Ok, today Saab Jas had a press conferance in Norway, where they have gone over the calculation for the cost's of the Jas 39 Gripen NG.
Jas is mildly put, asstonished on how the calculations of the Norwegian goverment has been done, and suspect that this is due to the flatrate on the
price that Jas gave.
And they even go further and states that even if Jas gave the planes to the Norwegian goverment and covered all the education, maintenance and
developent , it would stil mount up to the Norwegian goverment picking the F-35.
Statement was made by Gripen boss, Åke Svensson.
Quote from the news:
- Kalkylemodellen som norske myndigheter har brukt, er helt merkelig. Selv om vi hadde gitt dem flyet gratis, og dekket alle utviklings- og
vedlikeholsdskostnader, ville man fra norsk side fortsatt valgt amerikansk. Vi blir straffet fordi vi gav en fastpris, mener Gripen-sjef Åke
Svensson.
Other things that was taken up on this "clear the air" conferance, is the cost's.
Saab Jas has said that the cost for each plane, including education, training, development and maintenance is no higher then 22 billion Norwegian
kroners (about 3 billion USD), the Norwegian goverment has estimated this figure to be 24 billion NOK (3.3 Billion USD), and the sweedes are
dumbstrucked by how the Norwegian goverment has found this figure, of what seems to be "thin air".
Saab also indicates that only 22% of the cost suggestion put forward by the Norwegian evaluation board, is accurate.
Forinstance, the planes have been upped from 48 purchuses to 58, and the service time has been upped from 25 to 35 years, and this is info that was
deliberatly held back from Saab Jas.
Saab Jas is willing to participate in a hearing in the Norwegian goverment if they are called upon.
There are some 200 projects in Norway, allready started in the atticipation of the Jas 39 Gripen NG purchuse, some of these projects will now be
scrapped and some other projects will adapt to the new position, Saab stil want's the cooperation with the establised projects to continue, manly to
further the development of the Saab Jas 39.
Last, Saab went on the offensive, when it came to the simulations that was used, and the main problem is that they used the russian Sukhoi PAK-FA as
adversery, a plane stil in a theoretical stage, with not even a good mock-up model made, and not any existing plane was used in the simulation, that
is also somewhat strange way to performe a war simulation.
This looks more and more like a rotten apple in the Norwegian goverment, and I'm actually ashamed to be a Norwegian when I read the report.
Source Norwegian:
www.aftenposten.no...
[edit on 11-12-2008 by Phoebus]