No Typhoons For Noggies. A Price Tag In DenmarkPosted by Bill Sweetman at 8/28/2008 7:44 AM CDT
Denmark's Berlingske Tidende newspaper reports that JSF has undercut Gripen's price in offers to that country. The reported price for 48 F-35As, initial spares and two years' pilot training is 20 billion Danish kroner (DKK), equivalent to $3.95 billion or EUR2.7 billion, or $82 million per jet. Gripen comes in ten per cent higher, at DKK22 billion.
Bad news for Gripen? Not entirely. The Danish government has to base its decision on an assessment of how long the dollar will remain at its basement level relative to European currencies.
More importantly, Gripen is free to beat JSF around the head on the subject of life-cycle costs, because the Gripen has already demonstrated low operations and support (O&S) costs in service (a major design goal from the outset), and the big difference on the NG is an engine that is already mature. Gripen also burns half as much fuel.
JSF is designed for easy maintenance, but Lockheed Martin won't be in a position to demonstrate that convincingly before 2010 at the earliest. And Lockheed Martin has missed maintainability goals on JSF's older cousin, the F-22.
Meanwhile, Boeing has thrown its hat in the ring in Denmark, with a proposal for F/A-18E/F Super Hornets - no doubt to the enormous irritation of the JSF team. The watchword is "tomorrow's capabilities today" - underlining Boeing's belief that the JSF schedule will not hold.
Multiple sources, meanwhile, confirm that Norwegian papers were wrong in reporting that Eurofighter was re-entering the bidding in that country. The report has been denied by the Norwegian minister of defense and by sources close to Eurofighter. The European consortium has declined to participate in Norway and the Netherlands; they give the reason that the ground-rules have been set to favor JSF, but it may also be that they regard the Gripen as the stronger competitor.
Source
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&newspaperUserId=27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7&plckPostId=Blog%3a27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3a6b5ed78d-035d-4757-ac28-081c4034aad2&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest
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