Lost Brazil order raises threat to Boeing fighter jets | Hacker News Reader

Lost Brazil order raises threat to Boeing fighter jets

reuters.com

51 pointsgeekfactor41 comments

There's also a related issue of the F-35, where the US isn't sharing the source code with partner countries. There's always the delightful possibility that your country and the US get into a tiff, or a competitor country is smart enough to reverse-engineer it, and suddenly your very expensive air force stops working. Makes it very difficult to justify pouring money into an increasingly expensive program.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/11/25/us-lockheed-fighte...

> reverse-engineer it

Or bribes to get the command

If you get into a "tiff" with the US where you need F-35 fighters, you have more urgent troubles than these Fighters being unreliable...

That's not the point. You are assuming the fighters are only for use against the US.

There is the possibility of Brazil (or any other country that has bought F-35s) getting into a diplomatic tiff with the US, losing access to their fighters because of it, and then being unable to use them for standard training exercises or boarder enforcement against neighboring countries.

Having your fighter fleet grounded would be "disappointing" in far more situations than "is in a hot war with the US".

Aha, and then what other country would they use that ability in support of? Cuba? Venezuela? Bolivia? Also they would probably take a near-total hit on their weapons export bussiness...

You don't need to be fighting with the US. Say you're Greece, and you're fighting with Turkey. Or Iraq vs. Saudi Arabia.

The US picks the winners.

Don't they always?

The password is 00000000000

Somewhat interesting read for people unaware of the reference: http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/11/nearly-two-d...

This is what happened in the new Battlestar Galactica.

Bad job to not win a deal despite having access to all your prospect's internal communications.

Double edged sword. Once your prospect learns with virtual certainty that you have access to all their internal communications, the prospect must assume that they are your bitch, regardless of how good the deal may appear.

They may also feel they've been treated more like an adversary or enemy than a potential trading partner.

If I learned that the Ford dealer had been looking in my bank account to adjust their negotiations, I'd walk.

I hadn't thought of that. I wonder how it'll affect the Transatlantic Trade deal or the TPP.

The article acts like there's a chance that Boeing is in serious trouble, but the US government has programs to prevent the loss of defense manufacturing capabilities.

The status quo is, if a product is not needed in the US, but the manufacturing base to produce it is, to cover a potential major conflict, then the US sends foreign aid to another nation, who in return agree to buy our defense products. In the end, the government just wrote a direct check to a defense contractor to build a weapon for someone else, who probably didn't need it, but it shakes out as being 'foreign aid.' For a good example of this, check out how many tanks the Egyptian government has.

NPR's Planet Money podcast had a great episode about Egypt and all their extra tanks and jets that they get paid to buy. http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/08/23/214928040/episode-...

The F/A-18 has an old airframe, and is outclassed by every modern Russian and European plane... The only reason any of them sell is the US' political clout.

Technically, the Super Hornet airframe is quite new. While certainly a development out of the older Hornet platforms, its fair to say that aerodynamically anyways, the Super Hornet has a pretty recent (development started in early 90s) airframe.

Further, it lost its bid to the Gripen, which is approximately as old as the Super Hornet (airframe-wise anyways).

You are right to say that the Super-Hornet is outclassed in a huge variety of roles by modern planes from every country, but those are hardly the only considerations. As you say, political clout is important, but it's not just an American thing.

[1] is the leaked report for the Swiss Air Force from their procedurement program between the Gripen, Eurofighter, and Rafale. In summary, the Rafale was the clear winner by all metrics. The Swiss went with the Gripen. We don't have a leaked report on how -that- came to be, but likely a combination of realizing that they don't in fact need the best possible platform (likely what Brazil did as well... their final three airframes were the Gripen, Rafale, and Super Hornet, and I cannot believe that the Super Hornet can do anything better than the Eurofighter (or the Rafale)), and some political maneuvering.

[1] http://files.newsnetz.ch/upload//1/2/12332.pdf

The Gripen has some unique advantages. It's ease of operating, servicing, and STOL capability allows it to be deployed from just about anywhere - you can land it on a forest road, service it, and it can take off from a very short runway again. And it still has great performance.

It's really the perfect fighter for Switzerland - a country which doesn't really need a 2-engine fighter. The Rafale's main advantages are range and payload, which does nothing for a small country whose only need is self-defence...

Agreed. The reason I put that example in there was to point out that airframe performance is not the only axis by which fighters can be measured, and there could be reasons unrelated to US political pressure that a country would purchase a Super Hornet over more modern platforms.

Which is the main issue with Brazil's choice of the Gripen -- range. Brazil is huge, larger than the US's lower 48. From this point of view, the Rafale was a clear winner.

The BIG reasons seem to be the transfer of technology and the fact that Sweden hasn't any presence or interests in South America or South Pacific, while France and USA certainly do. So, with the Swedish fighter they have no strings attached.

You just have to deploy them wisely. Brazil is buying 35 jets now but the expectation is we'll buy 120. You don't have to station them all in one place.

This is highly misleading. Avionics and SW play a very critical role, and many "old airframes" are suprisingly capable in the right hands. "Outclassed" is also irrelevant in many actual theatres of conflict. Very few military forces can afford to field, not to mention, lose in combat, the types of planes that "outclass" the F/A 18. So maintaining a local air-superiority quickly gets into questions of mobility and sustained localized logistics. When considering carrier-based planes in particular...its irrelevant if you have planes but not carrier battlegroups. Just look at the UK. The airframe is only one part of projecting the force for a modern war.

This is true. But in every 'performance' metric the Rafale wins, in every 'maintainability' metric the Gripen wins. The Gripen is the easiest to service, to put into action (STOL capability), the most affordable, while having advanced avionics and great performance.

The Rafale and the Gripen? The difference in performance between most the Cat-4 aircraft is minor. And are we talking about performance in BVR or WVR. In a dogfight an F22 will fall to a hornet with 9x and HMCS. But are dogfights even relevant. I know Topgun loves to spend billions of taxpayers dollars on it, but the reality is BVR is where any air war will be won and lost. And any cat-4 is going to fall to an invisible cat-5 aircraft. And missiles, radar, ea, etc. matter so much more than the differences in performance. Sure it’s nice to cap in the stratosphere and turn on a dime but that’s not going to win the fight. But is the best strategy expensive super planes or cheap missile trucks and drones? Perhaps cheaper aircraft designed for the various missions: Strike, Air to Air, Close Air Support, Electronic Attack…? Maybe Patriots or SA-20s or some other SA options? Outside of a few countries these questions hardly matter as the purchase of planes is more a vanity project then anything else. Sure, buy a Gripen or Rafale and have fun flying circles in the sky or use plane purchases for political statements, but I wouldn’t ask people to believe either of these planes is a key part of their countries defense strategy.

Brazil has no war to fight, doesn't plan to start one and usually does everything to avoid it at all. When we get involved we usually send parachutists and medical staff. So all the technical details aside, our air force really wants something that will allow them to patrol the borders and not cost a arm and leg to service when it breaks (otherwise it'll become a skeleton in the parking lot).

The f/a 18 has weaknesses but technical capability isn't one of them. It has the best production radar and mult-role capability of any fighter in the world. It doesn't need upgrades down the road to integrate new weapon systems or perform precision ground attack(looking at you eurofighter) it does it already.

As for political clout the main risk of purchasing a fighter that doesn't have a large primary user is the risk that new capabilities won't become available as they are developed. That simply doesn't exist and explains the f-35s and f/a-18 attractiveness.

It sounds nice to blame the NSA, but Brazil was unlikely to buy the Boeing jets anyway. Richard Aboulafia wrote about this, how the Brazilian Air Force budget changes with economic times, their needs and lack of prior history with the more complex (and expensive) jets:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardaboulafia/2013/12/19/braz...

I actually read that Boeing was in the lead for winning this contract before, but I don't remember the source.

They were by some accounts, but others (in the Air Force?) were in favor of the less technologically complex Saab.

My perception from reading the Brazilian newspapers about this topic since it surfaced: we wanted the advanced Rafale but couldn't pay, Gripen wasn't perfect but it was a bargain so.. Boeing was in the lead because it was advanced and the price wasn't too bad (transferring technology would be good and was still being negotiated).... and then the NSA thing happened. Next thing we heard was our government decided to go with the Gripen.

I think the conspiracy theories will go on for a while but in the end the NSA scandal really changed the final outcome.

Personally, I think Brazil did a good thing choosing the Gripen. We don't have a history of participating actively in wars (besides, we usually send medical staff instead). Our main concern is the borders and people smuggling drugs.. Gripen, F-35, Rafale.. any of those would serve the purpose very well. It's not like Brazil is planning to use the jets for anything huge like going to war... unlike the US.

Yes, anything at all would have worked since those planes are only meant to keep neighboring countries and drug smugglers minimally in check, so the choice was 100% political. It is pretty clear though that the government was going to award the contract to Boeing for political reasons, which was going to align nicely with the state visit to the US.

Then the NSA thing happened, the state visit didn't happen and some people in Sweden will forever thank the US government, since keeping logs of Brazilians chatting about TV celebrities and football was somehow worth losing 4.5 billion dollars to them.

I remember this but I don't think that the F/A 18 was ever a serious contender. However:

The government may have 'leaked' to some in the media that the deal was going to be for F/A 18s purely as a negotiating tactic with their preferred suppliers.

At some stage Boeing may have said the deal was as good as done. This would have enabled them to impress other buyers and their own shareholders.

Ultimately though, the SAAB plane was a better deal, easier to maintain, with technology transfer and perfectly suited to the needs of Brazil. Whereas the F/A 18 was 'better at dogfights' (which haven't happened since the 1960's) and the French bid was expensive.

The deal is not actually a bad one for USA Inc. as the avionics on the SAAB are mostly American.

Makes me wonder why the US is so cavalier about selling top end warplanes to weird foreign countries like Saudi Arabia. Perhaps it's because they can't stand up to unmanned aircraft.

Global Issues has an interesting article with some good linked resources on how much money is spent and by whom.

http://www.globalissues.org/article/74/the-arms-trade-is-big...

>The deal is not actually a bad one for USA Inc. as the avionics on the SAAB are mostly American.

For this jet, only the engine are from USA

http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2013/12/1388826-saab-quer...

IIRC, the previous Brazilian president (Lula da Silva) wanted/advocated for the Rafale, so as to strengthen relations with France / Sarkozy.

After Lula left, the competition become more about cheapness and transfer of technology.

The intention was to announce the win for Boeing at the state visit that was cancelled.

The only thing the gripen has going for it is price. The F/A-18 is a far superior aircraft and the only hold up was the technology transfer that finally met Brazil's concerns.

Not a good time for Boeing with the whole South Korea fiasco. I am really not fond of the US government picking the same company for both the F-35 and F-22. Of course, I still don't think the the F-35 specification was a good idea in the first place.

[edit] To explain how weird the world is, here is a agreement between Boeing and Saab http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article-xml/AW_...

Its fascinating how British decryption of French diplomatic cables, which gave them deep insight into de Gaulle's position on Britain's entry to the Common Market, didn't give them a way to stop him then either. (Source: Spycatcher by Wright)

Reading the mail of those you negotiate with doesn't always give you a sure bet.

> Brazilian Air Force Commander

> Writing on an iPhone

There is still some progress to do.

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