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Canada buying F35’s-again….


Robin-42

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42 minutes ago, exdraken said:

not necessarily, as not everybody is even cleared to buy the F-35....

The Rafale has the unique feature of not having US strings attached... not for systems and not for weapons...

see the recent success of the Rafale in Egypt, Qatar, and just some months ago the UAE for 80! Rafale F4s......

Also Greece opted for Rafales for quick delivery...

 

regarding EF and Rafale, , they did not even bid in Canada because of specific requirements there....

 

and there is one important thing to note: the F-35 has proven itself now as being an affordable plane.... for purchase.... no info out there about its long term sustainability and the relevance of its stealth modes...

just look at the issues the USAF as with maintaining the F-22 fleet (they want to reduce the small fleet even further and completely retire it before 2030), the same seems true for the earlier F-35 Blocks.. the US is even reducing order until Block 4 models will be available....

 

ans USAF is increasing its purchase of F-15EX jets...... not really stealth at all! so yes, there still is a chance for EF and Gripen E/F I think!

 

 

 

 

Biggest problem is everyone wants the Block 4 models including the UK. Our delivery rate on the B is incredibly slow, we can't even put one airwing on one of our two carriers because we want the vast majority of our deliveries to be block 4.

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37 minutes ago, Whitewolf said:

Biggest problem is everyone wants the Block 4 models including the UK. Our delivery rate on the B is incredibly slow, we can't even put one airwing on one of our two carriers because we want the vast majority of our deliveries to be block 4.

that seems to imply that the current Block 3 is far away from being a great and future proof air plane... :(

I assume issues with upgrade ability are already known...

 

more on that, the UK, as well as NL bought some of the most expensive early production jets... they are close to being totally unsunstainable altogether it seems....

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This makes the F-35 sound like an iPhone. You buy the latest greatest version, but after around four years it can no longer handle OS updates and then soon after iPlayer and Netflix and other apps will no longer run on the old OS, so you have no choice but to buy a newer iPhone. Quite a change to flogging a Tornado for 40 years.

 

From what you guys say I can see that the market for EF/Gripen/Rafale is still there from countries that are more concerned with defence against neighbours in what are ultimately quite low risk environments.

 

The funny thing with the F-35 and NATO is (the way I see it following the events of the last five weeks) that there's little point in having F-35. NATO members might as well operate Chipmunks armed with a water pistol as it is impossible to actually have armed conflict with Russia without it going nuclear. From where I'm sitting, the Russian conventional forces have looked not far short of hopeless. I imagine that NATO would wipe the floor with them in a couple of days - except that in reality NATO cannot do anything without risking of the end of all humanity.

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55 minutes ago, Filler said:

This makes the F-35 sound like an iPhone. You buy the latest greatest version, but after around four years it can no longer handle OS updates and then soon after iPlayer and Netflix and other apps will no longer run on the old OS, so you have no choice but to buy a newer iPhone. Quite a change to flogging a Tornado for 40 years.

 

From what you guys say I can see that the market for EF/Gripen/Rafale is still there from countries that are more concerned with defence against neighbours in what are ultimately quite low risk environments.

 

The funny thing with the F-35 and NATO is (the way I see it following the events of the last five weeks) that there's little point in having F-35. NATO members might as well operate Chipmunks armed with a water pistol as it is impossible to actually have armed conflict with Russia without it going nuclear. From where I'm sitting, the Russian conventional forces have looked not far short of hopeless. I imagine that NATO would wipe the floor with them in a couple of days - except that in reality NATO cannot do anything without risking of the end of all humanity.

 

The Russian ground forces are sure having serious problems but their air forces are doing their job pretty well, so I'd not underestimate them.

Current Russian "philosophy" (and former Soviet) is to have air superiority over the frontline, they don't care about having air superiority over the rest of the enemy areas (contrary to the US concept to try and achieve air superiority over the whole theatre of operation, frontline and all rear areas, ideally the whole enemy country). This is what their air forces are doing today over Ukraine and they are doing this pretty well. Every time the Ukrainian air forces have tried to operate over the front line they have suffered losses without being able to support their ground forces. Only the Ukrainian drones can fly, anytime their Su-25s or even the Su-27s have tried to operate in those areas they have  been succesfully countered

 

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1 hour ago, Giorgio N said:

Every time the Ukrainian air forces have tried to operate over the front line they have suffered losses without being able to support their ground forces. Only the Ukrainian drones can fly, anytime their Su-25s or even the Su-27s have tried to operate in those areas they have  been succesfully countered

 

Would a hypothetical Ukraininan F-35 squadron prevail under such circumstances? Or would their bases simply be wiped out? And the aircrafts hunted down over the battlefield by S300/400 missiles and Flanker derivatives?

because 2 bombs and 2 Amraam missiles  is very little combat potential.. if stealth or 6 missiles 

 

I have my doubts!

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The only reason the F-35 was chosen by many countries instead of the Typhoon,Gripen or Rafale is that the price has been lowered so much and political pressure.To sell it in such numbers the F-35 is now sold for 80 million dollars.A Saab Gripen cost only half with 50 million dollars but a Eurofighter Typhoon costs 98 million and a Dassault Rafale 124 million.It has nothing to do with the aircraft being "superiour" to the other aircraft or the best choice for Nato.The aircraft is not a interceptor so in that purpose it cannot be better than the Gripen and the Typhoon that have been built for this role.As for its stealth capabilities Russian and French radars can detect it what has been proven in the middle East. So even that is not the reason that it was bought.At the end it is only the price.

 

Saluti

 

Giampiero

Edited by GiampieroSilvestri
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The F-35 was (originally, anyway) supposed to be an F-16 replacement, with the attendant mission requirements. I don't think it was intended to be in class of the Typhoon or Rafale.

 

Speaking of F-16's, the production line shows no signs of slowing down for the foreseeable future. And many people (myself included) saw production sunsetting when manufacturing was relocated to South Carolina.

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On 3/31/2022 at 1:37 PM, exdraken said:

Would a hypothetical Ukraininan F-35 squadron prevail under such circumstances? Or would their bases simply be wiped out? And the aircrafts hunted down over the battlefield by S300/400 missiles and Flanker derivatives?

because 2 bombs and 2 Amraam missiles  is very little combat potential.. if stealth or 6 missiles 

 

I have my doubts!

 

The defence of the airbases is a different problem, and we touched on this in a different thread in the Aviation Chat section. Beside, the Russians have announced several times the destruction of all air bases in Ukraine, and then repeated the announcement after the following wave of strikes, meaning that they had not destroyed them the previous time. The reality is that even today there airbases in Ukraine that can sustain flight operations... airbases are more difficult to destroy than they may look like.

 

Regarding the effect of using a more advanced aircraft instead of the Su-27s that the Ukrainian Air Force use, clearly having something with more capabilities would have been useful. Even just the possibility of closing nearer to the opponent is a force multiplier, something that today the Ukrainians can not do at all. Even just the knowledge of the presence of aircraft with stealth capabilities forces the opponent to operate certain assets differently, for example the airborn radar systems.

It's not only a matter of stealthiness, it's also a matter of better sensors in general, the current Russian aircraft are in reality not as impressive as the propaganda from certain websites would like us to believe.

Regarding the load, two bombs is a very typical loads with aircraft from the previous generations when in real operations, so where's the difference ? The F-35 can carry two bombs and two AA missiles internally, together with a pretty large fuel quantity. A typical operational F-16 load is 2 tanks, an external pod, 2 AA missiles... and two bombs. Without low observability.

A missile load of 4 in AA missions is on the other hand a bit on the small side but the low observability is still an advantage... and really, many types carry around the same number of weapons in alert missions, sometime even less.

 

Of course a lot depends on numbers... a single squadron of better aircraft may do little against 20 units of inferior aircraft and in this the largesr countries will always have an advantage.

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20 hours ago, GiampieroSilvestri said:

The only reason the F-35 was chosen by many countries instead of the Typhoon,Gripen or Rafale is that the price has been lowered so much and political pressure.To sell it in such numbers the F-35 is now sold for 80 million dollars.A Saab Gripen cost only half with 50 million dollars but a Eurofighter Typhoon costs 98 million and a Dassault Rafale 124 million.It has nothing to do with the aircraft being "superiour" to the other aircraft or the best choice for Nato.The aircraft is not a interceptor so in that purpose it cannot be better than the Gripen and the Typhoon that have been built for this role.As for its stealth capabilities Russian and French radars can detect it what has been proven in the middle East. So even that is not the reason that it was bought.At the end it is only the price.

 

Saluti

 

Giampiero

 

So radars have detected stealth aircraft... at what distance ? With what accuracy ? Were they surveillance radars or were they part of a SAM system ? Did they manage to get to a firing solution ? And if so, was it inside or outside the range of the weapons potentially carried by the aircraft ? Without an answer to all these questions, the many announcements of "our radars have detected stealth aircraft" mean nothing. Really these kind of "announcements" most of the time tell that whoever is making them has not understood what "stealth" is as a concept... and stealth is low observability, not total invisibility to everything.

No stealth aircraft has such a small radar signature to be invisible to everything, what they have is the advantage of retarding their detection by the enemy, with the aim of making such detection possible only when it's too late for the enemy to counteract the threat. All while at the same time knowing the presence of the enemy in advance thanks to both the use of superior sensors (part of the F-35 platform) and sometime thanks to the fact that the enemy will have to operate their radars at higher power to detect targets with a small RCS.

Low observability is like camouflage on an aircraft, tank or individual soldier: no form of camouflage will ever make something totally invisible but it will make life to the enemy harder by making the target harder to see at longer ranges, harder to identify and harder to see well enough to be sure to score a hit.

I sometime wonder if "stealth" is such a useless feature, why would the US, but also China and Russia, invest bilions in studying ways to reduce RCS in their aircraft ? Are they all idiots who don't know what real war is like ???

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On 31/03/2022 at 09:38, exdraken said:

that seems to imply that the current Block 3 is far away from being a great and future proof air plane... :(

I assume issues with upgrade ability are already known...

 

more on that, the UK, as well as NL bought some of the most expensive early production jets... they are close to being totally unsunstainable altogether it seems....

The block 3s can be upgraded to block 4 status at a cost as always.

On 31/03/2022 at 11:18, Giorgio N said:

 

The Russian ground forces are sure having serious problems but their air forces are doing their job pretty well, so I'd not underestimate them.

Current Russian "philosophy" (and former Soviet) is to have air superiority over the frontline, they don't care about having air superiority over the rest of the enemy areas (contrary to the US concept to try and achieve air superiority over the whole theatre of operation, frontline and all rear areas, ideally the whole enemy country). This is what their air forces are doing today over Ukraine and they are doing this pretty well. Every time the Ukrainian air forces have tried to operate over the front line they have suffered losses without being able to support their ground forces. Only the Ukrainian drones can fly, anytime their Su-25s or even the Su-27s have tried to operate in those areas they have  been succesfully countered

 

That's not quite the picture I'm hearing from elsewhere......the Russians are not flying much during the day for fear of Ukranian fighters and have sustained losses they were not expecting.....the Ukanians have launched air attacks but have a much reduced availability. The Russians are far more reliant on long range artillery and missiles 

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9 hours ago, Whitewolf said:

The block 3s can be upgraded to block 4 status at a cost as always.

Of course they can... but cost might be prohibitive.... negating the rel. cheap base price....

 

Early F-22 s were not upgraded for this reason, the same seems true for early F-35s

 

Trache 1 Eurofighters were already even retired by the RAF prematurely!

10 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

Regarding the load, two bombs is a very typical loads with aircraft from the previous generations when in real operations, so where's the difference ? The F-35 can carry two bombs and two AA missiles internally, together with a pretty large fuel quantity. A typical operational F-16 load is 2 tanks, an external pod, 2 AA missiles... and two bombs. Without low observability.

The F-16 carries either 2 2000lb class guided weapons or 4 500 lb ones plus 4 air to air missiles routinely.

F-15s carry around double that.

 

Not sure if the F-35 CURRENTLY can employ 2000lb weapons ... the do use GBU-12, and probably -49s?

Is the SDM integrated already?

 

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On 4/1/2022 at 4:17 PM, Whitewolf said:

 

That's not quite the picture I'm hearing from elsewhere......the Russians are not flying much during the day for fear of Ukranian fighters and have sustained losses they were not expecting.....the Ukanians have launched air attacks but have a much reduced availability. The Russians are far more reliant on long range artillery and missiles 

 

The information I got (from people who carefully vet and cross-check every bit of information and discard propaganda from either side) is that the Russians rarely operate far from the frontline simply because this is standard doctrine of the "frontal aviation": supporting the frontline is the most important thing, air superiority over other areas is not important . As a result Ukrainian aircraft are pretty free to fly over the rest of the country as long as they don't go close to te front and this has meant that even vulenrable types like transports have been flying quite freely. The Russians have the advantage of having A-50 AWACS flying well inside Russian controlled airspace and these can detect any aerial threat approaching the frontline, an advantage the Ukrainians do not possess. Of course these aircraft are too far from other areas of Ukraine to contribute to the air war in those sectors. And of course these aircraft have huge problems in spotting UAVs, but this is another subject that would deserve its own thread.

Of course Russian aircraft have also been used to bomb targets of strategic interest, latest was last Saturday (this time with no losses) and some have been lost. I would however wait until the end of the war before judging if these losses were heavy or not, as it's not easy to understand what is reality and what is propaganda. Several times the images of a single aircraft have been shown more than once to prove the distruction of another enemy aircraft, that it's something that makes sense from the combatant perspective, afterall propaganda is one aspect of war. As enthusiasts interested in understanding the evolution of air war however this is just noise

 

That brings me somehow back to the F-35.... if Russian doctrine is what it is, at the same time the doctrines followed by NATO countries is different. The F-35 in the end was designed to fall within a certain doctrine. Would such a type succeed when used differently ? Hard to tell, certain features would still be useful, others may not. I never considered too seriously the various internet fears about the F-35 particularly when these were launched by people with no knowledge of military aircraft technology. At the same time I often wonder what would the effect of having the F-35 without all the rest of the "system" in place ! Would this result in limitations that would make the F-35 little more than a more recently built F-16 ? Now NATO countries have all been working one way or the other towards building the infrastructure for that "netcentric" warfare of which the F-35 is one key component, countries outside the alliance may not want to bother and at that point they may be happiers with a revamped F-16 of some kind...

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Pardon me iif I am being silly  but having just read all of the above about the F-35  I can't make out if what's been said shows the type being the "bees knees' of modern jet hardware or just not good at all?

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3 hours ago, Paul J said:

Pardon me iif I am being silly  but having just read all of the above about the F-35  I can't make out if what's been said shows the type being the "bees knees' of modern jet hardware or just not good at all?

The F-35 is good. All reports from the pilots flying it gives it good reviews, and if Gripen was worth anything they would have made more sales, plane and simple ;) 

It's been years since the AF of the world gave up having specific fighters for specific reasons, that's why most of the modern day aircrafts are multi-role and not interceptor, attack etc. Too costly and too many different models to keep in inventory. 

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On 4/1/2022 at 9:36 AM, Giorgio N said:

I sometime wonder if "stealth" is such a useless feature, why would the US, but also China and Russia, invest bilions in studying ways to reduce RCS in their aircraft ? Are they all idiots who don't know what real war is like ???

They are all idiots.   The only ones who understand the issue in detail are the experts who reside on modeling forums.  

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Regarding Block 4 F-35s, I just read in AFM ( article about Finnish Airforce)

That theBlock 4 needs more electrical power than the current F-135  engine can deliver... only from ~2026! Such an engine upgrade will be available.... that uis still some time.to go!

 

I assume a new generator will be needed--> us this going to be used on the B model as well?

Anyone having more info I that issue?

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Going back well over a decade Canada became a level 3 partner of the F-35 and has invested hundreds of millions in the program (depending on who tells you - between 150 and 600).  The current government campaigned (and promised) not to buy the F-35 in 2015.  But oddly kept quietly paying dues into the program since.  The Canadian fighter requirement was always a split between air defence/interceptor and fighter/strike.  The Air Defence role in Canada always needed range and second engine back up.  Distances between airfields (not just up North) are far greater in Canada than central Europe.  The fighter/strike role was far less popular with voting politicians since the withdrawal from European bases.  Even so the Hornet fleet has become something of what the Brits and French call a ‘campaigning force’, with Hornet use over the Iraq, Balkans, Libya, and deployments to eastern European borders.  The first Hornet delivery was in October 1982 (the last in September 1988), and even going through a couple upgrades and ever diminishing numbers, we end up currently with around 65 aircraft well used.  Currently they could be between 34 and 40 years old, then add in ex RAAF aircraft, which was a case of buying hours - to delay buying a new type.  This has coming for a long time.

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On 3/29/2022 at 1:43 PM, GiampieroSilvestri said:

..look at the conditions made to switzerland and Finland

...

Political made pressure is also not to disregard in this...

 

Let us just say You seem to know nothing about the Finnish HX-selection and politics.

 

The price was just a pleasant surprise which did not effect the choice of type. Perhaps, and likely it affected the number of planes to be purchased

 

Gripen would have been the political choice.

 

Typhoon would have been surprise.

 

Rafale. Well, I would have suspected blackmailing if it was chosen. Though I quite liked the landing straight from top of immelman at Kauhava Air Show Summer 2021.

 

F-18 and F-35 simply were the best fighters in the competition, period.  Personally,  I was expecting  F-18 to be chosen. Two engines provides survivability of it's own kind. But the evaluation points for the planes did show chrystal clear winner.

 

BTW Italian AF F-35 are/were based at Ämari AFB, Estonia. Are there any good articles for modellers about them?

 

Cheers,

Kari

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Please look at the F-104 that was chosen instead of the Mirage III or the F-5 instead of the Fiat G91.The story behind the Starfighter is well known.The Fiat was offered to Greece,France,Iran,Austria,Turkey,Norway,Israel and the US,Switzerland.France assured to buy a certain number of the aircraft winning the NBMR 1 concours probably because they were certain that their Breguet Br1001 Taon would win but the Fiat did so the order was instantly cancelled.The other Nato members and Iran and Switzerland "preferred" the F-5.Austria ordered twelve single seat and a two seat aircraft but the order was cancelled because the dispute about Trentino at the time.The US evaluated two aircraft as a sign of good will but never had the intention to buy it.The price is not and never was a pleasant secondary effect but in most cases together with other "convincing" arguments like with the Starfighter the main reason why a aircraft is chosen.After having talked to many persons and having personal experiences I know very well the practices american companies use to sell their products.

 

Saluti

 

Giampiero

Edited by GiampieroSilvestri
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23 hours ago, GiampieroSilvestri said:

I know very well the practices american companies use to sell their products.

 

Yet I maintain that you seem not have any grasp of Finnish politics nor the HX-selection. What you wrote has nothing to do with the HX issue.

 

Please explain why should Finland choose third or forth best fighter for our purposes? Are you wearing Z-underpants?

 

Kari

Edited by Kari Lumppio
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On 4/13/2022 at 3:03 PM, Kari Lumppio said:

Please explain why should Finland choose third or forth best fighter for our purposes?

The clue lies is " our purposes"

 

Those can be best fulfilled as it seems by F-35 at the moment.... others might think differently

 

Just think if a requirement for e.g. 2 engines, 2 seats, recce capabilities, a need to share assets with your still neutral neighbour, not having all eggs in one ( e g  American ) basket..  etc..

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On 4/12/2022 at 3:18 PM, GiampieroSilvestri said:

Please look at the F-104 that was chosen instead of the Mirage III or the F-5 instead of the Fiat G91.The story behind the Starfighter is well known.The Fiat was offered to Greece,France,Iran,Austria,Turkey,Norway,Israel and the US,Switzerland.France assured to buy a certain number of the aircraft winning the NBMR 1 concours probably because they were certain that their Breguet Br1001 Taon would win but the Fiat did so the order was instantly cancelled.The other Nato members and Iran and Switzerland "preferred" the F-5.Austria ordered twelve single seat and a two seat aircraft but the order was cancelled because the dispute about Trentino at the time.The US evaluated two aircraft as a sign of good will but never had the intention to buy it.The price is not and never was a pleasant secondary effect but in most cases together with other "convincing" arguments like with the Starfighter the main reason why a aircraft is chosen.After having talked to many persons and having personal experiences I know very well the practices american companies use to sell their products.

 

Saluti

 

Giampiero

 

Honestly I can't think of any reason why a defence minister would choose a G.91 over an F-5 !

The G.91 was born from a program that was meant to give to NATO a light attack aircaft but really it was a type only good for that. The F-5 was much more versatile, could carry AAMs and in the later F-5E form had a radar. And was supersonic. A small air force could use the F-5 for all missions, the G.91 could only have sense if used as the low side of a "hi-low" mix of aircraft types. Even in Italy the G.91 saw relatively limited success, although Germany bought plenty of them.

I would also not include the F-5E in the mix, as this variant came later, when the original G.91 was quite old.

 

Small aside: the practices used by American companies are not much different from the ones used by the companies in other countries, the defence market is very open to bribery of all kind, see BAe in Saudi Arabia, the recent Finmeccanica scandal and many others

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The F-5 was and is a very capable and powerful little fighter at very low acquisition, maintenance (J85 engine!!) and operational cost, a true defence minister's dream :)

unlike the slightly more capable F-104....

Even the A/B models are still in limited use, the way more advanced E/F still in frontline service.. !

 

Kind of the opposite of a F-35.... let's see if it will also see 60+ years of service! The F-22 will most likely not...

 

but in the end let's see what this year's war will bring in changes to the Western air forces...  only few but high end planes? Or will "numbers" will also get a renaissance ?? 

I am already very curious!

 

Norway seems to have stopped F-16 retirement for now... and LN 493rd Grim Reapers also still fly F-15s......

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