Comments by "LRRPFco52" (@LRRPFco52) on "Military Aviation History" channel.

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  2. The interesting facts about this whole issue to me are: Luftwaffe Chief Karl Müllner supported the German acquisition of the F-35, and was quickly fired after that because of concerns over the loss of German aerospace jobs.  After he got the classified capabilities briefing on some of the things the JSF program is doing, he immediately recommended strongly that Germany become an F-35 partner or customer because of the unfair advantages that come with JSF, like the UK, Denmark, Norway, Italy, and Netherlands are already realizing. Now some email leaks that the Luftwaffe will be buying Super Hornets and Growlers?  This seems like a shot across the bow of the German aerospace industry and parliament to get its act together and increase orders for a newer tranche Typhoon with Air-to-Ground and ISR capabilities, but that puts Germany in the position of cooperating with B61 Tactical Nuclear integration onto the Typhoon. Also, when looking at Boeing, you need to separate Boeing Defense from Boeing commercial airline programs, Boeing Global Services, and Boeing Capital Corp.  Boeing Defense contracts have been increasing with a wide range of major, multi-billion dollar and mid-high hundreds of millions contracts just with several US services alone.  These include Super Hornet Block III, T-7A jet trainers, A-10C re-winging, P-8A Poseidon, KC-46, MV-22 tilt rotor major assemblies, and contracts that make it the 2nd largest defense contractor in the US. This need to replace the Tornados in Luftwaffe service will force Germany into a strange position of appearing even more out of sync with the NATO alliance I think.  It is a very interesting turn of events that could have been avoided if Germany had funded a viable replacement and began the process long ago, but procrastinated on for the past 2 decades.
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  5.  @bigbramel  My family was part of the ongoing international scientific exchange between NATO allies in the aerospace sector, where we left the USAF Flight Test Center and moved to West Germany to work with the Luftwaffe and German/UK/Italian engineers on what would become the Eurofighter. All 3 of those nations had exceptional mathematicians and engineers, but dealing with multiple languages, cultures, work ethics, and parliaments funding the project is a microcosm of the challenges any mutual economic and defense pacts in Europe face. Germany itself is another microcosm of very factional regions with their historic independent cultures and politics. If you look at a UK Typhoon vs a Luftwaffe Typhoon, there are major multirole capabilities integrated into the UK birds, whereas Germany has primarily focused on the interceptor mission profile only. Looking at the Panavia Tornado variants and the multinational Eurifighter project, you realize that even 4 decades ago, a modern tactical combat aircraft for UK, West German, and Italian service required at least 3 nations to combine their R&D budgets in order to just develop the aircraft. In contrast, France and Sweden independently (with US engine technology) developed their own 4th Gen multirole fighters, with the Rafale being an exceptional program that has achieved high levels of systems integration, manufacturing quality, and actual multirole pivot mission set capabilities ranging from networked air superiority to carrier-borne anti-ship and ISR. The biggest factor I see that handicaps European nations in aerospace defense is really coming from their parliaments, who have become something other than traditional assemblies that prioritize defense first. Instead, these parliaments have been populated with people who place more emphasis on domestic programs, social safety nets, and more bureaucracy, under the assumption that the US will continue to carry the bulk of the weight of European defense, which has been true since the 1940s, but is increasingly being questioned by US politicians after the Eurozone has been able to realize high levels of consistent economic growth. This has greatly contributed to the neglect of dealing with the Tornado replacement in Germany, while the UK and Italy have been JSF partners and significant JSF industrial base nodes in JSF manufacturing. This provides tens of thousands of jobs (25,000 in the UK with BAE and subcontractors), a full assembly line in Italy, and billions of Euros worth of economic activity in Europe. The negotiations and legwork that underlies these contracts started over 2 decades ago in some cases, so it's now too late to say Germany should have or could have done this, or done that. JSF has already evolved dramatically and is in multi-year orders now, with the 500th F-35 delivered earlier this year. Nations who were initial F-16 MSIP partners in NATO have already converted to the F-35A and have been developing their JSF squadron capabilities for years, working in conjunction with the UK and US. 6th Gen technologies are already being prepared for testing and integration into upcoming production blocks of the JSF, starting with the ADVENT variable cycle propulsion system, where we will see a 47,300-50,000lb thrust fighter motor in reheat, and well over 30,000lb in mil power. Meanwhile, one of the most capable aerospace and scientific communities in the history of man is talking about upgrading their Typhoons with a CAPTOR-E AESA radar......if they could just get the funding. Germany is way better than this, and something has gone awry.
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  24.  @rogerpennel1798  Good points. The Gripen was envisioned still during the Cold War to replace the Fighter, Attack, and Recce variants of the Viggens. The Swedish parliament (Riksdag) was very allergic to spending on defense even during the Cold War, and they hated it when they saw the maintenance costs for the different Viggen airframes. Viggen was a very high capability platform for its era with true STOL performance, thrust reverser, real short take-off, nice man-machine interface, and powerful Pratt & Whitney JT8D with a low pressure high bypass fan and an afterburner attached to it. Riksdag didn’t want to fund a Swedish replacement for it because of concerns over cost, but the proposal for a multirole JAS fighter narrowly won by 1 vote if I’m not mistaken. A huge portion of Riksdag was against Saab developing a new fighter. Saab promised to deliver a very affordable, lightweight, multirole JAS fighter that could do all 3 main mission sets being performed by the various Viggens. That’s where the JAS-39 comes from. The problem is they used the F404 motor, which limited performance due to its small size and thrust, so the airframe had to be much lighter than any Viggen. Lightweight airframe with an under-powered motor for its weight really took away the short take-off capability, as well as limited the combat radius and payload, but it was cheaper than building something with thrust-reversers and a 28,000lb thrust motor and heavier airframe. As much as I criticize the Riksdag, I think they were right in wanting a foreign option like the F-16 or F/A-18. Sweden would be in a much better position now having not wasted so much money on the Gripen, and would be like Finland getting F-35As soon to replace whatever they had gone with in the late 1980s-1990s.
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  46.  @petesjk  Spare parts are always a problem with new programs because demand for complete airframes and engines is so high. You’re left in a position where you have to prioritize whether parts go into complete fighters, or sit on shelves. It has nothing to do with funding because demand is so high. Multiple customers have entered the program that were not planned. Whatever source tells you they can’t do proper maintenance, you can block that from your feed from now on. Here’s why: F-35A has the lowest Maintenance Man Hour Per Flight Hour of any fighter in history at 3.5 - 4.5 hours. F-35B and F-35C are the next-lowest at 5.1 - 6hrs. The next lowest after that is the F-16C at 11-14hrs. F-35 maintainers say it basically maintains itself. They have had an unbelievably high rate of F-35A return from sorties with zero defects. F-16 has about a 10% break rate. A few years ago, F-35A was 6%, which is just crazy low. USAF has 922 F-16C/D in service as of DEC2022. As long as we have airframes in inventory of that flee size, we will continue to upgrade them. One such upgrade is installing 613 AESA Radars in Late Block F-16CM Block 40/42/50/52 Vipers that are D-SEAD capable. The other F-16s are older Block 30s used for Aggressors and in National Guard units. Even those are getting many upgrades. We worked on the F-16 program in 1982, then 1987-1990, before going to the F-15 Combined Test Force. I am quite familiar with it. The current plan is to replace F-16 squadrons with F-35As as the oldest airframes time out. Nothing has changed with USAF’s divestment and replacement plans for the F-16 fleet. USAF is delaying aggressive acquisition of new F-35As until Block 4, and letting other nations buy as many as they can get to replace their even older F-16AMs in Europe, or F-4Js in Japan. Even with that, USAF is the biggest customer getting 48 F-35As per year. That should explain the answers to those questions better.
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