There are at least three within the first tenth of that long article alone that I read, namely:
* the most boring factor, simply the sheer amount of F-35s sold is a huge benefit. As has been stressed from the outset, Finland can’t afford to be the sole operator of an aircraft
* Lockheed Martin provided a unique tailored solution to Finland – one described in their BAFO-press statement to “includes many opportunities for the Finnish defense industry related to the direct manufacture and maintenance of the F-35 that have not been offered before.”
* Which brings us to what has been the most controversial aspect of the program: cost. The acquisition cost has come down nicely,
I'll grant it's a badly written article for clarity and it's hard to pick the details out from the noise and fluff but it's simply incorrect to claim that not a single reason was mentioned.
( other than on the technical grounds that more than "a single reason" was provided in the article. )
Those don't have stealth of course and having Russia as a direct neighbor it's much more likely they'll see combat against an advanced military (much more do than western Europe) so I can imagine they wanted that advantage even though it's not perfect.
The concern isn't being sole operator at time of sale, but decades down the road. The Gripen, for example, is used by Sweden, South Africa, Hungary and Czechia [1].
I really wish they'd send a couple of squadrons of Gripens to Ukraine, because I think they'd be the perfect aircraft for that theatre.
That makes the Gripen a non-starter for picking a new aircraft to base your air force around in 2023. Stealth is now the single-most important factor, bar none. Non-stealthy aircraft are sitting ducks to a wide variety of threats.
> it does have over the horizon radar, can carry the Meteor air-to-air missile which has a 100km range
Yes see this is the kind of capability that allows stealthy aircraft like the F-35 to completely obliterate a Gripen at long range, with the Gripen never having a chance of even detecting the F-35. And of course the F-35 has long range air-to-air missiles for it too.
There is a probability (only indirect rumors) that F-35 can already be detected in some situations on some systems (global eye?) and there is definitely no guarantee that F-35 will keep it's stealth ability in the future.
> there is definitely no guarantee that F-35 will keep it's stealth ability in the future.
Of course as radar and computer systems improve it's likely that stealthy airplanes will become detectable from farther away, but they're not just gonna lose their stealthy characteristics entirely, in a boolean manner!
Agree about Ukraine too. Sending highly sophisticated jets that will take months to learn is wasting Ukraine's time - Gripens, maybe Mirage 2000s, MiG-29s make the most sense.
I guess, it really depends on your threat model.
If you assume that Russia is the main threat, and assume that what's going on in Ukraine is what future combat would likely look like, forward deployed SAMs are the main threat to aircraft. I have to imagine that advanced stealth capabilities would really help Sweden maintain an air capability in such an environment.
From what I understand, the Ukrainian airforce has taken a pretty severe beating (understandably). Heck - the Russian airforce has been pretty limited as well - they do run sorties, but they aren't exactly operating with impunity.
Stopped being produced 15 years ago.
> MiG-29
Ukraine can't get new ones.
> Gripens
Could be an option, but available only in low numbers.
The Ukraine war will be won through stocks and new production.
Ukraine can't afford a dead-end platform. Especially because "sending highly sophisticated jets that will take months to learn".
The F-16 is probably the best option, still being made, but much more importantly, available in large numbers, thousands of them out there.
Doesn't really matter when there are hundreds in stock (recently decommissioned or soon to be decommissioned) - they're faster to deliver than ones that are yet to be produced.
> Ukraine can't get new ones.
They don't need new ones, they need flying ones, yesterday. The proposed swaps with various NATO countries like Bulgaria sounded like the best option - Ukraine gets jets they can fly today, and the other country gets an upgrade for their help.
Or on the diplomatic table. While I agree it is a good thing to send Ukraine all we reasonably can, it is a nonzero probability Putin gets into hot water and ousted - bad health, pissed-off bureaucracy, domestic protests once he's forced to conscript people in central (ethnic) Russia.
Ukraine being a part of Russia is a mainstream opinion in Russia. It's a core part of Russian propaganda abroad and has been so since the 1800s (Novorossya).
I'm not saying it's impossible, but a new leader will adopt many of the nationalist tropes.
Russia completely leaving occupied territories, especially Crimea, diplomatically, will be extremely hard to do.
And Ukraine without Crimea will always be exposed. It's too easy to choke off their maritime access without it.
And European messaging is... strongly in favor of Ukraine but at reduced/no cost for Europe. So in practice European messaging is actually weak.
There are quite a few big European economies that would want to open up the Russian economy again. Conflicting interests are still fighting it out and we can't be sure which side will out. It could very well be that the winning political side in the West says a chopped up Ukraine is sufficient at the end of this war.
We'll see, it's super hard to predict.
For Russia at least, wouldn’t that be plenty enough to get by on?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_JAS_39_Gripen#Operational...
With or without pilots?
But even without pilots, and crewed by Ukrainian pilots lacking training on the system, I think the ability to lob 100 km range missiles over the horizen, has to be worth something.
Only Sweden and Brazil ordered the new Gripens.
Not really, and even if they did, it might not be worth the effort. Instead they got a super attractive technology transfer deal from SAAB.
For example, Australia became the sole operator of the F-111 from when the USAF retired it in 1998, until the RAAF retired it in 2010. The Australian Army also found itself in the position of sole operator of the ARH variant of the Eurocopter Tiger, a situation which lead to severe sustainment issues and exorbitant per-hour flight costs (estimates of up to AU$34k), and eventually lead to the 2021 decision to replace them with Apache Guardians.
If Finland joins NATO, it makes sense to combine air forces[5] in Scandinavia, in which case I can imagine there's a lot of benefits from having the same airplane as one of the other members. Obviously that w as not a direct consideration back when the decision was made, but surely some of the people involved were eyeing close cooperation in Scandinavia if shit hit the fan.
Regardless, I imagine Finland has had a chat with the Norwegian Air Force about the plane, which feedback should be highly relevant given the similarities between the countries. So far from what I've read the Norwegian Air Force seems quite happy with the F-35.
[1]: https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/f-35/f-35-glob...
[2]: https://www.tu.no/artikler/norske-flygere-har-for-forste-gan...
[3]: https://www.ffi.no/aktuelt/podkaster/16-slik-har-ffi-forsket...
[4]: https://www.f35.com/f35/global-enterprise/denmark.html
[5]: https://www.nrk.no/trondelag/luftfartssjefen-vil-ha-felles-n...
Heck they were figuring out how to operate in Thule this month.
But yeah, seems like it's definitely not an issue these days.
[1]: https://www.f35.com/f35/news-and-features/north-to-the-futur...
[2]: https://alaskapublic.org/2023/01/23/the-air-force-is-swappin...
Because those weren't the deciding factors. Cost and maintainability were. (It's implied that the planes were close enough in capability that the "gate checks" were just that. Gates. Not goals.)
Finland didn't want to end up with another Betamax fleet.
I think it's the other way around. Technically, the F-35 has been superior all along, but it used to be expensive.
Now, with the cost coming down, the reason NOT to pick it went away.
The question is how they are going to be used in practice, with everything that entails. The decision also includes a gamble on how the platform develops in the future, and how adversary's capabilities develop.
This is a NATO buy in.
If a country’s Air Force is getting in fair fights, I’d suspect either they are in pretty dire circumstances, or they have some questionable decision making going on!
Also, the data would be from simulations. Outside of Ukraine, there haven't been many fighters of advanced nations shot down in decades.
The topic of "spectral stealth" is complicated. It is vulnerable to systems of networked radars, among other things. It is one feature that may be very useful, but it is not a "panacea".
There is little to suggest that the Israeli F-35 was taken down by a missile; the sources involved are not especially credible. Eurasia Times, for example, is basically Russia Today (RT) and is not really trustworthy. Most of the posts elsewhere, e.g. Quora, are from questionable accounts and aren't credible either.
It's possible it happened and they're spinning it as something birds -- which is pretty lame and damning if true -- but most of the pro-shot-down points are difficult to take seriously.
If true, I don't think it necessarily presents the F-35 poorly. But it's only a rumour. And if true, it most likely would be classified as secret, since reporting it would be like handing the enemy a damage assessment report.
Terrain maps beyond a certain resolution are classified. As I remember, the somewhat lower resolution terrain maps were still ITAR controlled munitions. Some of the radio propagation models are classified.
Even half-way decent simulation outputs are likely also classified.
In my case, for the most part, the simulations were used to shorten the turnaround time in the early prototyping stages, and also a fair amount for the sales team to sell military hardware to governments.
And yes, you spent your money with friendly nations.