From what I heard the Gripen and our F18 will share the same engine, obviously the F18 get a F414 upgrade in the near future(?).

Furthermore buying new F18 is going to be an adventure, the Swiss F18 are made in Switzerland with crapload of swiss-custom parts, they replaced everything with titanium.
I mean, that thing is tough enough for carrier operations, but not tough enough for the Swiss? Ok...

Twin engine also means double fuel consumption and double maintenance - sorry, there's no cash for this kind of luxury.

Concerning the future: We are considering to switch to only one model - the Gripen.

And the F35, well, that thing is joke.
"Let the missiles do the turning", lol
What if they fail?
You can't run
You can't outturn your enemy


Check out this link
http://www.ausairpower.net/jsf.html

I for one will be happy to see them flying here in a few years...granted the people vote yes, and that's not sure yet. I know so many people around me that would drop our army if they could, that I think it will be a tough votation, the last one for the F-18 made 57% of yes, now in a time of crisis many people just see what they consider an unnecessary 3 billions public money spending.

We'll see...

anyway, i belive in some few decades we will see not few airarms flying only the F-35 as manned jets.......
the tactical thinking , at least in europe,cwent away from full scale airwar to a tatical one were you throw smart bombs form medium height on some 'tribes' . if this will still fit in 50 years, nobody can say.

running a serious airforce is a very expensiv affair nowadays.

Considering the size of Switzerland, I wonder why they don't invest in a decent AA missile system really. I mean, seriously, how do they operate with these jets? Flying around in circles all the time? :confused:

Because you can't police your airspace with missiles.
Well, you could, but... lol

"shoot first, ask later" ;)


i my opinion, its most times better to build a Air-to-Air jet and give this Air-to-Ground ability than otherway round. It might be more expensive, yes, but you are more safe whatever you need in the future.....
In this part, it will be interesting to see how the F-35 will perform once in service for some time....
i think if a flightbof F-35 will ever meet a flight of Su-35/30 in anger, and no of the so few F-22 will cover them (what will the USN do..?) , i hope for the F-35 pilots they had very good training.

for throwing smart bombs on the mentioned 'tribes' a Pilatus or Embraer turboprop with the needed avionics is good enough, and a lot cheaper (i guess) ;)



for switzerland, i also think its futre will be the Gripen ( if it will make it through,).perhaps order some more than 22. i belive it will be the last manned jet to be purchased by switzerland......

They hve not the same spool size if I remind well. But I guess many chore parts are compatible.

In 2020 for sure it wld be a 35 unless the dumbknopf ru[i]ning the fighters project in EU start to re-think their strategy

The problem is that in switzerland there is almost no discussion about the threats we are likely to face. I got the impression that the new planes are only some new expensive toys for the military, but no one asks for what tasks we really need them.
Yes, we need an army, but an army which is adequate for the situation. Even if we would expect only one of our neighbors to attack us (which is extremely unlikely), then 22 brand new EF or rafale wouldn't make a difference. For every other scenario we don't need these expensive jets either.
That's why the Saab is a good choice.

Is Dassault arrogant?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...7MG3J320111116

Yeah, I don't really think you need jets at all frankly. Again, an efficient AA network is way more effective and less costly on such a small territory than anything else.