Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch
Bombardier took a 20,000 Iltis Jeep which was a crappy jeep, and licensed it to build it for the Canadian Government thanks to some nifty lobbying and managed to get three times the price for the contract.
So a 40 million dollar per plane will cost far more then 120 million dollars a plane by the time Bombardier gets their hands on it.
I'm still not a super fan of the Gripen, We're buying another 50 year jet fighter, which means the Gripen won't be super capable by the halfway point of the cycle.
the ultimate goal is to get away from a 120 plane airforce, we're having enough problems retaining the pilots that we have as well. The Gripen E is also going to have a price tag in the $85 million dollar price tag (brazil) which is not that much cheaper then the F-35, but with the F-35 the expectation is an airforce of half the size, so we're probably talking double the price (sorry I'm fuzzy lately).
There are operational F-35's around the world so it's interesting to see these problems, we'll have to see how the bid turns out, but capability to capability, the Gripen doesn't compete. Its a nice plane but the budget figures wouldn't make sense.
As well, if this is about pork barrelling to a Quebec company like Bombardier to keep them alive, I'd pass, they can't be counted on for a crucial military contract.
there's also the question of the modifications to make them interoperable within Norad. One of the reasons why Rafale dropped out is they couldn't do it.
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Yeah, my first thought was the Iltis too. I can't imagine how costly a snafu a Quebec union-produced Swedish 4.5 generation fighter plane would be for the Canadian taxpayer, but who cares, right?