Delete comment from: Elements Of Power
The problems of the Gripen development were solved by a country with the population of Brooklyn and didn't prevent the type from becoming competitive on the international arms market with a production run of only about 250 including exports.
Its first production batch wasn't purchased at more than twice the envisaged price. The whole production run for the Swedish Air Force was 2.5 years, which is a third of the now expected duration of F-35 LRIP.
Gripen problems were on an altogether different scale, not comparable to the F-35.
Try to be honest: Imagine it's the 1990's. Boeing and LM proposals for JSF are considered. Both propose LRIP of 200+ faulty aircraft during 2007-2017, at prices on average well above USD 100 million.
Would you have considered this a ridiculously horrible offer?
I suppose only those whose income depends on not considering such a program a disaster would not have thought so. Those who don't today have drank the Kool-aid during two decades of corporate, Hollywood and military propaganda.
The expectations were crashed to nil by collective and pervasive program management incompetence (and corruption) of the MICC.
Jul 4, 2015, 4:11:46 PM
Posted to David Axe is More Boring Than Ever (Bless His Heart)