astal wrote:Wickberg,
Is it possible to link some of the studies that show the payoff to Sweden from the Gripen Program?
Your calculations of cost do not seem to incorporate inflation. You state that a total of 13 Billion dollars were released for the Gripen so far. It is important to know at what dates these amounts were released and account for inflation.
You also know that Sweden had a far more sophisticated aircraft design program at the outset when the Gripen was conceived. That level of sophistication is worth a lot of money but is not included in the cost of the Gripen.
For Tejas everything had to be pretty much made from scratch. Most of the money for Tejas has been allocated recently and Tejas has been the target of sanctions. So comparison between Tejas and Gripen time lines and cost is an apples to oranges comparison.
Here are some similarities between Tejas and Gripen. (They are actually too obvious to state)
1) Same base engine.
2) Possibly same radar if the ELTA 2052 is denied, India can also go in for the SAAB and SELEX Galileo radar.
Now there are differences in aerodynamics due to presence/absence of canards, different wing designs, different use of composites and other reasons.
The one point I will grant you is that the Gripen NG is already flying and the Tejas MK2 is still on the drawing board. But to me it appears likely that the Tejas team can close this gap within the next five years and make an aircraft with capabilities similar to the Gripen NG. (You may think this is wishful jingoism and are entitled to your opinion.)
I have lived in Sweden for a year. My opinion is that it is a homogeneous society and a mature democracy with a fiercely independent and patriotic population. Even the left wingers are far more moderate that Indian left wingers. (You do not have a Maoist revolution.)
In India, many politicians and leaders are not mature enough to understand the importance of a weapons program of this magnitude. There are very strong international lobbies that stand to lose a lot of money. They influence corrupt politicians, bureaucrats and journalists. This is far less likely in Sweden.
Finally since HAL are ADA are government undertakings they do not invest in PR, as opposed to say SAAB or Ericsson.
With this array of powerful forces against it, what is surprising is that Tejas has come so far. This is what makes one hopeful for the future . As a European skeptic though, you do not have to share this enthusiasm.
First of all. I am skeptical of the LCA project as I have followed it mine entire life. I remember when I was a little kid at the age of 10-12 buying those Bill Gunston books, specially the ones about fighters of the future and reading about Gripen, Kfir, LCA and such. Back in the days during the cold war we had not only a handful of countries producing fighters, there were 2-3 handfuls. And I loved it- G-91, AMX, the Yugoslavian and Romanian jets and so on. Today is so boring, you got USA, and in the future probably a common European fighter, the Russians and perhaps China. That is a sad future...
About inflation. That has been calculated into these figures. IIRC the last Gripen to SweAF was delivered in dec. 1998 and after that all anti-gripen/left-wing journalists were like hawks and showed how much it had cost us Swedish taxpayers. It landed around 100 billion SEK, and they immediately started to compare how many doctors we could have hired for that sum, or how many day care centers that could have been built etc etc. So that shows journalists are not smarter in Sweden then they are in India.
And yes, I know all about LCA and the struggle about Indias avionics industry. That is why I wrote that part earlier. For every penny Sweden invested in the Gripen we got 2.6 pennies back in our cash register. As always when you start a new business it it will be only costs and no revenues. But if you have the right product, and hang on, it will come back multiplied.
And the difference about Sweden and India. Well, I have never lived in India. But I have had some some dealing with companies in South America. And all this corruption thing.....
What can I say? Corruption is the Nr1 cause that hinder countries from developing and being efficient. In Sweden, there is no corruption. India is on place nr 87 after countries like Albania, Rwanda, Namibia and Georgia.
If India gets rid of corruption, then it will be a superpower.
Edit: About that PR thing that HAL ADA is´nt doing. I don´t know. There are millions of Indians who knows programming and can pull off a decent webpage, it would´nt cost them a dime. Is it because they are a state owned company? (My guess it has something to do with corruption)