Switzerland chooses Grippen

I like the Grippen, I like Sweden building their own, I like the fact that little old Sweden can build its own awesome 4.9 generation fighter without anyone else, I hate the way Britain has to kiss German and French ass to deveop anything. I am British.

Now France are berating the decision, well it doesnt matter what you think, as a tender you have the right to decide what you want for whatever reason. Im sure that America, who claimed and fine BAE Systems for bribing officials used threats such as íf you dont choose USA we will cut aid'. Blackmail which is fine but bribing isnt.

So Sweden can do it but we cant, I recont the UAV will go the same way.

May I suggest a media version of British 'recent'fiascos in aerospace.

TSR2..British only design and build but we chose something else ( I think it was Phantom )
Tornado had to partner elsewhere
Jaguar.elsewhere
Concorde - French sold plans to russia
EFA - French wanted too much (50% plus workshare) rather than a traditional share and so opted out and stole the design
Former yugoslavia - French tipped off war criminals to international arrest warrents
When are we going to learn..FOAS..Taranis...

Britain needs to keep away from the French, Sweden are ace, and the chicks are hot.

reply to post by FastJetPilot


Don't worry mate, us British have a few nice projects coming along including Taranis which I have heard is going very well.

The reason for Consortium participation is to do with politics and blame sharing.

In Libya the Typhoon apparently was very impressive, it is in my opinion the most reliable and capable fighter aircraft there is available today alongside the Dassault Rafale, hence why these two have made it to the final of the Indian fighter competition.
The American's F22 in theory should be more capable on the battlefield, however in practice it is hopelessly unreliable.

reply to post by wackers90


Good for them, joined up with the f/a-18s, the Gripen will replace their f-5s. The Swiss dont really need an offensive capability, so the Gripen is not really in its element as an interceptor, but it is a good plane, and an excellent plane for the price. One thing I do not like is the thrust/weight.

As for Sweden/Saab, they have always had a good thing going. In fact, you might say they are more successful in recent years than Dassault, which cannot find any takers for the Rafale. I would like to see some Rafale vs Eurofighter arguments.

As for the f-22 having teething problems-- meh, everything does. We should have never stopped production, they were finally getting the per unit price down! I think if we had more than 183 you would have seen them used in action already.

Also, the french didnt sell the concorde plans, the russians are just sneaky and likely stole some part of them, just as they did with every thing else. Heck, considering how the Brit military and intel services were penetrated so deeply by the KGB, I would think it would be more likely that the Russians got ahold of the plans from one of your chaps.

What are you on? We design and build our own nuclear submarines.

That's a bit more complex than a jet.

reply to post by steppenwolf86


Teething problems for how many years though! It was a lot of money but you seemed to have gotten very little in comparison, as they are mainly grounded! Unfortunately. The F22 looks fricking cool though!

The Eurofighter is a very well designed and robust plane with probably the best military fighter engine in the world. I would say due to its countermeasures and upgraded radar (i think) in Tranche 3, it should outclass the Rafale in all respects. However most importantly both these planes are reliable and war ready, which is going to be quite important in the future unfortunately. Ha and we forgot to mention pilot skill.

The gripen would seem a fantastic plane for any smaller nations looking to upgrade though! I believe it is better than the dated American offerings F16 Super Hornet etc

Daz21 that's a completely different field and I think they were designed quite a few years ago now!

reply to post by wackers90


Yes I know the OP is refering to fighter jets, but its the part where he says we can't create anything ourselves which annoyed me a bit.

Also our current newest submarine is a few years old but new ones are in the pipe line. For your reading pleasure:

en.wikipedia.org...

Errmmm am I the first one to notice that Sweden is NOT Switzerland?

reply to post by Swizzy


Haha good spot.

reply to post by DAZ21


Easy for me to spot, I'm from Switzerland and people make that mistake all the time. Some people even "bullied" me and called me swedish instead of swiss....that was really lame and never did anything xD

It's only a difference of 1600 miles or so

Dont short change British aviation, You guys had the Lightning for the longest time and IIRC counld turn circles around our F-4s which was our frontliner back then and even put the little F-5/T-38 to shame. I believe that you guys also came up with more of the Tornado than the rest of the design team coalition. Or we could go even furthur back and drop names like Lancaster, Vulcan, Spitfire, Hurricane, Tempest, Mosquito, Meteor, or even the Sworfish. What about the Harrier? BAe design i believed.
Harrier giving someone a very bad day.

As far as the Concorde is concerend alot can be learned about its capabilities just from its shape and the Russians arent stupid, alot of their new tech comes from reverse enginnering which is what ppl do across the globe. Why try to solve a problem someone else already has solved right?

reply to post by DAZ21


The swiss bought the gripen but the swedes made it, and he was referring to the swedish defense industry.

wow will be great to see the Swiss play with these. Though would have been pretty awesome for them to push the Eurofigter to the max too

Oh look, another rant...

Originally posted by FastJetPilot
TSR2..British only design and build but we chose something else ( I think it was Phantom )

The TSR2 was an excellent aircraft. It was also expensive. Britain at the time was begging for money off the International Monetary Fund - an expensive aircraft development project just isnt sustainable at the same time.

Lots of things have been written on the TSR2 cancellation, but most of the "it was cancelled because the US forced us" is just uninformed opinion - we simply couldnt afford it.

Tornado had to partner elsewhere
Jaguar.elsewhere

Didn't need to partner, but it was cheaper and we got the aircraft we wanted from it anyway, so whats the problem?

Concorde - French sold plans to russia

Really? Any proof of that?

EFA - French wanted too much (50% plus workshare) rather than a traditional share and so opted out and stole the design

Again, any proof of the "stole the design" claim...?

What broke the deal for the French was that they wanted a heavier airframe which had a carrier capability from the outset - this was more expensive than building a non-carrier capable airframe, so the rest of the consortium said "no".

And it wasn't the French that left, it was the other countries that left the FEFA to create the EFA. Spain left FEFA later on to join EFA.

Oh, and interestingly enough, not even a decade after the Eurofighter enters service and the UK places an order for a cat-and-trap capable aircraft...

Former yugoslavia - French tipped off war criminals to international arrest warrents

More anti-French trash talk. Sorry, but this one single line completely invalidates your entire post for me.

Britain needs to keep away from the French, Sweden are ace, and the chicks are hot.

I think you need to keep away from anything. This thread is nothing more than a thinly disguised anti-french rant.

In terms of international programmes, the UK has both won and lost in the power struggles.

On the Jaguar the RAF really wanted a trainer that would replace the Gnat and was on a par with the US T-38. French influence brought the attack role to prominence and the UK instead launched the P.1182, which became the Hawk to meet our training needs. Ironically, France then needed a trainer and partnered Germany on the Alpha Jet while he RAF was able to replace its ancient Hawker Hunters in the attack role and release the F-4 Phantom to the air defence role, so it worked out for the best.

Further irony can be found in the fact that although the Jaguar was basically a Breguet design fitted with BAC wings, France quickly tired of it and it has become regarded as a British aircraft, not least since every export order was won by BAC/BAe often in direct competition with some Mirage variant or other.

BAe almost launched a next generation Jaguar in 1978 fitted with a "combat" wing featuring LERX and tip mounted missiles and powered by the Tornado's RB199 engines.

On the Tornado, if any partner can be said to have been forced to take a plane it didn't want, it was Italy. The Italian requirement was for a single seater agile fighter as a replacement for the F-104S (they really ought to have bought the F-16 when everyone else in Europe did). The German requirement was or a single seater attack aircraft to replace the F-104G and the British requirement was for a two seat swing wing low level strike aircraft, and look what got built!

The original design for the Tornado was the BAC UKVG of 1967, which was itself evolved from the cancelled AFVG. It was developed as the Panavia 200 and a single seater called the Panavia 100 was supposed to be built for Germany and Italy. Which of course never happened.

With Typhoon, the design as built is almost indistinguishable from the BAe P.120 of 1984, which BAe threatened to ' go it alone' on when they became frustrated at the delays encountered in reaching an international agreement. The BAe EAP demonstrator that flew in 1986 that was part P.120 and part Tornado was intended to show that they meant business. I believe that the EAP is the only new all British Mach 2 aircraft to fly since 1964!

I did a thread on the whole story a few years ago, it must still be around somewhere.

Its not just an anti French thread, I threw the war criminals in because the book I was reading just had a chapter on it and it stoke my distrust of them.

The point I was trying to make is the Sweden are capable of having a great industry designing and manufacturing an Aircraf ton their own and I am happy they are getting an export customer or two.

Yes I did derail from my point in some anti French rant.