Comments by "LRRPFco52" (@LRRPFco52) on "Military Aviation History"
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@andreypetrov4868 We (my family) did technical exploitation of Russian aircraft. I do not share your opinion of them, purely from an analytical perspective knowing what's under the hood in US aircraft.
Russia sees its expeditionary air forces as a fire support structure for the army, whereas the US uses air power as the main effort, acting in coordination with land, sea, space, and other forces.
The air defense forces are another matter who focus on perimeter defense of the large land mass of Russia, but we've been seeing those aircraft used in the Ukraine conflict as well, namely the MiG-31BM with R-37M Long Range Beyond Visual Range AAMs.
VVS has also been broadcasting in plain, open text, non-secure on the Radios, which is worse than embarrassing. US basic infantry soldiers had better Radios and comms discipline than that since the early 1990s, with secure comms on older Radios dating back to the 1980s.
Things are worse than anyone imagined. For pilot strength, there have to be more than that with all the aviation regiments across the regions.
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@neverfell Gripen critical subsystems are all US, UK, German, or French.
* GE engine
* Leonardo Radar (licensed from Raytheon components)
* Leonardo IRST
* US Mil-1553B databuses
* Martin Baker ejection seat
* US/UK servos, brakes, landing gear, hydraulics
* French fuel systems
* Mauser 27mm cannon from Germany
* Missiles from US, UK, Germany
* FLIR Pod from US
If you study the industrial share of Gripen manufacturing, you're left asking, "What parts of it do the Swedes make?"
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@ricardobeltranmonribot3182 According to Saab's Gripen H-X Manager, Gripen C/D cost €11,000 CPFH.
F-16 CPFH is all over the map depending on variant. Older A models with no MLU cost the most due to structures and aged systems needing constant replacement.
I've seen F-16 CPFH range from $9,054 for USAF F-16C, to $15,788 for US Navy F-16A Adversary birds.
The numbers are meaningless since they don't account for FLIR Pods, ECM Pods, towed decoy pylons, HARM Targeting System on D-SEAD F-16CMs, etc.
There's nothing magic on Gripens that make them lest-costly from a design standpoint, since they use US, UK, French, and German subsystems and weapons.
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@LondonSteveLee I think you might be confusing advertised (non-existent) sensor fusion claims from Gripen E and assigning them to Gripen C.
Gripens were of such low capability, they couldn't be effectively incorporated into Blue Air for Red Flag initially, so they could only use them for Red Air in 2006.
The US spent years working with Sweden to get them up to speed with Targeting/FLIR pods, aerial refueling training, and several different upgrades to lift them to where they could return and work as part of Blue Air in subsequent RF LFEs.
F-16C Block 30 had more capabilities than Gripen C/D, and initial Block 40 still exceeds several features and capabilities of the advertised/non-delivered capabilities of Gripen E.
Block 50 has a laundry list of expanded A2A and A2G avionics that Gripens of any variant will only possibly get as part of the NATO membership for Sweden.
The small army of engineers, technicians, scientists, test pilots, and operational pilots associated with the F-16 enterprise dwarfs the efforts of Saab considerably, both in quality, quantity, and budget....fed by over 4 decades of multi-theater operational experience.
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@NATObait Norwegian Air Force logistics chief, air chief, and defense minister all said on different occasions that their F-35A CPFH is 110,000 Krone, or just under $11,000 USD. They have the additional expense of the drogue chute too.
Saab’s own H-X Program Manager openly stated that the Gripen C/D CPFH was roughly 11,000 Euros, and they anticipate that the Gripen E would be the same. Between the 3 finalists in H-X for Finland, the F-35A, Super Hornets, and Saab Gripen E/F were all assessed as having similar maintenance/sustainment costs.
F-35A current lots have been $77.9m Unit Flyaway cost, which includes the engine. Engine costs have been part of F-35 unit costs since 2015. Unit Program costs depend on the weapons that accompany the orders, and support equipment that attaches to the F-35 in the form of pylons and pods is far less than legacy 4th Gen fighters, since it doesn’t carry pods and doesn’t attach pylons that often, other than stations 1 & 11 for AIM-9X.
Sweden has no authority to do a full technology transfer for Gripen since Gripen critical subsystems are US, UK, and German.
Gripen E/F sales to Brazil was $4.5 Billion deal for 36 birds, which is $127.8m Unit Program Cost. Unit flyaway has never been revealed by Saab, but was estimated at $85m in 2015. This puts the Gripen E well above $109m in 2023 assuming inflation and unit cost were parallel. That would still leave $18m for weapons and support for Unit Program Cost.
For F-35A, you can get way more for less. A Unit Flyaway cost at ~$80m gives you $20m in weapons and support equipment to hit $100m. The cost argument doesn’t favor the Gripen E in any of the metrics when you actually analyze the real data. I’ve been doing this since the early 1980s.
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@orestes1984 F-16 takes off in a much shorter distance than any Gripen. Gripens take forever to get airborne even when lightly loaded, ranging from 16-22 seconds. Even the slick airshow demo Gripen display shows how it compares with others, and the gutless Tornado and A400M cargo transport even took off shorter than Gripen at RIAT and Le Bourget. Finland tested this against their F/A-18Cs and the F-35A at Turku airport, and the Hornet in mil power still beat the Gripen in burner. F-35As took off in 550m, which is like a slick Rafale or Typhoon.
A slick, empty Gripen can land and come to a stop in a very short distance, but it isn't relevant in a combat configuration unless you jettison your external fuel tanks every sortie. You're not jettisoning the FLIR or Recce pod and AAMs, so the STOL capabilities don't really exist like they did with the Saab Viggen. That was an awesome STOL platform.
F-16 also takes a lot of runway to land, doesn't like to be put down.
Typhoon and Rafale are both over €200m unit program cost per jet with weapons, spares, support, and are more difficult to maintain than an F-16.
Patriot and layered SHORAD systems are more important for Ukraine right now.
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@LTVoyager US geographic location separates it from any threats by thousands of miles, so it makes zero sense to do any dispersed basing on the North American continent. Dispersed basing made sense for some of the fighter squadrons in Europe in the Cold War, where we placed them along the German-French border and rotated units out of England through there. That was a regular mission profile and basing rotation during REFORGER and some of the units.
Everyone else operated out of hardened aircraft shelters that were camouflaged well, but the Soviets had sleeper cells living in West Germany, Netherlands, UK, Italy, etc. who were tasked with bombing and sabotaging installations, killing key personnel, and they have those sleeper cells still today in Europe. GRU and SVR manage those operations, lots of Russian couples, older males who survey targets, develop networks, things like that. It’s very easy to operate that way in open societies.
But for the US and Canadian NORAD mission set, large bases are fine. Alaska, Canada, Vermont, and bases in the Midwest run those sorties for the over-the-top Russian strategic bomber attack vectors where they fire cruise missiles.
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@TheStugbit The Gripen airframe was refined by Sweden. The engine, Radar, FLCS, databus, ejection seats, landing gear, servos, fuel systems, cannon, weapons, and all the critical systems were developed by the US, UK, Germany, and France. There are 2 other assembly lines for F-35s outside the US, one in Japan, and one in Italy. Multiple nations have significant workshare in manufacturing components for F-35s. It started as a joint US-UK program in many ways, especially ASTOVL, which was a USMC, UK, USAF, DARPA program that began in 1983. A STOVL later fed into JAST, which then became JSF. 15% of every F-35 is made in the UK. Every single F-35 ejection seat is made by Martin-Baker in the UK. Every single lift fan for the F-35Bs are made in the UK.
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@Walterwaltraud When we say “lab environment” for missile tests, we’re talking about supersonic fighters converted to drones that are shot down in maneuvering dynamic flight conditions trying to evade the missiles most of the time, while employing IR and/or RF countermeasures.
With the F-106A/B, we converted 199 of them into QF-106s and sent them to White Sands, Eglin AFB, and Tyndall AFB. After all but 8 were shot down, they were replaced with QF-4s by the hundreds. By 2013, they had shot down 250 QF-4s.
USN had their own QF-4s and QF-16s as well. Their QF-4s are long gone, using lots of BQM drones and a few QF-16s now out of Point Mugu.
USAF blew through QF-16As and went on to QF-16C Blocks 25 and 30 already. Imagine shooting down Block 30 GE-motored Vipers for sport out of Florida and White Sands.
No other nation does this anywhere near the extent that the US does, because it costs a lot of money to convert fighters into drones and put them back into flying status, since these are pulled from the boneyard.
AIM-120 series has been live-fired more than 5000 times as of September 2022. With the QF target drones, they try to get as many shoots on them without total destruction as possible, so a lot of missiles will be shot without a warhead and everything is instrumented and filmed to ascertain probability of kill. The first live AIM-120 shot was on a QF-102 back in 1982 from an F-16A, which I remember well.
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If you look at start-up procedures, in-flight tasks, and maintenance, this cockpit smokes legacy cockpits. Legacy cockpits have a black box behind every display and panel, with wiring coming out of the back that flows into the wiring harnesses. They are a nightmare to maintain, doubled in 2-seaters. Corrosion, G forces, dust, sand, moisture, and wear and tear wreak havoc on cockpits. This is one of the several reasons why it’s so much easier to operate and maintain F-35s vs 4th Gen. Look at the MMH/FH numbers if you have doubts.
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@jamesplant5280 US DoD measures costs in very different ways. For example, USAF incorporates all sorts of hidden costs like new buildings, vehicles, bowling alleys, snack bars, golf carts, etc. that you never find in European or other air forces. They then amortize these costs into the future, then back-feed them into the yearly costs to carve out more spending dollars for the service.
No politicians will fight it because it pours billions of dollars into their Congressional districts.
If you go to the DoD Comptroller hourly reimbursable rates, you can see what the actual CPFH is. Interesting how these CPFH align very closely to foreign nations like Norway and Australia.
(Me: Spent decades assigned to USAF bases CONUS and OCONUS, have been tracking defense spending since 1984 with an emphasis on fighters, missiles, bombers, and UAVs.)
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