mixelflick wrote:I wonder if the Quatar birds will require these/help pay for them?
Seems to have worked for the F-15EX, although I understand other nations (SA, ROK, Singapore etc) helped too. I would have thought though that the F/A-18's legs would have been a priority long ago. Boeing should have been working on something to make them longer IMO.
Like I said the development of such things is very costly. If someone wants to pay for them, that's great. if not they tend to stay paper projects or "concept demonstrators"
most defense companies simply don't have the money to develop something a lot of countries might just kick the tires on and never really buy. look at the Gripen E. for as much as the fans think its some kind of revolutionary F-22 rival that should sell in the thousands, did you notice that Saab never bothered to bankroll it themselves?? (even though its crazy cheap, and so amazeballs its like a license to print money) and then relied on other nations to front the money for it? if you notice not even Sweden was going to buy it until another country signed on to share costs (which again is crazy since its obviously great and cheap and whatever money Saab put in it would surely make back 10 fold...)
that little revolutionary fighter that costs next to nothing couldn't find a single backer for years... and saab was paralyzed, and put forth a concept demonstrator only.
how come Sven didn't turn to Erik and simply say "why our company could be profiting in the billions with our revolutionary fighter that's cheap to develop, why are we not just developing it ourselves?"
No no Sven, we have to wait years and years so that F-16s can keep outselling us while we wait on Brazil to buy a few dozen...
crazy to watch such a "smart" company sit on a gold mine like that.
can Canada help fund the EFTs on the SH that it hasn't yet decided to buy? probably not. will Germany, Aus, Kuwait, India, all of the above or anyone else bother to? does the USN saying "no thanks, nevermind" (we don't know the exact issues, but just from the statement it sure makes it sound like its a fairly large problem) doom the entire thing?
I doubt you'll see Kuwait spring for anything. its not an offensive force and theyre the size of a postage stamp. Australia? they're getting F-35s. India isn't official... Germany?