Rafale DH/EH of Indian Air Force : News and Discussions

Haha, now this little infograph from Francis Tusa found it's way to the number one Finnish forum, where F-35 fanboys rule... they banned me, but now doubt is setting in! Only a short time will HXmas!!!!

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Honestly, I don't care about non-English forums at all. Machine translation screws up prepositions, I can't afford that affecting me. So I limit myself to just non-English articles.

Anyway, the €10B for the Finnish is unlikely to include everything the Norwegians have considered. The fact is it's impossible to operate a jet at the same cost as its procurement budget. It's more than likely the 10B only caters to OEM related costs.
 
F35 is not offered to India, nor Egypt. The US top brass are clever enough to understand they need a potent fighter.
Oy vey. Is that what that delusional mind of yours is telling you or are you just lying to yourself? We didn't sell Egypt Aim-120s to go with their F-16's numb nuts. India is not trusted yet to offer the F-35.
 
Oy vey. Is that what that delusional mind of yours is telling you or are you just lying to yourself? We didn't sell Egypt Aim-120s to go with their F-16's numb nuts. India is not trusted yet to offer the F-35.
You agree with me : you don't deliver operational weapon systems.
And when it's the case, it is a 2 key system, like in the UAE case when you blocked the F16 bk60 on the runaway during the Lybian air campaign in 2011.
 
Oy vey. Is that what that delusional mind of yours is telling you or are you just lying to yourself? We didn't sell Egypt Aim-120s to go with their F-16's numb nuts. India is not trusted yet to offer the F-35.

It has nothing to do with trust. We have access to even more important systems than the F-35 from the US, like the intelligence, space and cyber domains. And we have the same status as any other NATO-ally like Japan.

The United States has eased export controls for high technology product sales to India, granting it the same access as NATO allies, Australia, Japan and South Korea, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Monday.

This naturally wouldn't be possible if there was no trust.

Also, this bill was passed in the US Congress only in 2019. It's possibly also one of the last things Trump signed into law in his last quarter as president.

So you are expecting a bit too much for merely 2 years. Since then there haven't been any opportunities to raise interest in the F-35. The only two fighter tenders we have active today are older than 2018 and are for proven systems that we can take to battle immediately upon induction, which is not possible with the F-35.

India has simply not shown any interest in the F-35 yet. We are only interested in fully developed products, which is also why we didn't go for the Russian FGFA, preferring to wait for its development to complete before a decision is made, a jet that's actually far more suited for us than the F-35.
 
There was the same kind of article in the swiss tabloid some month ago.....
I'm just watching if and when sleepy Joe will meet the finnish top brass to explain them what is the sole choice.

:cautious::cautious::cautious:
OK then Bon Plan, listen to this logic. I shall try to be precise :)

The defense budget is not going to change regardless of what plane is chosen. This means that the money available for flying HX is the same as the money that was available for Hornets.

If the Air Force overspends, the money will be taken from the defense budget. Who will pay? Not the Navy. Finland's Navy is so small, that there is nothing to take from their budget.

What is the logical conclusion then? The Army will pay. Ground forces will pay. There is no-one else to pay for the overspending.

But Finland needs the Army also. Ground forces are needed to hold ground from a potential enemy. Finland is not like Denmark in the middle of EU.

So then - if F-35 is chosen - we are missing what, ten million euros? Fifteen million euros? Twenty million euros? Who is paying?

The Army will pay. Yes! They will be so happy to pay for flying the F-35.

Or maybe they won't be. Maybe they will be really pissed off. Maybe they will be unhappy if they have to pay ten-15 million euros.

In light of what I said here, do you think that F-35 will win HX?

This is simple logic. Well, if F-35 won't win, then there is still Super Hornet which is a logical choice, because Finland is now flying Hornets. And it is American.

Or... maybe... maybe Finland won't buy American this time.
 
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This is the problem:

Screenshot 64-62.png
 

As per LM, they plan to bring F-35's operating costs to the same level as the F-16, ie, $25000 CPFH. And we know that the operating cost of the Hornet is more than the F-16. So I don't really see the problem. The Finnish Hornets are quite old now and should be quite expensive already. And, once a contract is signed, LM will have to match the contracted price.
 
No problem. F-18E is a USN fighter only and there's not many which means parts are hard to come by same with the french plane.

The french plane has an awful mission capable rate in France in 2019 it was at 53% and 2020 62% and it hasn't gotten any better while the whole F-35A fleet is almost at 80% and deployed squadrons do 90%.
 
This is simple logic. Well, if F-35 won't win, then there is still Super Hornet which is a logical choice, because Finland is now flying Hornets. And it is American.
This logic failed in Switzerland, another user of F18, and needed only a air to air fighter.
No problem. F-18E is a USN fighter only and there's not many which means parts are hard to come by same with the french plane.

The french plane has an awful mission capable rate in France in 2019 it was at 53% and 2020 62% and it hasn't gotten any better while the whole F-35A fleet is almost at 80% and deployed squadrons do 90%.
This guy is obsessed by french planes.
Poor average american citizen you are. The kind of cow boy seeing french with a wine bootle in a hand and a baguette bread in the other.

The mission rate is desired like that, because we are not in a war situation and choose to leave some birds on the parking lot. The carrier ambarqued Rafale mission rate is nearly 100% for weekssss and months.
 
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This guy is obsessed by french planes.
Poor average american citizen you are. The kind of cow boy seeing french with a wine bootle in a hand and a baguette bread in the other.
Lol. This was funny I bet you couldn't post this line with a straight face. And they say french people aren't funny.

Shall we see your history including at airdefense about how non obsess you are about the F-35? :unsure:
 
Lol. This was funny I bet you couldn't post this line with a straight face. And they say french people aren't funny.

Shall we see your history including at airdefense about how non obsess you are about the F-35? :unsure:
You are free to meet airdefense forumers. But it's probably already the case under another avatar....
 
Back to operating costs: I think it was Puranen who said that even the selling parties do not know the operating costs in Finnish use. In this case, it is only the buyer who knows. The HX team will assess the costs and they are not going to trust the seller.

This approach has one obvious benefit: there is only one source for operating costs. Every user has different practices and everybody counts operating costs differently. So for HX, the costs are all calculated with one method, and even though it can not be 100% accurate regarding future, the end results are more easily comparable than if there were five different sources of information.
 
Back to operating costs: I think it was Puranen who said that even the selling parties do not know the operating costs in Finnish use. In this case, it is only the buyer who knows. The HX team will assess the costs and they are not going to trust the seller.

This approach has one obvious benefit: there is only one source for operating costs. Every user has different practices and everybody counts operating costs differently. So for HX, the costs are all calculated with one method, and even though it can not be 100% accurate regarding future, the end results are more easily comparable than if there were five different sources of information.

That's true for all air forces, and that's the point of a competitive tender.
 
Was it the same in Switzerland? :unsure:

Yep. It's the case for all tenders. Each air force creates its own benchmark for both tech specs and costs based on their own experiences.

Environment and mission plays a large part. For example, the Swiss operate in the mountains, so the wear and tear associated with the landing gear is higher than an air force operating in the plains. Then the Swiss mainly want it for air policing so their take off and landing weight decreases stress on the aircraft, versus an air force that uses the F-35 for strike, where the bomb loads increase stress.

So an F-35A operating in icy Alaska will have different costs compared to desert Nellis or marine Okinawa.

There's costs associated with transportation and support based on distance from supply centers too. A larger country will need more supply warehouses and repair centers, which further adds to the cost. So each air force's costs will be different.
 
Or maybe the Swiss fell to clever sales and marketing. In other words, they got screwed.

This is very very interesting. Now, you see - if LM gets the guillotine in Finland - we are not going to know. That information will probably be secret for 25 years. Some other plane will win; but the public will not know about the other planes. It is all secret stuff.
 
Or maybe the Swiss fell to clever sales and marketing. In other words, they got screwed.

This is very very interesting. Now, you see - if LM gets the guillotine in Finland - we are not going to know. That information will probably be secret for 25 years. Some other plane will win; but the public will not know about the other planes. It is all secret stuff.
I think the Swiss defense officials are waaay smarter than you and not into conspiracy theories. You're starting to sound ridiculous and when Finland selects the F-35 I can't wait to see you go nuts and start pulling claims out of your peppu about how LM fooled Finland into selecting the F-35... oh I can't wait for this it is going to be soooo delicious to see another Eurocanard fanboy get his hopes crushed.