For those of you wondering how Saab lost the FFCP competition, new information has come to light... According inside sources, the initial scoring of the two fighters was incredibly close. The F-35 did indeed win the "Capability" category (worth up to 60%) while the Gripen E ended up being ahead on both price (worth 20%) and industrial offsets (worth the remaining 20%). According to my source April Furst, who is currently serving an internship in the House of Commons. The ultimate decision was made rather hastily while the final scores were being tallied up. "Due to COVID restrictions and renovations, the FFCP committee were forced to convene in a remote office located in the basement of the Parliament building. You could tell it wasn't used very often. Lots of cobwebs, and the whole place smelled musty and moldy. "The committee members were doing their thing, going down each individual line of the respective offers. It was actual...
I wonder if there would be so much coverage or knowledge of the good and bad days when the F-15
ReplyDeleteExactly Paul, LM put the cart before the horse.
ReplyDeleteThere was quite a lot of coverage when the Gripen's first prototype crashed in 1989. Luckily, the pilot had a narrow escape.
Remember the second launch of Ariane 1, it was a failure too.
Testing that's why you make prototypes because you know accidents happen.
I believe that LM soon will make the following anouncement :
ReplyDelete"The needed fix that followed the F-35 mishap on Eglin will actually make the aircraft considerably lighter as the systems that were intended to supress / extinguish clearly did not work and thus can be removed. Another good news is that the F-35 now can be advertised and sold internationally as "Battle Proven" as it without any doubts been under fire...",
Nice Job!
ReplyDeleteI guess it is not like an airline, where you get to pick your engine. This engine appears not to work, I will take the rolls Royce or the GE?
I believe the engine is a Pratt & Whitney
ReplyDeleteThat's the big difference between the JSF program and earlier ones like the F-15, etc... When an issue is found in the prototype stage, you simply incorporate the fix into the finalized design.
ReplyDeleteThanks to concurrency, an entire fleet of over 100 aircraft will likely need to be recalled and refurbished to accommodate this fix. This process needs to be repeated for every new issue. Every bulkhead crack, every oil leak, every software bug... They all need to be fixed retroactively. Remember, these are considered production aircraft, not prototypes.