Slowman,

 

Then there should be an official DoD announcement or a new article stating so from a reputable news paper. Either way, if what you claim is true, there should be a record online somewhere. I'll make you a deal, show me a link pointing to such a source and I might give your statement more credence.

 

Steve

The Jane's article says that money was spent turning electronics into black boxes, this would protect the IP of the countries and companies who developed those black boxed systems, however regarding an export version the author is just guessing, as shown by the use of words such as "probably", the sources said they'd all look the same and would all be stealth and refused to confirm any differences or similarity in stealth features. You cannot say that exported F-35's will be less capable based on the information in that article.

 

Aviation Week is also only speculating, or guessing. It says its "possible" that they will have different levels of stealth, not that they will. Both articles have stated that money was spent on security, but not what for, it doesnt mean there is an export version.

"this is straight from the mouth of foreign government negotiators who sat in the negotiation room with Lockheed Martin reps/US DoD officials."

 

Should be no problem for you to find a quote then huh kid?

 

Obviously if it is "straight from the mouth" of a foreign procurement officials a suitable quote should be available in numerous press reports...

 

 

 

Need I educate you again on the difference between a quote from a reputable source and something you made up yourself based on rumors you read on messageboards?

 

 

"They do. Enough multiple sources from different countries confirm the existence of a downgraded export model."

 

Oh really?

 

Once again this seems to be a case where you can't differentiate between rumors on messageboards and credible sources.

 

Find us a credible report slowkid.  You claim they are out there so it shouldn't be hard to do.

 

Remember:

 

 

You can't claim you have information "straight from the mouth of foreign government negotiators" unless you can produce some quotes.

 

Find us some quotes slowkid.

 

 

You know, something like this....

 

 

< link >

 

Hatoyama's current approval rating in Japan is whopping 71%. This empowers Hatoyama to successfully carry out his anti-America agenda. Hatoyama will have full Japanese backing when he selects Typhoon for F-X, claiming that Typhoon is a better deal for money including a full license production program not available with F-35.

 

@ YelliChink

F-35 is not be available for license production. The best Japan could get is a final assembly & check plant, where Mitsubishi would just put together semi-assembled modules and sections delivered to them from Lockheed Martin and Lockheed Martin employees present at site would perform final checking.


And every prospective customer that is considering F-35 as a possible candidate in an open bidding F-X competition?

There are only a handful of countries in the world able to buy hundreds of $100 million fighters, buying even a dozen fighters is a big deal to the rest of world.

Their F-2 fighter/bomber already exceed that price. Japanese weapons production are known for being very political, inefficient and expensive. 10 million dollar is just a drop in the bucket for what they are willing to pay. Even though they can only get assembly rights initially, they will get some partnership in later projects and integration with their own system.

 

Now we are talking about sucker's fee. How much we Taiwans have paid for the subs we are promised but won't get anyway? Like $200 million for "study and initial design?"

 

Sorry, but, it is a good deal for them. They can even delay a bit just betting on weaker dollar against yen.