Rafale F3 leading Brazilian F-X race on the promise of extensive tech transfer over Super Hornet

Email Me When A New Comment Is Made
Show Only Poster Name and Title Newest to Oldest

Pages: PREV 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 NEXT

Das Kardinal 9/7/2009 2:26:58 PM

Seems like it's a done thing now. 36 Rafales for 10 KC-390s from Embraer.

And cue the commentators who used to spout the "Rafale hasn't any exports, therefore it's crap " and mocked others (usually the French posters) when they said that previous Rafale defeats had much to do with political considerations... to change their tune to "lalala it doesn't change anything, Rafale is still crap, it's all a political contract !" :-D

Quote Reply

Rufus 9/7/2009 2:52:12 PM

It certainly looks like they are trying to find a package of tech transfer and industrial deals that will allow them to beat out the SH, but this isn't a done deal yet.

The bottom line is they are trying to find a package that will allow them to sell what is essentially an uncompetitive product.

This approach runs the risk of creating an incredibly complex and problem prone deal, especially when it comes down to the details of pricing and service on all the hardware to be exchanged.

Brazil to assemble French fighters for Latin market:FM

(AFP) ? 4 hours ago

BRASILIA, Brazil — Brazil would assemble Rafale fighter jets under an imminent deal with France, and could sell them to other Latin American nations, Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said Monday.

His comments came after Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and visiting French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced in a joint statement that Brazil had started talks to acquire 36 Rafale combat aircraft in a deal worth billions of dollars.

"There is a decision to negotiate the purchase of the Rafales, which won't be a simple purchase because there will be (aircraft) construction in Brazil -- there will be a possibility for Brazil to sell these planes to Latin America," Amorim told reporters.

Quote Reply

sentinel28a 9/7/2009 3:43:21 PM

Das Kardinal, I personally don't think it's that the Rafale is crap. Airframe wise, it's a good aircraft, and while it's suffered its share of teething problems, they are problems that can be solved. What's hurting it in the export market is that (and this is my opinion, though I've heard it from others) Dassault rushed it into production to try and get the jump on other exports. Granted, the Rafale M was desperately needed to replace ancient F-8s and take the load off aging Super Etendards, and the Jaguar wasn't getting any younger for the AdA. Still, I wonder if Dassault wouldn't have been better served by taking its time and getting everything right the first time.

Probably the biggest obstacle the Rafale has run into is the glutted export market. It has to compete with later marks of the F-16, the F-15E, the Typhoon, the Gripen, and various versions of the MiG-29 and Su-27, with the F-35 waiting in the wings. So potential buyers are going to ask, "What can the Rafale do that these aircraft can't, and why should I pay a higher price for it?" Dassault's answer too often has been, "Well, the Rafale F3 can do this, that, and the other in a few years!" That's a problem--in a few years. In many cases, what Dassault promises other platforms can do now.

The problem that Bluewings and a few others have had here has nothing to do with the Rafale, but their attitude. It is a fine plane, and a beautiful one, and with a bit of tweaking I think it could hold its own with anything that flies. Their attitude since I joined SP (in 2003) is that the Rafale can beat anything, right now, up to and including the F-22. When more sober posters ask why, how is that, they respond with pie-in-the-sky advancements or magical plasma. Never mind the fact that the Rafale isn't designed as an air-superiority fighter, it can do ANYTHING! It's less about the Rafale and more about waving the tricolor in everyone's faces, pretty much proving the old Gaullic stereotype that the French are arrogant pricks. In Bluewings' case, it's extended to subjects beyond that of the Rafale, to simple America-bashing.

Quote Reply

SlowMan 9/7/2009 8:15:03 PM

@ Rufus

> For whatever reason he regularly lies in his little "summaries" of articles.

Look who's the liar now...

> It certainly looks like they are trying to find a package of tech transfer and industrial deals that will allow them to beat out the SH, but this isn't a done deal yet.

Well, Brazilian government announced that they were entering into the final negotiation of Rafale sales right after Sarkozy's arrival, just as I stated earlier.

> The bottom line is they are trying to find a package that will allow them to sell what is essentially an uncompetitive product.

Rafale itself maybe uncompetitive, but not Rafale+Tech Transfer package for countries trying to acquire fighter technology.

Quote Reply

Das Kardinal 9/8/2009 3:36:44 AM

Quote Reply

Das Kardinal 9/8/2009 3:46:48 AM

Quote Reply

doggtag Sarkozy's been watching Casablanca... 9/8/2009 10:11:44 AM

?? "Luiz, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship..."

From Defense-Aerospace.Com's press releases, Sept 8, 2009,

Brazil to Buy 36 Rafales As Fr...

"The defense agreements announced yesterday by France and Brazil go well beyond the long-anticipated sale of 36 Rafale combat aircraft, and extend the bilateral strategic partnership to the field of aviation and of army equipment."

An interesting caption with the Rafale photo there: "Dassault has found its first export customer for the Rafale, as Brazil is to buy an initial batch of 36 with another 84 on option."

"If the contract is signed in 2010, initial deliveries will follow in 2013. France will deliver the first six aircraft from its own assembly line, but the remaining 30 will be locally-assembled by Embraer over a period of six years. The contract will also include options for as many as 84 additional aircraft."

And now Embraer is breaking into the fighter aircraft market...very interesting indeed.

"Beyond the Rafale, the two presidents extended the bilateral defense partnership into the field of army equipment. In a joint statement of intent, the two countries? defense ministers said France would cooperate in Brazilian army modernization programs, including digitalization, the networking of operational units, border monitoring and surveillance, and telecommunications."

Oh, $ee what opportunitie$ the US has mi$$ed!

Far more than airplanes were at stake here...

"These wide-ranging framework agreements follow two separate deals, first announced in December 2008, and for which the final contracts were signed yesterday. One contract, worth 1.85 billion euros, covers the licence-production the Eurocopter EC-725s while the other, valued at 6.8 billion euros, covers the submarine package and related shipyards and naval base."

Helicopters, submarines, and shipyard support, too?

Maybe further cooperation will see Nexter and MBDA helping revitalize the ailing Brazilian arms industry that at one time gave us some interesting designs (query 1980s especially) from companies the likes of Bernardini, Engesa, Avibras,...

(...so I was right about those KC-390s after all...)

I'm almost starting to wonder now who in the US defense industry will be the first ones coming out the woodwork to contest these contracts, crying foul like they do everytime they don't win US contracts...

Quote Reply

ambush 9/8/2009 10:34:13 AM

I am as pro-American as the next guy but I think it would be honest to acknowledge US use of foreign technology. There are some areas we lagged or lag in.

During WWII it was a UK designed engine that made the P-51 the fighter it was. The UK excelled at in-line water cooled engines the US at air cooled radial ones. The early versions of the German FW-190 had German versions of an American design radial obtained pre-war.

The Harrier had already been mentioned but let us not forget the B-57- British Canberra.

We do you think the US got radar from?

When the last time a US Main Battle tank was equipped with a US designed main gun?

The Ribbon bridge used by the US military is a copy of a Soviet Union design.

The US lacks the engineering and manufacturing expertise to build Diesel/AIP submarines so that we could not even honor an agreement with Taiwan to supply her with some or even break into foreign sales market with a design.

Quote Reply

SlowMan 9/8/2009 10:45:50 AM

@ doggtag

> Helicopters, submarines, and shipyard support, too?

Not any submarine, but a nuclear submarine. Rafale purchase is tied to nuclear submarine tech transfer from France to Brazil. And France threw in the bone of purchasing 12 KC-390 made in Brazil.

> I'm almost starting to wonder now who in the US defense industry will be the first ones coming out the woodwork to contest these contracts.

The US arms sales bid is strong in three following cases.

1. The customer has dollars to blow, usually some middle eastern OPEC member nation.
2. The customer doesn't have an indigenous aviation industry ambition.
3. The customer is either Japan or Korea, two most reliable weapons customers of US.

In all other cases, the US arms sale bid gets blown out of water by cheaper Chinese or Russian weapons, as weapons from these two can't be beaten in terms of value/price ratio.

Quote Reply

doggtag ...in ALL other cases? 9/8/2009 1:20:43 PM

The US arms sales bid is strong in three following cases.

1. The customer has dollars to blow, usually some middle eastern OPEC member nation.

2. The customer doesn't have an indigenous aviation industry ambition.

3. The customer is either Japan or Korea, two most reliable weapons customers of US.

In all other cases, the US arms sale bid gets blown out of water by cheaper Chinese or Russian weapons, as weapons from these two can't be beaten in terms of value/price ratio.

Ahh, but in this case, it's French tech, and going to a non-OPEC nation.

Does your top 3 list then suggest that the US only cares about making profit when it comes from strategically important countries?

I'm in part with ambush: contrary to all my sarcasm and blasphemy aimed at the US defense industry, every one of the shortcomings we face in the arms industry is our own damn fault and self-correctable,

and it kicks me right in my faith in America when, as we thump our chests and boldly declare how superior we are,

we let an opportunity like this slip thru our grasp.

Bu why bother, when to recoup losses we didn't profit from on the international markets, we can just goldplate (porkify) the hell out of domestic arms programs to the US government?

As for the submarine thing: it's our own stupidity we chose not to pursue AIP and diesel electric/fuel cell type boats.

Notice we have no problem fielding a conventionally-powered surface fleet?

Yet we (read: USN) seems to cringe at the notion of our own fleet of small subs that spends a large portion of its operational time at or near the surface (snorkel depth to recharge batteries via combustion engine) rather than forever submerged on nuclear power save the time needed for resupply and crew swaps.

Now, we have big thick nuke boats that can't even safely enter into a lot of the waters that subs half their diameter can.

In this case, we (read: USN) live by the adage: "our subs aren't littoral, but we at least hope our torpedoes are."

The biggest problem I see in the US defense industry is foolish pride.

So proud of these super-expensive designs that are pawned off on the US government, that we believe everyone should be buying our sh*t 'cause it's superior.

Yet in that foolish pride, we don't want to share in our defense knowledge to the point of conceding tech transfers to numerous countries because that would cut into immediate profit margins at the parent company (the F-35 has a long way to go to satisfy all the current partners).

It is this reason why, in no small part, we lost in Brazil. And it wouldn't surprise me also if it costs us the Indian contract.

Same can be said for a handful of those ex-Warswa Pact countries who now look to the West for improving their militaries: for supposedly an inferior aircraft, Gripen sold where we (US) hoped F-16s would be flying instead because we were too proud to offer them favorable terms that, in no small part, DIDN'T include an expensive prime-vendor-support tech training and maintenance program.

We see former enemies, hungry for NATO kinship, buying other European military hardware because the US won't come to the table with competitively favorable terms.

We can now even look across the Pacific and Persian Gulf at countries who used to be considerably dependent on the US, but now are progressing very rapidly in all areas of indigenous defense industries, all in no small part because of how the US defense industries have chosen to do business (to include our funky political system that's so disgustingly intermeshed with it).

Yeah, I do feel a sense of remorse when hard working Americans lose their jobs, but I don't feel sorry for the sad state of leadership and business disciplines that took those companies in that direction.

When these defense industry bigshots become so wrapped up in power and short-term profit margins that they can't see the benefit of longer-term visions, I have little remorse or patience for their excuse when they're left wondering, "but but but! Why didn't they buy our stuff?"

For all the improvements the Brazilian military would like to accomplish over the next decade plus, there's no sane, logical reason that US defense contractors couldn't have offered a more compet

Quote Reply

PREV 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 NEXT