Comments by "LRRPFco52" (@LRRPFco52) on "Military Aviation History"
channel.
-
@thespanishinquisiton8306 No program has gotten to 894 airframes delivered and fallen apart all-of-a-sudden. Every single fighter airframe produced in those numbers suffered horrendous or significant losses within their first 10 years, some of them not ever achieving 894 airframes delivered even.
First 10 years of service -
F-14A: 73 losses, 19 fatalities
F-15: 54, 26
F-16: 143, 71
F/A-18: 97, 27
Harrier: 100, 20
A-10A: 59, 26
F-35A/B/C: 7 crashes, 2 fire-related write offs, 1 fatality over 613,000+ flight hours. This has never happened before. The safety story is a phenomenal one that gets ignored and opposite reported, which shows the quality of “journalism” associated with F-35 reporting.
F-35 fleet has logged more flight hours than the Rafale, F-22, and will soon surpass the EF Typhoon if they haven’t already. EF Typhoon hit 500,000 fleet flight hours in NOV2018. Typhoon has 10 airframe total losses and 9 fatalities, much smaller fleet size than the F-35s, similar fleet flight hours.
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
@effexon Have you not heard of the Typhoon? Germany has the industrial capacity to make their own fighter engines, Radars, airframes, databuses, flight control systems, etc. Sweden does not and never has.
The Gripen has all kinds of US, German, French, and UK critical subsystems and components, including the Radar, engine, ECS, databuses, flight controls, hydraulics, servos, landing gear, wheel brakes, ejection seat, data link, APU, Lights, electro-optics, fasteners, valves, refueling probe, fuel tank sealants, corrosion inhibitors, etc.
Everyone in the Nordic region plus MSIP F-16 partner nations in NATO chose the F-35A because it’s just better. Better payload, range, sensors, weapons, situational awareness, engine, maintainability, survivability, Omnirole mission set capable, open architecture for hardware and software upgradeability, ease of pilot training, and future longevity.
It’s also more affordable to acquire and maintain. The Gripen series don’t even meet basic late 1970s US requirements for a lightweight multirole fighter due to their low thrust-to-weight ratio and limited payload, limited combat radius when configured.
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
@pogo1140 So the road only goes for 800m, cut off at both ends? Every video I’ve seen out out by Saab has the take-off portion clipped so you can’t see it in full. When Finland assessed Gripen take-off distances, they were twice as long as all the other H-X contenders. A Gripen with no EFTs and light internal fuel can stop in fairly short distance slamming on the brakes, but they take very long to get airborne. They never show video of a Gripen landing with EFTs, FLIR pod, wing pylons, and 4-6 missiles.
If you want to see a truly-impressive STOL aircraft, look at the Saab Viggen. That takes off like a 4th Gen fighter, and lands with very short distance using thrust reversers triggered by weight-on-nosewheel.
Riksdag didn’t like how much the Viggen cost, so they handicapped Saab with major financial constraints, and thus was born the low-capability, low performance, light payload, long take-off distance, terrible thrust-to-weight Gripen.
3
-
3
-
3
-
It's very interesting every time I see statements like this, since Sweden doesn't manufacture most of the Gripen subsystems. This means the supply chain has multiple international layers to it.
The engine is US GE, ejection seat from Martin-Baker UK, Radar from UK Leonardo using licensed US technology, brakes, landing gear, hydraulics, servos, fuel lines, fuel pumps from US/UK, weapons from US, UK, Germany, etc.
Sweden really should have adopted one of the common NATO fighters and assembled them under license at Saab with Saab-built airframes.
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
2
-
2
-
@BPo75 The US GE F404 was the most reliable turbofan of all the initial teen fighter engines far before Sweden ever even conceptualized the Gripen.
Sweden had taken the Pratt & Whitney JT8D and converted it into a fighter engine in the Viggen in the late 1960s-early 1970s. It was very powerful and provided no-BS STOL capability. The problem it suffered was compressor stalls when you put AOA on, so it wasn't suitable for a fighter that would be doing a lot of turning.
F-14A had the problematic TF30-P-412.
F-15A/B had the F100-PW-100, which had compressor stall, AB unstart, and parts letting go problems. We had to de-rate those just to keep them manageable.
F-16A/B had the F100-PW-200 with the same issues as the F-15, lost many aircraft due to failures with that motor.
F/A-18A/B had the GE F404 that didn't have any of these problems, and was extremely reliable even through excessively-high AOA maneuvers and maritime/carrier operations in high seaspray environment. The Gripen didn't even exist.
F-14A later lots got TF30-P-414A.
F-15C/D got F100-PW-220
F-16C/D Block 25 got F100-PW-220.
F-16C/D Block 30 got GE F110-GE-100.
As part of this process, we developed what was called DEEC, for Digital Electronic Engine Control. That almost eliminated the high throttle cycle-induced problems commonly seen in BFM. My neighbor was one of the lead techs on that program at Edwards AFB while we worked on Radars, weapons systems, and combat-specific avionics.
The F100-PW-229, and GE F110-GE-129 came after that with even better capabilities.
The F404 got more digital control upgrades as well and evolved into the -402 variant with more thrust in the Hornet.
Sweden got licensed production of the lower technology subsystems on the F404 for the Gripen when it was still Volvo Flygmotor. They never had capacity to build the hot stage central core of the engine. The metallurgy and processes really only exist in a few countries.
2
-
@matso3856 There was a good description by a former Volvo Flygmotor technician on what Sweden made under licensed contract vs the majority of critucal components made in the US. I don't have the link but it has been discussed in sufficient detail among aerospace professionals, which support exactly what I said.
The biggest hurdle technologically is how to make the exotic alloy high pressure, high temperature turbine blades in the hot section of the engine. In the US, we make those out of single crystals so there are no failure propagation nodes inherent to the parts.
This is the most difficult metallurgical process in the world, far more difficult than anything in the space program. US fighter engines are the apex of metallurgy, systems engineering, and performance.
The 5th Gen motors in F-22 & F-35s are an even bigger leap ahead of the Improved Performance Fighter Engines I was just discussing because they incorporate VLO features, along with dramatic improvements in thrust, FADEC integrated with DFLCS, prognostic monitoring, cooling, power management, and maintainability.
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
@Niinsa62 F-16A/B Block 15 from the early 1980s give you an audible BINGO fuel warning through the Voice Warning System (called bitchin' Betty) as well as a visual cue in the HUD. Route planning and fuel management is a basic part of airmanship for any pilot for obvious reasons.
The Swedish Rigsdag was tired of paying for Viggens, which were quite complex and costly to operate and maintain, so Sweden almost didn't fund another domestic fighter program with their hostile Parliament towards defense.
Saab basically had to agree to the impossible. The rest has been a good effort, but mostly marketing hype with clipped videos to trick the Riksdag. They gave up a lot of performance going from Viggen to Gripen.
The Gripen never reached F-16 level performance, especially payload/range, T/W ratio, take-off distance and initial climb rate, pilot visibility, avionics, or Air-to-Ground capabilities.
It would have been better for Sweden to have purchased F/A-18s like Finland, or F-16s like Norway, Denmark, Belgium, and Netherlands.
2
-
2
-
@nattygsbord Gripen E does not have superior range, combat radius, or loiter than any of the fighters you mentioned.
F-35A has the best combat radius of them all, followed by the F-15E, Rafale, Typhoon, and F-22A.
The only way to get decent range out of the underpowered Gripen is to not carry a combat configuration. When you hang weapons and pods off that airframe, its combat radius diminishes dramatically.
Gripen E has worse thrust-to-weight ratio even compared to Gripen C, so it has to burn more fuel on climb-out and cruise than a C model, hence the larger airframe with more internal fuel capacity.
Gripen E unit and unit program costs are higher than the F-35A:
F-35A- $77.9m
Gripen E- $85m in 2015, costs even more now
CPFH is unknown but Gripen C/D was stated at €11000 by Saab during Finnish HX competition. Saab hopes that Gripen E/F will be about the same.
Norway said it costs them 110 000 kroner/hr to operate their F-35As.
There is nothing cheaper about the Gripen E/F. It's all marketing hype by Saab to make sales, nothing more.
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
@hb1338 F/A-18 performs a very similar role in Finland better than any operational Gripen simply by means of its robustness, superior payload, superior short take-off distance, beefier landing gear, superior weapons development backed by decades of USN/USMC funding, and expanded mission set capabilities in its multirole profile the Gripen has never had.
The biggest example of this is the SEAD mission set. US Hornets were already doing that in Desert Storm in 1991, with MALD and HARMs. Gripen was never intended for that mission set because Sweden has no IADS threat on its borders, as it is buffered by Norway and Finland.
The AIM-120C series has more live missile shots on maneuvering TGT drones than the Meteor will ever have, so with Meteor, you have to just hope that it works, with instruction on its employment by people who have never fired it. AIM-120 has a superb combat record with first-person instructors and squadron-level opportunities to do live shoots.
For countermeasures, the Hornet and F-16 have decades of funded OT&E work to mitigate Radar, RWR, and ECM interference problems that naturally arise with those systems. Sweden has never been able to commit anywhere near the same levels of RDT&E or OT&E to address them. That takes continued funding the Riksdag isn’t willing to share.
Saab had to take some Gripens to Fort Worth to get help from General Dynamics/LM when they were still having all the Pilot-Induced Oscillations with the Flight Control System, because Sweden has very little experience in that space and General Dynamics had tons of it. Remember the crashes on live TV and in Stockholm?
Almost everything I see about the Gripen is Swedish nationalist pride with no foundation in reality. People with zero relevant experience make a lot of bold statements about the superiority of the Gripen, but can never substantiate them because they don’t know the difference between an EPU or ECS, let alone any other important facts about fighter engineering, development, testing, and evaluation.
2
-
@TheStugbit I look at it like this, after following the case for many years:
Gripen contract to Czechia: Bribery proven, offenders pleaded guilty in ITAR court, paid $400million in fines with the guilty plea.
Gripen contract to Hungary: same as above as part of the same scandal, guilty plea entered.
Gripen contract to South Africa: Bribery scandal, South African Air Force didn’t even want Gripens. This was part of a joint deal with BAe and Saab organized by BAe marketing folks who also did the Czech and Hungarian deals. They pled guilty to avoid the investigation expanding into the South Africa deal because it would have exposed the sale of BAe Hawks as well as part of the bribery to South African leaders. Those Gripens now sit in flyable storage because South Africa can’t afford to fly them.
Gripen contract to Brazil: Strange money changed hands between these intermediaries with increases from 1m SEK to 16m SEK when they learned the Brazilian Air Force was favoring another fighter. Then Gripen E “won” the deal. Brazilian leaders also steered contracts for the panoramic cockpit display into the contract to sweeten it for them.
This is why the Gripen E has the PCD. Swedish Air Force never wanted the PCD because the current large panel MFDs work so well already in the Gripen C/D. Making the PCD arctic-friendly requires the same technology used and patented in the JSF PCD, which is not touch-sensitive but is based on Laser grid intersection, so when your finger brakes the IR Laser plane, the system knows where exactly you are touching on the screen.
Gripen contract to Thailand: Contracts with bribery are normal in Thailand, as Thailand has one of the worst corruption indexes in the world. Even though they signed the UN agreements about anti-corruption, it’s part of the culture there. Foreign businesses must pay to play, pure and simple. What are the chances that Saab used an intermediary to bribe the Thai government to get sales of Gripen C/D to Royal Thai Air Force? Thailand global corruption index ranking: 101
Riksdag made the funding of JAS-39 to Saab dependent on foreign military sales as a large portion of the orders. Saab was placed between a rock and a hard place and did what they had to do to meet the dictates of Riksdag.
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2