Posted on 07/20/2008 11:11:16 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Sweden's Gripen competes with the F-35
By BOB COX rcox@star-telegram.com
FARNBOROUGH, England — Just a few years ago, Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter was widely viewed as the world’s leading next-generation, high-technology aircraft, with no strong Western competitor. That’s no longer the case.
Saab, the Swedish industrial conglomerate better known in the U.S. for performance cars than airplanes, has impressed potential aircraft buyers with an aggressive marketing campaign for its upgraded Gripen fighter jet.
Denmark and Norway, two nations that have invested in the F-35, are now holding competitions pitting the F-35 against the Gripen. Denmark is also considering the Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet.
Defense officials in the Netherlands, pressured by minority parties swayed by Sweden’s "buy from your neighbor pitch," are conducting a "review of alternatives" that include the F-35, Gripen, F/A-18 and perhaps later model F-16s.
Led by a cocky, even brash Scotsman with a wicked sense of humor and a sharp needle, Saab has become a presence in the world combat-aircraft market and at events like last week’s Farnborough Air Show.
With a boast here and jab there, Bob Kemp, senior vice president of international sales for Gripen, has complicated Lockheed and U.S. government efforts to secure sales for the F-35 and F-16.
"In my opinion, the JSF is not [a fighter], it’s a bomb truck," not well-suited to the aerial dogfighting role, Kemp said in an interview at the air show.
If the bad guys are after you in a hot fighter plane, such as the latest Russian designs, Kemp says he wouldn’t want to be an F-35 pilot. "You can’t outrun [the enemy plane], and you sure can’t out-turn him."
It’s a bold comment and certainly one Lockheed officials disagree with.
(Excerpt) Read more at star-telegram.com ...
Thats why its labeled a *strike* fighter.
The competition of ideas always breeds a best of class.
When you agree on everything, everything is compromised.
Although Lanchester’s Laws can’t be applied without modification, you can’t count on not entering a dogfight...and that’s not just based on RoE restrictions.
Bonder-Farrell, darn it.
And the big hole in both, is that you cannot predict collapse.
Well if he wants to complain about the F-35, and how much “better” his plane is at dogfighting, then let him pair his plane up against an f-22. Heck, let him put up a 1/2 dozen Grippens against 1 f-22.
More to the point, having a netfire capability is vastly different, than being able to use it.
They always say this crap until the shooting starts.
Ummmmm... if you change your attack plane to be competitive in dogfighting then it’s no longer an attack plane! Jeeez. That’s why you use fighters to escort the attack squadrons. Cripes. This guy’s supposed to be ab expert?
Which part - you lost me?
The Gripen is a nice airframe with some good capabilities, but saying it is a better choice than an F-35 is really silly.
First, its lack of stealth is a death sentence. 15 - 20 years from now if you don’t have stealth ability you will not be able to enter most combat environments except on suicide missions. The advantage of being able to pick your fights and surprise the enemy is overwhelming.
Second, the F-35 will have a much larger industry behind it with a lot more funding so it will be upgraded continually with even more capable avionics and weapons. Much more so than the Gripen.
Third, the brilliant system layout of the airframe will make operation and maintenace much cheaper and that is what really costs you the most over the life of an aircraft.
It is a good airframe, but I don’t even think the author really believes this could happen. We heard this same type of talk when the F-16 was new and everybody ended up buying it and they still are.
I have been all over the world and the militaries of the world have great respect for American weapon systems.
“Well if he wants to complain about the F-35, and how much “better” his plane is at dogfighting, then let him pair his plane up against an f-22. Heck, let him put up a 1/2 dozen Grippens against 1 f-22.”
That would be a very embarrassing engagement for the Grippen. They would be trying to explain it to customers for years.
In their defense, SAAB has never said their aircraft can outperform an F-22. The F-22 costs a whole lot more and is completely revolutionary. You could take an F-22A of today 25 years into the future and it would still fare well against most threats and defenses.
Does the Grippen come with a Starbucks finder?
The Gripen is not in the same class as the F-35 or the F/A-18E/F.
The JAS-39 is a lightweight multirole fighter with a max takeoff weight of 39,000lbs. the F-35 is a medium fighter with a max takeoff weight of 60,000lbs, and the F/A-18E/F has a max takeoff weight of 66,000lbs.
Really?
Based on what population? The majority populations of Los Angeles and Fort Worth will be ethnically Mexican in the not too distant future -- about the life cycle of the F-35 airframe.
And you and I both know that that is where this aircraft is designed and built, although the temporary refuge known as Palmdale still holds a few "American" families that still work at Lockheed.
But those cohorts are rapidly aging. It's remarkable to walk the corridors of those places these days because you see so many guys in their late 60's - early 70's. Retirement is in-place, because the companies can't do without them. The alternative is to hire Asians who are increasingly regarded as security problems (note the recent convictions of supposedly law abiding and "loyal" Asian immigrants).
Who will do the upgrading that you refer to, hmmm? Newly educated Mestizo engineers, resurrecting the moribund Aztec aviation scene? The sons and daughters of Chi-Com refugees, the sort of people who demonstrated the other day in Thousand Oaks against criticism of the enforcers who came with the Olympic flame?
I work with Europe's engineers all the time. Although it's true that the suburbs of Paris have an alarming number of Mohammed's there, the fact is that European engineering firms are still rather clubby, and you do have to be capable to be hired and stick around.
That means that SAAB will have access to better and better avionics. If you've ever worked with SAAB now, you'd know that they're a damn good engineering organization as it is - and have gotten so on a fairly small base of human capital.
So don't be too quick to extrapolate American success of the past to the future 20 and 30 years out. The people responsible for all that are dying and being replaced by populations who have nothing but failure in their past, and I won't bother to get into the "nature or nurture" argument other than to say that early empirical evidence is not good for the nurture side of it, and anyway multi-culturalism allows them to cling to the failed norms of their past.
All of which doesn't bode well for a future U.S. military aerospace industry.
Saab cars are made by GM. I think the aircraft maker does make midsized and large trucks.
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