s nineteen thousand, nineteen five, nineteen six, something like that,” said Mr. Hawn, a former CF-18 pilot....

...A U.S. Department of Defense report to Congress last March estimated the F-35A, the Air Force version of the F-35 that Canada would acquire, will cost $32,000 per flying hour for each aircraft to maintain, sustain and operate, 42 per cent more than the $22,000 per hour cost of maintaining and operating U.S. Air Force F-16s....

...Mr. Hawn dismissed the F-35 operating cost forecast as “all guess.”

“Do we know exactly what the F-35 is going to cost? No, it’s probably going to cost more per flying hour than the F-18, but we’re going to have a smaller fleet, I’m not sure how many flying hours we’re going to fly per year, probably less,” Mr. Hawn said.

“Those numbers on the F-35 are estimates, and that’s the fallacy, they’re trying to determine a lifecycle cost out to 30, 40 years. There’s no idea, what’s the cost of fuel, what’s the cost of diesel, what missions are we going to do, where are we going to wind up fighting. We have no clue,” he said....

Just more babble at the URL I reckon.

[spazsinbad]

Is this guy Canukian?

F-35 option: Produce the JACK-Fighter by Mark Miller Opinions May. 18, 2012

http://www.japantoday.com/category/opin ... ck-fighter

"Sixty-five “Next Generation” single-engine strike fighters are meant to replace 138 twin-engine multi-role Canadian Hornets (now down to 77), and would spend almost all of their time having their Klingon cloaking device repaired...."

I rest me case m'lud. Don't bother reading anything else.

[luke_sandoz]

Ya, Mark is Canadian and is an aviation journalist . . He's a go to guy for aviation stories and has done TV shows on Discovery.

This story he wrote is just completely whacko, most uncommon for Mark. He must be sick or something to dream up the concept, or somebody is whispering sweet stupidities in his ear after plying him with cheap booze.

[pushoksti]

Back in the real world, preparations are already underway for the F-35's arrival to Canada. These clowns can write all the crap they want, it will just end up on the floor for the dog to sh*t on.