Norwegian and Dutch Fighter Competitions, SAAB Ups Gripen Ante

Honestly, I think that both countries have alredy sunk so much money into the JSF, that it's a lost cause, but you have to admire the dedication of the SAAB sales force.

First, SAAB is offering an "all inclusive" bid, including, "the 85 Gripen NGs, training, spares, simulators and support," in addition to industrial offsets.

Additionally, they are claiming that the Gripen will will be billions cheaper over the life of the aircraft, which is likely true, as it weighs half as much.

Additionally, with the emphasis on remote austere basing, the Gripen probably wins in a COIN scenario like Iraq and Afghanistan.

This is actually their strongest case, that the US DoD and Lockheed-Martin will be nickel and diming the JSF customers throughout the program, in addition to still not having a hard and fast price or delivery schedule.

We also have some of the PowerPoint slides from L-M and SAAB:


LM Range Chart


SAAB Chart

Which appears to indicate that the Gripen has more range than the JSF, though I think that this is not an apples to apples comparison, as the Gripen is likely carrying external tanks for this.

In the meantime, it appears that reports of the Typhoon reentering the competition were greatly exaggerated, they still see it as a sucker's game, though Boeing, and US Navy are offering the Super Hoenet with the APG-79 Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar.

One interesting monkey wrench thrown into the JSF's path is that the Dutch Economics Ministry appears to be trying to extract more money from the Dutch industrial JSF partners, which would serve to raise costs of the aircraft to non-cloggie air forces.