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Well I suppose you could just wait on your laurels until the penultimate strike fighter comes along and then you could buy it and never have to upgrade it ever again. I work in the procurement/acquisition business, wherein we struggle with performance standards on a daily basis. If you succomb to the faction that we should wait for solution to world hunger, you will never deliver anything. And meanwhile the world starves.
Actually, the F-16 doesn't have the legs. F/A-18 is probably best...but Wuzak does like his Su-35s!
The biggest problem for all participants in the F-35 contract is simply that extricating oneself will probably cost more than seeing the programme through to the end.
I think the RN would go for the F-35C and cancel the F-35B before they'd go for Rafale (bearing in mind the RN would have to modify the QEII class carriers for either the F-35C or the Rafale). Personally, I'd like to see the F-35B canned but it likely will persevere.
The F-16 is definitely a cost effective choice. If it were 5 or 10 years ago, maybe, but since the ADF chose the F/A-18 over the F-16 25+ years ago it is unlikely to change its mind now.
Other alternaties:
Eurofighter Typhoon - probably too single purpoose for Australia
Dassault Rafale - More of a multirole aircraft than the Typhoon. But I don't know too much about its abilities.
Saab Grippen - I suppose similar to the F-16 in size and abilities, though a newer airframe.
Boeing F-18E/F - this is the route we have taken for temporary fill-ins between the F-111 and the F-35, and looks like the only option we will look at if the F-35s are further delayed/orders cancelled.
Boeing F-15SE - a legacy airframe updated with more stealth charcteristics. Not sure how that will stack up for the future.
Sukhois Su-35 - or an Australia specific version of such.
Sukhoi Pak-FA - not likely to be ready before the F-35 in any case
As far as contracts are concerned Australia is either committed to purchasing 2 or 13 F-35, not sure which. We are due to get our first two delivered in 2014, but they will remain in the US. That will, surely, make it difficut for the ADF to make a comprehensive assessment?
Would that be the C/D version, or the E/F, which is quite different?
They'd need angled deck and catapults. It was intended that the QEII design was to allow for both ramp or catapult launch but it seems the cost, once we embarked on the F-35B path, was more expensive than expected (hence the flip-flop F-35B to F-35C and back again). That said, if the RN wants combat aircraft afloat, the options are F-35B or modifying the QEII class. Personally, I think the latter approach, while undoubtedly expensive in the short term, is more cost effective and operationally beneficial in the long run.
I was referring to the Gripen, sorry pal...Saab Grippen - I suppose similar to the F-16 in size and abilities, though a newer airframe....
I was referring to the Gripen, sorry pal...
They're the same as the F-18C/D and E/F, the Gripen E/F is larger than their older C/D versions, more powerful engine, more fuel, which gives her longer range, more hardpoints, supercruise etc., etc...