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

I am saying this: Lockheed Martin has offered 64 planes. This could be a mortal mistake. If they fail the pass gate for operating costs, they could be disqualified from the war games. No-one will know of their ability vs the other planes, not even the politicians.

Then: let us separate fact from bias. The rules are fact 100%. Therefore, the same could apply to Rafale. If Dassault's offer is too optimistic, they could also be dropped from the final round. Same applies to every contestant.
 
What price are you talking about? It doesn't matter if 64 F-35's fit into the buying price. It doesn't matter what the rate of the dollar is. I am talking about operating costs.

There are three pass/fail gates for all planes. One is serviceability/ security of supply. Second is operating costs. Third is industrail co-operation.

As far as I can tell, F-35 could fail two or even three of these. Do you understand that a fail means it disco'd? This happened to F-16 last time around.

F-16 was perceived to be the Air Force favourite last time around, but it failed on two counts. It did not meet the requirements, and industrial co-operation was not taken seriously by the seller. It was not bought. It was disco'd.

Yeah, I am referring to operating costs. The value of the dollar matters to anything associated with cost.
 
Yeah, I am referring to operating costs. The value of the dollar matters to anything associated with cost.

The Hornet is also American. I can't see how 64 F-35's can be flown at the same price as 60+ Hornets.

The pass/fail gate is a "guillotine", to borrow a French term. There won't be any war game for those who fail it.

I wonder, what were they thinking when they were offering the F-16? It was the favourite back then. It failed on two counts: runway length was one, I think. Industrial offsets were another. They didn't take it seriously.

Just like the F-16, those who fail, will fail. They will not be in the final round. There will be nothing to talk about. No-one will know of them.
 
Last edited:
And. Maybe Lockheed are hoping that Finland will bend the rules a little bit. But this won't happen, because then internal opposition inside Finland will be unbearable, AND the other countries can sue Finland.

Two or three years of court battles would pretty much destroy HX. It is in everyone's best interest to run everything as professionally as possible.
 
Last edited:
The Hornet is also American. I can't see how 64 F-35's can be flown at the same price as 60+ Hornets.

The pass/fail gate is a "guillotine", to borrow a French term. There won't be any war game for those who fail it.

I wonder, what were they thinking when they were offering the F-16? It was the favourite back then. It failed on two counts: runway length was one, I think. Industrial offsets were another. They didn't take it seriously.

Just like the F-16, those who fail, will fail. They will not be in the final round. There will be nothing to talk about. No-one will know of them.

It depends on how expensive the Hornet has become. IIRC, they said the operating cost they are willing to spend per year is €250M. That's $290M or $4.5M per jet.

At $16000 for the Rafale, it's $3.2M for 200 hours. At $25000 for the F-35, it's $4M for 160 hours. Both are below $4.5M, if this is how they are calculating it.
 
Yeah well, everyone calculates the costs differently. The Finnish Air Force shall run their own numbers, and like said, they are using statistical analysis and some really sophisticated software to do the calculations.

I just noticed Herciv's post on the other thread, he provided this link:


This just confims my thoughts to myself, maybe not to others: it is expensive to train on the F-35. USAF needs more trainers for the job.

I personally think that the F-35 is out already. If that is so, it will not be in the war games either. And if it won't be in the war games, then there will be nothing to talk about when Christmas (HXmas) comes.

Let me give you an example of how the rules work. IF none of the contestants pass the fail gates, they will all be disqualified. There will be no HX.

If every plane is disqualified, then I have no idea of what would happen. Apparently the likelihood of such a thing happening is so low that it is not worth discussing. But it is a theoretical possibility.
 
Here we have the tile graphs of different costs for different planes in America. This info comes from 2020 but it does give some idea of how they relate to each other.

Costs-USAF.jpeg
 
  • Like
Reactions: Picdelamirand-oil
With the F-35's more advanced simulators, the pilots need 50% less air time for training, which means the flight hours are reduced by 20%.
The LM promises..... are only promises.
Hard to believe, on a so technological bird, and with only one pilot (so hard workload)
 
I have to say, this is getting very interesting. Not even a single one of the contestants have dropped out of the game. That means that they believe they have some chance at winning - a chance good enough that they can spend money on it.

I mean, every company is employing professionals, people who know their stuff, and the professionals see a chance for a win. Superbug is still in, Typhoon is still in, Gripen is still in, and Rafale is still in. And of course, F-35.

There is a lot of things to speculate about, and lots of interesting stuff to analyze. Not much time left till year's end! Soon we will know! Maybe everybody will laugh at me... maybe not?
 
Hard to believe, on a so technological bird, and with only one pilot (so hard workload)

Two comments:

First of all, this article linked elsewhere by Herciv seems to imply that USAF needs to make their F-35 pilots fly more. They want a new kind of trainer.


Second, while I do understand the move to more simulator training, fact is that the Finnish Air Force is ALREADY doing more simulator hours than many other air forces. Therefore, 50% less real flying is maybe impossible.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Picdelamirand-oil
Finnish article published ten minutes ago: "Can Finland afford to fly the F-35?"

 
  • Like
Reactions: randomradio
Here we have the tile graphs of different costs for different planes in America. This info comes from 2020 but it does give some idea of how they relate to each other.

View attachment 21517

This is misleading. The only way to compare two planes is to calculate based on CPFH and not merely the yearly spend. It's because the yearly spend is affected by other aspects like availability, tempo of training and operations etc. The logic is if you fly lesser, you will save costs. Meaning if the SH flies 300 hours per year, and the Hornet does only 150 hours, then the yearly cost of the Hornet will be lesser than the SH.

Anyway, that graph only considers the Block 1 and 2 SH, not the latest B3 with the new engine.
 
OK fine, but that's not helping the F-35. Superbug is a competitor to the F-35 in this race.
Get this through your head... Finn defense officials who are in the know (unlike you) are not going to select an inferior fighter (F-18, french plane, Typhoon) that is more expensive to operate than F-35. It's that simple and next month when Finland does select the F-35 you'll likely go quiet in here and all this worrying by you will be for not!
 
Get this through your head... Finn defense officials who are in the know (unlike you) are not going to select an inferior fighter (F-18, french plane, Typhoon) that is more expensive to operate than F-35. It's that simple and next month when Finland does select the F-35 you'll likely go quiet in here and all this worrying by you will be for not!

No no. Here the defense minister of Finland is saying: "we are not going to buy a plane that we can not afford to fly".


Use your favourite translator ;)
Get this through your head... Finn defense officials who are in the know (unlike you) are not going to select an inferior fighter (F-18, french plane, Typhoon) that is more expensive to operate than F-35. It's that simple and next month when Finland does select the F-35 you'll likely go quiet in here and all this worrying by you will be for not!

Even Typhoon becomes affordable, if the fleet is smaller. Lockheed is saying that their offer is 64 planes. My interpretation is that maybe they KNOW that they will lose. EDIT: actually, this was not my idea, I just read it somewhere, but it sounds about right.
 
Get this through your head... Finn defense officials who are in the know (unlike you) are not going to select an inferior fighter (F-18, french plane, Typhoon) that is more expensive to operate than F-35. It's that simple and next month when Finland does select the F-35 you'll likely go quiet in here and all this worrying by you will be for not!
I don't think they are inferior planes!
Get this through your head... Finn defense officials who are in the know (unlike you) are not going to select an inferior fighter (F-18, french plane, Typhoon) that is more expensive to operate than F-35. It's that simple and next month when Finland does select the F-35 you'll likely go quiet in here and all this worrying by you will be for not!
Correct spelling is "worrying will be for naught" I think.
 
Let's go back to that article I posted. Quote from article:

"Tarjouksista tarkistetaan, läpäisevätkö ne käyttökustannusten lisäksi sotilaalliselle huoltovarmuudelle ja teolliselle yhteistyölle asetetut ehdot.

– Jos tarjous ei läpäise aiempia päätöksentekoalueita, sitä tarjoajaa ei oteta mukaan lopulliseen sotilaallisen suorituskyvyn arviointiin, Renko muistuttaa."

Anyone can verify with a translator tool what this means. If some offer does not pass the three fail tests, it will not be involved in the war games and simulations, ie. the final round.

If the offer is not involved in the final round, there will be nothing to talk about. It will not be possible for even the president to affect the outcome, and nobody will know how it performs versus the other candidates.
 
OK fine, but that's not helping the F-35. Superbug is a competitor to the F-35 in this race.

While the SH is cheaper, due to the addition of Growler, the procurement cost of the SH+Growler is much higher.

The F-35 package, worth $12.5 billion, includes 64 F-35A...

Meanwhile, the Super Hornet package — worth an estimated $14.7 billion — includes 50 single-seat F/A-18E jets, eight double-seated F/A-18Fs and 14 EA-18G Growlers, which is the electronic attack variant. The package also includes 166 F414-GE-400 engines for the dual-engine fighter, Sniper targeting pods, AN/APG-79 radars, AN/ALR-67(V)3 electric warfare countermeasures receiving sets, and Next Generation Jammer Midband and advanced electronic attack kits for the EA-18G.


The stuff in bold increases the cost quite a bit. Especially with their offer being for 72 jets. And, as per the Americans, the Growlers are needed alongside the SH.

Anyway, we need to consider the way the contest will be held too. Post shortlist, the best jet wins. If both the F-35 and SH make the shortlist, then the F-35 will win since it's technically superior.

Also, it doesn't look like Dassault can manage to sell 64 jets at $11.2B. At India's price, it's only possible to sell 55 jets at $11.2B. But the F4.2 is expected to be more modern and more expensive, so the actual number of jets could be even lower. When it comes to spares cost too, the Rafale seems to be more expensive due to the exchange rate difference. In India, the cost of flying 36 Rafales is $400M for 5 years, which is $2.22M per year for each Rafale. If we assume it's for 200 hours per year, we get $11100 per hour. As per the F-35's cost estimate of $25000, LM and PW's share is $13250, for 160 hours we get $2.12M. So, due to the exchange rate diff and lower number of flight hours, the F-35 comes off better than the Rafale. Based on these calculations, even if the Rafale meets the operating cost benchmark, it may not get shortlisted due to its higher procurement cost.

If Rafale can't make it, then the Typhoon definitely won't. And we also know the procurement cost of SH+Growler is more expensive as per DSCA's estimate. So I feel the competition will be between the F-35 and Gripen. Only these two can offer all 64 jets below the benchmark price.

Of course, the Rafale's cost can be reduced significantly if they offer it at the same price they offer to the AAE. They will have to reduce costs by more than $1.5B in the process though, so I don't know if there's enough room for doing such a thing.

I am hoping the Rafale does get shortlisted though. Since the final criteria is purely based on tech specs, at least it will confirm once and for all which jet is better.
 
No no no... Super Hornet offer is 64 jets. The DSCA package mentions double seaters, but they are not in the final offer. Only single-seaters and Growlers.

Regarding Rafale, procurement cost can not be higher than others. Every offer has the same budget. Maybe it's 40 planes, maybe it's fifty planes, maybe it's thirty, but this is a fit-to-cost business. Cost is a given, and seller fits the offer to cost.

Budget is the same for all contestants. Not one of them are more expensive to procure than the others. Operating costs are a different thing. They will vary.
 
Let's go back to that article I posted. Quote from article:

"Tarjouksista tarkistetaan, läpäisevätkö ne käyttökustannusten lisäksi sotilaalliselle huoltovarmuudelle ja teolliselle yhteistyölle asetetut ehdot.

– Jos tarjous ei läpäise aiempia päätöksentekoalueita, sitä tarjoajaa ei oteta mukaan lopulliseen sotilaallisen suorituskyvyn arviointiin, Renko muistuttaa."

Anyone can verify with a translator tool what this means. If some offer does not pass the three fail tests, it will not be involved in the war games and simulations, ie. the final round.

If the offer is not involved in the final round, there will be nothing to talk about. It will not be possible for even the president to affect the outcome, and nobody will know how it performs versus the other candidates.

It's simple, if the first three criteria are not met, the competitor will not progress towards technical evaluations. So if all 5 jets are undergoing or have already undergone flight trials, then all 5 jets have managed to meet the benchmark prices.

So are flight trials happening, yet to happen or finished?