Comments by "LRRPFco52" (@LRRPFco52) on "Ed Nash's Military Matters" channel.

@kden9772 F-15EX is way more expensive to acquire and operate than F-35A. In addition to the basic airframe excess costs compared with F-35A, you don’t see the ancillary systems O&M costs, like the LITENING Pod, IRST-21 pod/tank, LANTIRN pod, or EPAWSS. EPAWSS is already on the Select Acquisition Review due to being so far over-budget. Boeing took the actual safety of flight rated airframe life from the F-15E and tripled it in their claims about the F-15EX, just like they doubled the combat radius even though F-15EX is heavier with the same thrust class motors. This is the same company whose chief 737 Max test pilot’s emails and texts detail his drunken bragging about deceiving customers and hiding the new features of the DFLCS from customers, while telling them they don’t need any additional training to manage the DFLCS in order to help with sales.
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@periculosumadversario Gripen E had the lowest performance of all the entrants into H-X, including the EW realm. It’s a total scam reliant on marketing. Imagine little Sweden with zero combat experience in IADS nets around the world, using 2 generations-old US Mil-1553B data buses and a home-grown copy of Thales EW suite for the Rafale, trying to compete with Super Hornet Block 3 EW and F-35A EW systems. It’s a total joke among those that see. Just in the Hornet upgrades, they have 40 years of experience operating in high-threat EW environments, whether in the test ranges in the US or in actual hostile theaters of conflict ranging from Libya in 1986 to recent times.
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@boratb258 F-35A is the most affordable option of any Western fighter on the market right now. It’s also the most capable. It really eliminates any competition’s ability to bring anything relevant to the table when you see that you get a substantially better system for less money.
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@sleepyancient6655 F-35A static test airframe has been subjected to 27,400 hours as of early 2021 and still going with no structural failures. F-15EX is more expensive for unit flyaway and unit program costs by a large margin, with much higher operating and maintenance costs.
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@paulholmes672 We worked on the F-15 Combined Test Force at Edwards. It's an awesome program with a great record. My great uncle also worked on the P-51 & F-86 at North American, and my grandpa on the A-3 & A-4 at Douglas. Things come and go. It's ok.
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The big picture to understand with RCAF is that it sits between Alaska and US Northeast, and is not far from the ADIZ corridor over the North Atlantic. We need a MADL-compliant fighter that links with the JSF tactical web, not an older generation fighter with limited data link capability and low sensor count compared with what’s on JSF. The other big picture that Parliament is considering is that Canada has already invested $631 million up-front into JSF as a committed JSF partner, and there are scores of Canadian companies already making critical systems for F-35s that can’t be made in many other nations due to lack of technical skills and security background checks on employees. The fact that most Canadians are unaware of these realities is a glaring example of how the Canadian media have selectively obscured reality, and adopted an anti-JSF attitude as “journalists”. Why is that? Because they aren’t really Canadian journalists with Canada’s best interests at-heart.
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F-16N more closely-duplicated the capabilities of the MiG-29 and Su-27 for the Navy, which is why the F-16N was selected. F-20A Combat radius/endurance was about 145nm, which is roughly 1/3 of the Viper’s. Navy made the right call no matter how you look at that decision.
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F-18L would have been a hot rod for sure, similar to the YF-17. Lack of folding wing and navalizing requirements made it a better performer, and it had the same avionics suite. It would have served Australia, Canada, Finland, and Switzerland much better, when looking at mission radius and payload. Economy of scale made more sense to go with the USN/USMC F/A-18 series though.
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@MrClarkM Gripen E costs way more than even the future Block 4 F-35A, while the Gripen E underperforms in every relevant fighter metric and has lost all of the competitions it entered recently. Only bribes have been able to secure 1 Gripen E contract and at least 3 Gripen C/D contracts. Saab’s marketing firm was fined $400 million for 2 of the bribery scandals after they pled guilty to those charges (Hungary and Czechia). The South African Air Force scandal is so bad, that all of their Gripen C/Ds are now in storage because they can’t afford to fly them. That was also the result of a bribery scandal. F-35As are cheaper than Gripen E when you look at the contacts. The Swiss and Finnish deals show that openly. The Finns even published the detailed breakdown of all the costs. Saab refuses to publish the unit flyaway cost on the Gripen E/F, but the Unit Program Cost was $155 million per for Brazil. That includes spares, training, pylons, fuel tanks, ladders, support, and weapons. F-35A is way lower than that. The Finns were able to buy even more weapons once they saw how great of a deal they were getting, on top of the F-35A smoking all the competitors in the 7 year H-X evaluation.
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@jean-marccote9829 RCAF’s 2 main mission set areas are NORAD Air Defense Patrol over the North, and NATO expeditionary missions working with the alliance. RCAF has suffered before because they didn’t get the upgrades they wanted from Parliament, so their usefulness in joint operations with NATO was very limited. F-35A Block 4 is the only real answer to the problem for both mission sets. The Gripen E isn’t anywhere near-capable for either mission, and struggles to perform it even for Sweden. It’s not even operational, so all the claims about Gripen E have been more marketing than reality.
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@jean-marccote9829 Libya is a low-IADS threat environment. Gripens were tasked with flying Defense for the tankers. The current proposed Gripen E/F contract for Canada is about twice the amount Finland paid for 64 F-35As. Whatever news told you the USAF doesn’t want anymore F-35s is completely false. There have been no changes to the USAF program of record for 1,763 F-35As. There are no new USAF contracts for F-16s. The last F-16C Block 50 was delivered to the USAF in 2005. New F-16V contracts are for foreign military sales, not the USAF. It’s just not reality. We were on the F-16C development in the late 1980s, and I’m more familiar with it than any of the other teens. F-35A surpassed the F-16C availability rates in 2020, and exceeded them again in 2021.
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@jean-marccote9829 F-35A is cheaper than Gripen E to buy and operate. USAF F-35As had the highest readiness rates in 2020. They also have the lowest break rates of any fighter in USAF history, much lower than the F-16C. Mixed fleet would be really bad with the low-capability/higher cost Gripen.
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