Norway May Ditch JSF
 

Norway, a level 3 JSF SDD partner, is considering ditching the JSF in favour of SAAB Gripen's.

http://www.dr.dk/nyheder/udland/arti...ticleID=164916

(For those of you able to read Danish ;) )

The essence of the article is that the head of the Defence Commitee in the Norwegian parliament is arguing for a purchase of Gripen's over JSF. Norways is pretty miffed at the lack of return on their SDD investment. Incidentially, the Netherlands are not thought to be too impressed by the contracts, or rather lack thereof, coming out of Lockheed-Martin. Neither is Denmark by the way. I suppose being Level 3 is not all LM made it up to be ...

And I also hear about similar mutterings in Oz - 'tho I doubt if Grippen would be seen as a robust Air 6000 candidate if that debate was to re-open.

Maybe not, but what a great replacement for the F/A-18! And you can forward base them on roadstrips, which partly compensates for the short range. Or how about a 'JAS39E' with conformals. Backed up by a few Typhoons or F-15Es to replace the -111s.

Lovely, tell your mum!

The leader of the defence commitee has been in all the news media today. It seems to me that it's just a way of hardening the objections to the Level 3 agreement the Commitee put forward during their visit to the US some weeks ago. A conservative party MP goes as far as to call it a "badly hidden tactical game". (The leader of the defence commitee is from the social democrats)

However.....the Gripen has been dropped from the deciscion process several years ago, because it does not fit requirement.
(At least not the 100 used ones the SWAF is trying to flog)
Eurofighter on the other hand, which is still in the race have allocated a lot of work to the norwegian industry.

Time will tell....... :sad:

All things considered for the JSF, the aggreements that the US has made with all the SDD partners are moot. By all accounts, it won't release the same version that it is giving itself to even its closest allies.

Being from Oz myself, I am somewhat reluctant to believe that it was a prudent decision by the R.A.A.F. or DOD to become involved in it. Sure, there may be opportunities for us to input our two cents worth here and there, but the main question remains - will this enterprise be all that it was cracked up to be by the various industry partners from the US and other associated allies?

Sure, all new production aircraft have teething problems, but as we have such a large stake with Boeing in AUS, then you have got to forsee that if we go ahead with this aircraft anyway despite its failings, then we won't be sending a particularly good message to our own industry partner - the aforementioned Boeing??

Let's all here in AUS hope that Lockheed extracts the digit and figures out the weight concerns, and that the US decides that we are indeed friendly enough (and if they need convincing, have a look at our foreign envoys - are they in the least bit scary??????) to release the same level of stealth technology to us as they are to their own military.

Apparently, they are afraid of that level of technology falling into enemy hands??
Who's going to steal it over here? The immirgants on Nauru??

If we ever have to go into battle with that aircraft in the forseeable future, it will be with the backing and the support of the U.S. Defence force...

Our White Paper hasn't left us with many other options....

Then we will see how well the catch-phrase of "interoperability" can be bandied about then...

Sorry Jacko, but I'm not sure that the reality of roads in northern Oz is exactly what SAAB had in mind for forward basings. (I wouldn't 'forward base' one of their cars up there, let alone a Gripen). Also there's the small matter of logistical and engineering support, relying on a crappy/impassable/nonexistent road network. Nice idea and all, but perhaps you need to let the 'Gripen for Oz' campaign go...

From several norwegian news media today:

Norway wil cut payment to the JSF project with 50%!

The deal between LM and the norwegian MOD was supposed to be secret, to avoid attention in other partner countries which pay much more. (UK stated as example bye one paper)

The Norwgian MOD did not want to comment on the deal, in agreement with LM.

Article (norwegian)

(It's a big deal over here this, I will try to find a link for this in english later)