Who will win in South Korea?

bigjku wrote:

aaam wrote:Apparently Korea has decided they're not going to buy the only plane that met their budget requirements (although the EADS situation is still murky) and are going to start over. I suspect this might keep happening until the F-35 "wins", or until everyone else gets so disgusted they simply don't bother anymore (as Dassault already did).

Maybe they could team with Brazil in a joint program to not select anything

The whole budget issue is kind of funny. You can't on the one hand say "We want to buy x number stealth fighters" and on the other say "this is my budget". I can't go to a car dealership and say I want to buy a new luxury car but I only have $10,000 then be surprised when it does not work out.

You can if you're a Government...Ours is as guilty of it as anybody.

aaam wrote:Apparently Korea has decided they're not going to buy the only plane that met their budget requirements (although the EADS situation is still murky) and are going to start over. I suspect this might keep happening until the F-35 "wins", or until everyone else gets so disgusted they simply don't bother anymore (as Dassault already did).

Maybe they could team with Brazil in a joint program to not select anything

As I've mentioned before, the situation is hugely in the F-35's favour. Pushing back the delivery date allows Korea to buy FRP lot units, which will be significantly less than the late LRIP lots they were looking at. The SE is significantly disadvantaged; smaller production lots mean inefficient production and DMS issues over time.

aaam wrote:

bigjku wrote:

aaam wrote:Apparently Korea has decided they're not going to buy the only plane that met their budget requirements (although the EADS situation is still murky) and are going to start over. I suspect this might keep happening until the F-35 "wins", or until everyone else gets so disgusted they simply don't bother anymore (as Dassault already did).

Maybe they could team with Brazil in a joint program to not select anything

The whole budget issue is kind of funny. You can't on the one hand say "We want to buy x number stealth fighters" and on the other say "this is my budget". I can't go to a car dealership and say I want to buy a new luxury car but I only have $10,000 then be surprised when it does not work out.

You can if you're a Government...Ours is as guilty of it as anybody.

You can to a degree if you are making the thing I suppose. In this case Korea is more or less buying something off the showroom floor. It is a very expensive something with very involved negotiations but they don't have a lot of pricing leverage at all.

discofishing wrote:Has anyone heard of USAF interest in the Silent Eagle?

None at all, except that some elements of the SE program could be used in upgrading newer F-15s due to delays in the F-35 program.

hb-pencil --

FRP (yet to be defined in technical terms) might not commence until FY19 to begin with.

Yet, it should be reminded that a major original principle behind F-X3 was in keeping to schedule (and cost) with the goal to field a capable, reliable, strategic offset and counter-deterrence against potential belligerent or provocative threats in the theater. If the doctrine and requirements are indeed changing as we speak for RoK's F-X3 however, then by all means, change the schedule if it's more flexible an issue now...but let's just be honest about the requirement.

That said, an FY19 F-35 would still likely cost more per Weapon System Cost than an F-15SE-lite (perhaps $165m vs $130m?), when taking into account annual production rate revisions and austere budget environments, etc, and secondly, the F-15 even when produced in relatively small annual production batches, does not necessarily qualify as 'inefficient production', as you claim. The inherent Program is designed outright to be relatively efficient (and sustainable) even when produced under smaller sized rates!

Welp, South Korea has just announced that they are going to restart their competition (after the F-15's won due to budget restrictions I might add), because apparently the F-15's weren't stealthy enough. So... back to the beginning.
Anybody considering maybe the new upgraded semi-stealthy Super Hornets might be able to win?

flighthawk128 wrote:Welp, South Korea has just announced that they are going to restart their competition (after the F-15's won due to budget restrictions I might add), because apparently the F-15's weren't stealthy enough. So... back to the beginning.
Anybody considering maybe the new upgraded semi-stealthy Super Hornets might be able to win?

I tried bringing it up on another thread, but then someone carefully explained how I was being an idiot.

So, was the competition really anything other than an attempt to buy the F-35 at a cut rate price?

count_to_10 wrote:So, was the competition really anything other than an attempt to buy the F-35 at a cut rate price?

Not really. As I explained on keypubs, it was like a bad sitcom in which some guy tries to make a hot girlfriend jealous by hooking up with an ex who's become surprisingly fat.

Strike Eagle's flyaway cost for South Korea was a hundred million dollars seven years ago. How did an even more advanced derivative, after several more years of inflation since then, undercut a plane whose flyaway cost the GAO recently put at about 85 million dollars at planned sale time a few years in the future, or about 75 in today's dollars?

delvo wrote:Strike Eagle's flyaway cost for South Korea was a hundred million dollars seven years ago. How did an even more advanced derivative, after several more years of inflation since then, undercut a plane whose flyaway cost the GAO recently put at about 85 million dollars at planned sale time a few years in the future, or about 75 in today's dollars?

Korea's fixed-budget was all-inclusive, not just the sum of flyaway costs, but the infrastructure as well (something they already have for the F-15). Also, they wouldn't get the FRP price because of their timeline.