Finnish DefMin Interest in F-35s NOT Gripens

'lowkey' referred to this possibility above: Swedish Gripen C/Ds Could Serve Until Late 2030s 14 May 2019 Tony Osborne
https://aviationweek.com/defense/swedis ... late-2030s

If there's a need for 5th gen fighter, why not go for it now instead of waiting for vaporware Euro 5th? 2035 is only 5 years after the deliveries within this procurement should be done (and current Hornet C/D's retired). It would be rather braindead to go for Gripen E in the meanwhile. Instead should just add 5 years to the C/Ds if postponing 5th gen would become necessary. Training everyone and building schemes for five to ten years of "Gripening" would be terribly expensive.

This kind of idea just underlines the futility of Gripen pick.

No-one that can really afford fighters is looking for a fighter lease.

US Joint Staff led Bold Quest 19 is currently ongoing in Finland.

Main participants: USA, Finland, France, Germany. Other participants: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, the UK, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.

Mostly C2 interconnectivity tests. A 5 million dollar fibre network (35km) was built by Finns for this series of tests. It will remain largely in use after the event.

Few Rafales, USAF tankers, Finnish Hornet will drop a JDAM, JTAC stuff... 1500 foreign participants.

Finland will host in spring 2019 a two-month-long international military exercise on information and guidance technologies, local media reported on Tuesday.

Sami Nurmi, chief spokesman for the defense forces told a Finnish language newspaper Helsingin Sanomat on Tuesday that the "Bold Quest" exercise will be unusually expensive in Finnish conditions.

Nurmi elaborated that the maneuver will require over two million euros worth investments that will then remain at the disposal of Finland, for use by the Finnish military after the exercise. The cost of Bold Quest will take 40 percent of the budget for participation in international exercises in 2019.

"Bold Quest" will be hardly visible to the public as its 2,000 participants "will sit in underground facilities". "This will be a unique and very technically oriented maneuver", he said.

Even though hosted by Finland, the exercise will be led by the United States. "This is only the third time Bold Quest will be arranged outside the U.S.", Nurmi said. The exercise in Finland will gather military from 19 countries, and 700 servicepersons will be from Finland.

http://www.dailyfinland.fi/national/769 ... er-in-2019

Here's what it includes, from a former Bold Quest (17.2) report:

From its Combat Identification origins, Bold Quest has expanded to include capability development in other mission areas associated with fires interoperability:

Friendly Force Tracking
Coalition Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance
Shared Situational Awareness
Digitally Aided Close Air Support
Cyber (Effects, Tactical Level and Network Defense)
Other trends in the evolution of the Bold Quest series include: increasing leadership roles and responsibilities of partners; integrating interoperability objectives and unit training opportunities; strengthening ties with U.S.-based hosting installations and aligning with major exercises in the U.S. and overseas.

https://www.jcs.mil/Media/News/News-Dis ... ith-16-pa/

If there's a need for 5th gen fighter, why not go for it now instead of waiting for vaporware Euro 5th?

To support Finnish and European aerospace industry; and to have a future Western alternative to F-35. Currently F-35 is all there is. In the past we had F-16, the Hornet, Mirage, Gripen, etc. etc. Soon there will be only the F-35. It may seem like a good idea at the moment but I am hesitant to put all the Western eggs in one basket. There is also the European dimension.

Not that it is going to happen -- Finland realize that for all the noises coming from some people in Brussels, only the US can guarantee Finnish safety, at least for as long as they find it worthwhile (Trump is not the disease but the symptom..).

Thus F-35 it will be. No doubt a good choice for Finland -- whether it is a good one for EU, only time will tell.

If there's a need for 5th gen fighter, why not go for it now instead of waiting for vaporware Euro 5th?

To support Finnish and European aerospace industry; and to have a future Western alternative to F-35. Currently F-35 is all there is.

Finland doesn't have the luxury of going first with industrial interests. Security of supply is the more meaningful consideration. Anyway, there isn't a viable alternative if 5 gen capabilities are needed. They are still in a very early planning phase where things can change drastically.

Germany's choice is more meaningful because they have the capability to fund things that seem counterproductive in the short term. Unfortunately their stubbornness hasn't led to all that great results before, at least looking at their defense's current state. Germany-France "axis" is probably even more meaningful. Most agree that there shouldn't have been both EF and Rafale. But does it still end up in a similar split? If it does, it could happen that neither will see the day of light. Low amount of orders is the predictable bane of any initially hopeful program.

New goverment's program states that there will be a full replacement of the capability of Hornets. No change there.
New Minister of Defense is going to come from the Centre Party, which was the prime minister party in the previous government but lost catastrophic amount of support (from 21,1% to 13,8%) for this one. Social Democrats is the largest party (7 ministers), Center second (5), Greens third (3), with Left Alliance (2) and Swedish party (2). So it's a leftist government. For now things have progressed better in terms of defense outlook as some may have feared.

Finnish state owned (50,1%) Patria, who does Hornet and NH90 (also Norwegian) maintenance among others just bought Belgium Engine Center from AIM Norway, which does Norwegian AF maintenance. Late last year Patria and Kongsberg (Norwegian state owned, which also owns the 49,9% of Patria) bought said AIM from the Norwegian MoD.

So now the Finnish and Norwegian states have F135 maintenance business in two countries, with the Finland itself still up for grabs.

State led industry seems to be making quite bold bets in advance of the decision.

As a minor curiosity, the new Finnish government's program includes a new mention about co-operation with Norway.

tl:dr Finnish state owned Patria Aviation now does F/A-18 (Boeing) and NH90 (EADS aka Airbus -> Typhoon) maintenance and just bought F-16 and F-15 (LM -> F-35) engine shop in Belgium. Rather sturdy base.

F-35 (or rather two of them, 421. FS from Hill AFB) will make its first appearance in Finland this weekend.
Turku Air Show to be exact. Probably going to have horrible queues, because now it became truly next level... or should I say next gen occasion.

No flight demo, just ground display. Maybe next year in Kauhava. But next year the main priority is similar test weeks for each candidate like the Swiss have this summer.

PERKELEEEEEE !!!

I passed the information to some toverit who may enjoy it.

Kiitti !

Arrived to the air show.
https://twitter.com/mcjaaske/status/1139114224607797250

Based on this article, where the HX project leader comments, (unlike the Swiss) the Finnish competition has no set expectation of only testing fully operational products come next year's field trials. So they expect Gripen to feature.

“The Swiss said the fighter had to be ready for the tests, but the Swedes couldn't offer it. We have no such requirement.”
According to Puranen, the Finnish tendering procedure considers separately what features of the jets can be verified in the tests and what are the so-called future abilities.
“We look at what performance is promised and at what stage. We then evaluate whether it is credible", Puranen says.
“We have never set a condition that there should be a ready fighter already in the test phase.”

Puranen believes that Saab will be able to send its new Gripen fighter to Finnish tests next spring.
“Yes, probably Gripen will come, but it will not be able to provide all the performance we need when we have a test phase. Of course, we are also interested in what stage the performance will be.”

https://www.hs.fi/kotimaa/art-200000614 ... 105dfaea78

Based on this article, where the HX project leader comments, (unlike the Swiss) the Finnish competition has no set expectation of only testing fully operational products come next year's field trials. So they expect Gripen to feature.

“The Swiss said the fighter had to be ready for the tests, but the Swedes couldn't offer it. We have no such requirement.”
According to Puranen, the Finnish tendering procedure considers separately what features of the jets can be verified in the tests and what are the so-called future abilities.
“We look at what performance is promised and at what stage. We then evaluate whether it is credible", Puranen says.
“We have never set a condition that there should be a ready fighter already in the test phase.”

Puranen believes that Saab will be able to send its new Gripen fighter to Finnish tests next spring.
“Yes, probably Gripen will come, but it will not be able to provide all the performance we need when we have a test phase. Of course, we are also interested in what stage the performance will be.”

https://www.hs.fi/kotimaa/art-200000614 ... 105dfaea78

The problem is that SAAB offered a mix of single and two seaters. To what extent F version will be ready come testing/evaluation time? SAAB said two-seater is required for some really challenging missions, meaning without the F version Gripen will suffer big penalties in the high end of combat performance (which probs interests FiAF the most) if they only show up with mock ups and promises.

The problem is that SAAB offered a mix of single and two seaters. To what extent F version will be ready come testing/evaluation time? SAAB said two-seater is required for some really challenging missions, meaning without the F version Gripen will suffer big penalties in the high end of combat performance (which probs interests FiAF the most) if they only show up with mock ups and promises.

True, my estimation is that offering a two seater makes it more difficult for Saab. In terms of scheduling, development risks, and comparing to Growler even in the slightest. But since the packages are optimized with FiAF, it's possible that they want that to happen instead of it being insisted by just Saab as the best capability.

In the previous competition Gripen failed due to being half-baked, which led to high safeties in cost estimations. They are clearly on a very similar path. Swiss failure doesn't need to mean much, but it shows that extending the clientele past Brazil and Sweden will be tough. From the Gripen C/D leasers we know at least that Hungary isn't likely to favor Swedish products due to political climate.

F-35 landing to Turku (few very noisy flyovers before):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az_AEmuqnhE

Wow, Saab just confirmed that their offer includes 2 GlobalEye AEW/C planes. So it's 52 Gripen E, 12 F, 2 GlobalEye (Bombardier Global 6000 featuring Saab's Erieye ER radar). https://twitter.com/SaabFI/status/1139474538675265537

Quite surprising, but highlights how much leeway the tenderers were given in forming the best capability package.

GlobalEye has only one customer, UAE. At least some deliveries have been made. Erieye radar has plenty more customers.

What share of the financial package they would consume? UAE's first order for two in 2015 was for $1.3B. Third one in 2017 was $236M extra. So roughly 1 billion out of estimate 7-10.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globaleye
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erieye

Comparing these packages might be a doozy if the rest are this random.

Finland with "poor man's AWACS"? It could happen. But would that mean also getting poor man's fighters?
On the other hand Growler offer tangles the prospect of Finland with unique AEA capability in Europe.
One wishes they could afford everything, but the actualization of each desire needs to be carefully considered.

@FinnishAirForce:
"FINAF F/A-18s met up with USAF F-35As arriving in Turku on 13 June. Video: USAF/52 FW Public Affairs/TSgt Anthony Plyler. @HAFB @388fw"
https://twitter.com/FinnishAirForce/sta ... 8602413057 (visit for 2x F-35 + 2x F/A-18 flying escort video)

@FinnishAirForce:
"On Thursday and Friday, Finnish Air Force F/A-18 pilots trained identification and escort missions with the fighters participating in #TurkuAirshow. The airshow takes place on 15‒16 June."
https://twitter.com/FinnishAirForce/sta ... 1470972929 (visit for 2x F-35 + 1x F/A-18 side by side in air pic)

@theF35:
"Touchdown in Turku

Two @usairforce F-35As from @HAFB arrived today in Finland at #Turku Air Show. This weekend, the pilots will educate the Finnish community about the jet’s advanced capabilities and interoperability."

https://twitter.com/thef35/status/1139222746968317952 (visit for pics)