What fighter plane do you think Romania should use?

Ask yourself why the israelis want to get rid of them.

good point

This post has been edited by Dan Po on April 20, 2006 09:07 am

A good point would be : how much (money) should Romania take away from really critical areas and shove it to this MINOR ( at the moment ) issue. With the money they have , they can't even buy a dozen Gripen (new of course). And besides that, who's attacking??? Are we (RoAF, of course) requested to fare missions in Afganistan or Iraq? Or even former Yugoslavia (helicopters don't count,that's another subject)???
Is nice and dandy to buy a new car, but then you think, do I have this money? Can I spare? Is it a good idea to buy a new item instead a 2nd hand one (most of the time tuned up) ? These are the questions. Not why Israelis want to get rid of them. Let me tell you why, is because they just aquired 102 F16 Soufas, that's one point. And mantaining an aircraft cost money,not to mention operating it. I wish the best for RoAF, but in the short term (where things are REALLY hurting) , they don't have much options. Fine, buy 6 Gripens + weapons. Some egos will be satisfied, but after 2-5 years we will wake up and realize that our pants are down.Sure, you can rely on NATO, but this was not the point.Otherwise RoAF wouldn't consider buying a decent number of performant aircrafts.Isn't it?

And maintaining those old airframes is going to be more expensive as time goes.

If you (carefully) read my post, you will notice (undoubtely) that I am talking about short term solution(s).We all know (at least what the RoAF made available) that they will buy new airframes. Point is that the Lancer will be phased out.And very shortly!
And one more thing: mantaining old airframes does not add too much to the budget. Tell that to the Iranians for their F14 and F4 fleet. Actually I don't know on what are you basing your assumption,wasn't Mig21 a (very) old airframe? Even older than F16?

How hard will be to restart the IAR 95? It is him too old fot these days or for ROAF needs?

Iama

http://www.adevarulonline.ro/2006-07-26/Ac...ane_192671.html

The signs are pro F-16...

Iama

A sensible decision.But I believe the guess is quite close to reality.It will be F16.Finaly, a wise decision from the Army. Can't believe they realy took their time in evaluating all the options.

Basically,what it says is the fact that there's a new F-16 offer from Lockheed which will also include modernisation of Fetesti AFB.

Story.

One of the few documented article here:

http://www.ziare.ro/articol.php?id=1172721391

In romanian language.

Iama

This article is not only well documented but extremely biased towards SAAB. While I do not deny F16 is a short term solution same can be said about JAS. The article stinks a mile away SAAB marketing. Uber biased.

The Gripen is IMO the best choice for RoAF. The F16 may have a good record, but is old now and Romania will never get the latest avionics anyway.

The Gripen should be leased rather than bought outright unless some good deal on future upgrades is done. Whoever makes the decision needs to justify why buying the planes is more advantageous. Remember, Romania still owns 17/18 MiGs 29 that are rotting at Kogalniceanu AFB... Will the newly bought planes have the same fate 20 yrs from now?

As Romania doesn't produce these planes and is not involved in their production, it doesn't make sense to buy the F16. The Americans may promise to modernise one airbase, but with the Gripen you don't need that! Somebody said the article was biased towards the Gripen. I think the figures will tilt any comparison towards the Gripen! It isn't really fair on F16 to be compared with the Gripen. F16 was a good plane, but the Gripen outclasses it everywhere.

If it has to be American, it is worth considering the FA/18 instead or even the JSF (F-35), but maybe later on in 20 years time... and only if they actively participate in the building one way or another.

For the next 20 years or so the Gripen will do just nicely.

I would not like to see Romania being the last country to buy the F16 just as it is going to be repaced even in USAF.

But as the British frigates experience shows, logical thinking doesn't apply to Romanian authorities.

Another bad choice is the alleged purchase of 100 or so of Hummers. This vehicle cosumes so much fuel it doesn't make sense to be part of Romanian armed forces. What is wrong with Mercedes-Benz G-Class, like most European armies?

And what is going to happen with the competition between Alenia and CASA regarding the transport plane. Will they choose CASA now? After comparing apples with bananas?

If they're going for CASA as transport and F16 as fighter airplanes, the whole RoAF will be messed up with an old and expensive fighter and limited capability to transport armored vechicles by air (in Hercules only). But they will be able to move a couple of Humvees from A to B. That'll help! Not!

Fingers crossed, the next fighter airplane it will be the Gripen and they will see that going for the Alenia's Spartan makes more sense.

Who told you that is old? You do realize that F-16 would be latest blocks number which is bought by many countries (poland greece, Israel, EAU,Singapore, etc).. By no means an old machine. There is not reason to not get latest avioncs.

You have no idea what leased mens? You have no owenership of the planes, you can fly a limited number of hours per years.

What is BS in that crappy article is the price that Poland payed. Well that was for Planes with weapons (and alot of them). None of the contract signed by Czech Rep and Hungary ever mentioned weapons. you will see that the price per plane payed by Czechs is around 65 Mil USD. Not a good deal for a plane that can't do shit, had no integration of the weapons Czech had, no RWR, broke down in flight enroute to Caslav, etc.

Anyway the best choice would be Rafale.

Your arguments don't justify purchasing the F16. OK - it flies further and has US weapons (the Grippen can carry those too btw!). But is more expensive to run, it needs concrete runaways and no matter what, it will not have the same technology like the ones in the USAF service. Does Romania plan to attack China any time soon?!

Paying for F16 now will just allow USA to continue their development of the F22 and the F35 while Romania is showing off their obsolete F16s...

You assume I don't understand what leasing means. Because I understand that, I think is a viable option for Romania. If you read my post again, you will find that I asked what would the plans be in 20 years or so when the planes become obsolete. Will we be looking at them as a static feature on Google Earth - all parked up on some runaway like the MiG 29s? If done correctly - a deal is just a deal and what the Czechs and Hungarians did is their own business - leasing could be better than actually owning the aircraft.

F16, Rafale, F/A18, Typhoon are far too expensive for Romania right now. Even the Harrier may be a better option than F16... Until Romania is involved in some way in the production of a fighter plane, the Gripen is the only logical choice. About the glitches in the Gripen... It still is a new plane so it is bound to have some problems. Last time I heard of F22 - it had computer problems passing the date line on a trip to Japan...

I'll venture to ask whay does Romania need any fighter planes? I would like to see the economy improved in such way that getting the JSF would not be a big deal... but thats just dreaming for now...

This post has been edited by redcooper on March 03, 2007 02:52 pm

We all know Romania will get whatever other countries will feel like throwing in their scrapyard. Regardless if they need them or not. Like the hummers or those old British frigates. Instead of throwing them to the boneyard, they sold them to Romania for full price. Nice
The Gripen would be a good choice, but the politics in Romania are so mest up, it will be a miracle for the people there to make good choices.
I said it before and I'll say it again, there needs to be major changes in the constitution before any good changes can occur.
I mean, we have politicians who believe Russia has an uber weapon that controls weather and Russia is responsible for some of last year's floodings. And we have people who believe the President sent workers to Iraq to spy on the Americans.


I'll go with Russian planes since they are cheap and pretty decent. Compared to their American counterparts.

This post has been edited by Stealth3 on March 04, 2007 03:46 am