What fighter plane do you think Romania should use?

Hadrian, I 100% agree with 24 fighters is far to few to defend Romania! Even 48 was too few!

Dead-Cat the US is not selling anyone New F-16's for under 10 million, 24 AT-6b Texans light attack/trianers.

Obama Okays F-16 weapon systems for Morocco
Tuesday, September 15, 2009

WASHINGTON — The United States has been advancing Morocco's first F-16 multi-role fighter program.

The administration of President Barack Obama has approved a Moroccan request for support equipment for the F-16 program. In 2008, Morocco ordered 24 F-16 Block 52+ fighters in a $2.4 billion deal.

Under the latest Moroccan request, Rabat has sought support equipment and weaponry for the F-16 C/D Block 50/52. Officials said the cost of the Moroccan request was estimated at $187 million.

"Delivery of these weapon system will greatly enhance Morocco's interoperability with the U.S. and other NATO nations, making it a more valuable partner in an increasingly important area of the world," the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said.

In a Sept. 9 statement, the Pentagon agency identified the F-16 weapons as the Maverick missile, Paveway-2 and Vulcan. Morocco has requested 20 Maverick air-to-ground, or AGM-65D, missiles as well as eight training missiles.

The Obama administration has also approved Rabat's request for 60 enhanced GBU-12 Paveway-2 kits and 28 M-61 20 mm Vulcan cannons. Morocco also wants to install communications, air combat pods, targeting pods, ground stations, night-vision goggles, joint mission planning systems and radar-warning receivers.

"The proposed sale will allow the Moroccan Air Force to modernize its aging fighter inventory, thereby enabling Morocco to support both its own air defense needs and coalition operations," DSCA said. "Morocco is one of the most stable and pro-Western of the Arab states, and the U.S. remains committed to a long-term relationship with Morocco."

The contractors in the proposed project were identified as Lockheed Martin, BAE, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and L-3 Communications. Officials said the deal would not include offsets.

"Implementation of this sale will not require the assignment of any additional U.S. government personnel or contractor representatives to Morocco," DSCA said.


source: http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribun ... _09_15.asp

2.4 billion is the entire system cost, which contains training, equipment, base modernization and everything.
i was talking about airframe cost.

even the F-15E is "only" 31 million flyaway.
F-16 was designed as a cheap aircraft.

Hadrian, I 100% agree with 24 fighters is far to few to defend Romania! Even 48 was too few!

Well an army of 75,000 and 2 squadrons of jets is something fit for Switzerland or maybe Belgium, not to a large country that borders Ukraine.

But let us not forget that no foreign country is or should be interested in making Romania strong. Quite the contrary.

Take 2.4 billion dollars and divide by 24 F-16's, you get 100 million per Falcon! Who cares what percent of that is fly away cost, thats a rip-off! Like I said fly away is currently around 50-60 per F-16 block 50/52, more for block 60+!
Also not everything b/c they have sense placed 3 more orders worth some 600 mil. just to arm there 24 F-16's. That brings the total cost up to 125 mil per F-16!

Even if I believed wikipedia, the 31 mil. for F-15E was in 1998! did you notice the price in 2006 was 100 mil. for the F-15K. So in 2009 if Romania wannted to by F-15E's it would likely cost around 120-130 per F-15 fly away! around 200 mil per f-15 total!

You are right that the F-16 was designed to relatively cheap, however that was 30 years ago, and the block 50/52, 60 have little in common with origenal F-16!

This post has been edited by Stephen Dabapuscu on September 22, 2009 09:21 pm

Hadrian, I 100% agree with 24 fighters is far to few to defend Romania! Even 48 was too few!

Well an army of 75,000 and 2 squadrons of jets is something fit for Switzerland or maybe Belgium, not to a large country that borders Ukraine.

But let us not forget that no foreign country is or should be interested in making Romania strong. Quite the contrary.

I agree with you that, Romania needs a far stronger military, other countries even including Russia; are more then willing sell us weapons. Our leadership can't decide what wants to purchase! Romania is not the country under-defended look at Hungary, Czech Republic and Bulgaria! And for that matter all of Europe! If Russians so wish, and the US was tied down elsewhere; Russia could conquer all of Europe in 4-6 weeks!

Thank You

because this is how you compare aiframe costs. some countries might already have some, or all, the infrastructure and training included in the entire system cost, others might not.

you might want to source the 50-60 million respectively 90-100 million then.
what i said was: the F-16 was developed as a lower cost aircraft compared to other platforms in the US.
i did notice that the F-15K is close to 130 million. however, tat is the USD from 2006 vs. the USD from 1998. also, the F-15K is not the F-15E, as it contains many improvements over the F-15E.
i brought the F-15E as comparision, to show the airframe cost of an aircraft without the low cost approach in mind.

"our" program was supposed to cost 4.5 billion btw. (for 48 aircraft), which would also come close to 90-100 million/aircraft, but as i said before, the largest part of this sum goes into training, equipment, base modification and such.

the first part of the deal offered to "us" were 24 F-16 C/D refurbished airframes at no cost, which would be modernized for about 20 million apiece by companies selected by the US gov.
i'm having a hard time seeing the advantageous side of this deal (for us) apart from the fact that "we" finally get new(er) hardware.
i am also aware, that the price contains a certain degree of "politics".
with that in mind, compared to what sort of deals other countries got, despite the fact that they (Morrocco) are no NATO members, i wonder whether "we" actually get the best we could from this relationship (with the US).

one thing is the cost, the other is the "decisionmaking process" (and i'm struggling not to laugh while typing that expression) to bring this deal to a conclusion.

the good part is, that a deal is being made. however, it seems to be far from being a good one (for "us"), if the figures quoted in the press are even aproximately correct.

because this is how you compare aiframe costs. some countries might already have some, or all, the infrastructure and training included in the entire system cost, others might not.

you might want to source the 50-60 million respectively 90-100 million then.
what i said was: the F-16 was developed as a lower cost aircraft compared to other platforms in the US.
i did notice that the F-15K is close to 130 million. however, tat is the USD from 2006 vs. the USD from 1998. also, the F-15K is not the F-15E, as it contains many improvements over the F-15E.
i brought the F-15E as comparision, to show the airframe cost of an aircraft without the low cost approach in mind.

"our" program was supposed to cost 4.5 billion btw. (for 48 aircraft), which would also come close to 90-100 million/aircraft, but as i said before, the largest part of this sum goes into training, equipment, base modification and such.

the first part of the deal offered to "us" were 24 F-16 C/D refurbished airframes at no cost, which would be modernized for about 20 million apiece by companies selected by the US gov.
i'm having a hard time seeing the advantageous side of this deal (for us) apart from the fact that "we" finally get new(er) hardware.
i am also aware, that the price contains a certain degree of "politics".
with that in mind, compared to what sort of deals other countries got, despite the fact that they (Morrocco) are no NATO members, i wonder whether "we" actually get the best we could from this relationship (with the US).

one thing is the cost, the other is the "decisionmaking process" (and i'm struggling not to laugh while typing that expression) to bring this deal to a conclusion.

the good part is, that a deal is being made. however, it seems to be far from being a good one (for "us"), if the figures quoted in the press are even aproximately correct.

You don't get it, stop with the 1998 prices, a F-15K is not a 100 million better equipped then a F-15E! the increase is do mostly to inflation. In 1998 gas in the US was at times under a dollar per gallon, now its over 3 dollars a gollon! understand?
I herd quote 50-60 quoted many times, not gonna list them all. Anyhow the point is that Romania would have spend at 100 a plane for new build f-16 's block 50/52. And not all other costs are equal for example a Refale costs 90-100 million, but includes many things such as armament, pilot training, simulators, spare parts, offsets, and licenses

This post has been edited by Stephen Dabapuscu on September 22, 2009 10:40 pm

And some offset, of course...
In the end, the spent moneys go to create jobs...

This post has been edited by Hadrian on September 22, 2009 10:37 pm

You are right offsets are very important as they create jobs, improve the economy and transfer technology!

i guess i know myself when to stop or not. i suggest reading into the diffrences of F-15E and K version and also my typing. i also said the price difference is made of both factors. USD and equipment.

if you heared the 50-60 million quote so many times, certainly it won't be a problem to source 1 or 2, would it?

Why do bother ? This country does not belong to romanians anny more . This subjets are for the past time. And nobody listen what we have to say . More important for who decide what to buy is their commission or what`s for them in this bussines. It happend befor it will happen again. Sorry for off.
Still to be on topic I think we shoud have our own aircraft. An IAR 95 with improved design and licence built engine. Electronics are available from manny today .Remember ww2 .

As an interesting note to what Ovichelu said, when Estonia left the USSR and declared its sovereignty it did it by saying that from then on Estonian laws have supremacy over the Union's laws. Today in Romania the EU laws have supremacy over national laws! Add to that the fact that somewhere around approximately 80% of Romanian legislation is EU legislation and you get the picture.

Wow. Its a sad world when aircraft acquisition becomes such a circus. It should be simple, we need this amount of X aircraft, we are not willing to pay more than this X amount, so what can you do for us Mr. Aircraft company.

Don't feel bad though, it is not simple or rooted in common sense in the U.S. either. We always have to have the most expensive, super awesome, planes that can shoot lasers and has all the bells and whistles, oh and looks cooler than all the other worlds' planes. I can just see the air force and Navy brass drooling at the mouth when they see the newest F-35, F-22 or whatever super plane comes next. Why can't we just build a simple fighter that can shoot down another fighter? My government wastes so much money on so many unneeded things its not even funny. Nobody it the U.S. seems to remember that ancient Rome and the U.S.S.R bankrupted themselves because of their military. I know that's a broad statement but I could see so many more uses for that wasted money.

Even our public schools lack the money they need at times. Just for once I'd like to see the Air Force have to hold a bake sale to buy new planes.

Just one example, the F-20 Tigershark cost only $8 million, and would consume 53% less fuel, required 52% less maintenance manpower, had 63% lower operating and maintenance costs and had four times the reliability of average front-line designs of the era, but did they choose it? Of course not! The F-16 was newer and way "cooler".

The F-20 should have been kept to provide modern fighters for US allies, but the air force did not promote it at all. There's actually an interesting story of how the F-16 was favored instead, for no reason!

The F-5 Tiger II filled this role well, costing only $2 million new, but the last one built was in 1987 and eventually it will be outdated. Some new upgraded models have BVR capability, but top speed is only 1,083 mph. That's not too bad against most fighters because it is very maneuverable and it has been able to defeat MiG-21s and similar planes, but against a 1,450+ mph aircraft it is too slow. Still though, many nations love their F-5s and hundreds are serving proudly all around the world. Taiwan built 300+ and even designed their own fighter from it.

Too bad the F-20 is not produced, and Romania could not buy it, it would have suited you very well. Fast, BVR capability, low cost, and you could have bought 100 of them for only $800 million! Hell you could have bought 250 of them with the current procurement program!

Ok, enough off-topic rants for today.

This post has been edited by PanzerKing on September 23, 2009 06:50 pm

It's a circus because arms sales are not an issue of affordability alone, it's more about politics and strategic considerations. I'm sure we can afford a lot of things. But the US won't sell us hundreds of fighters, tanks and missiles even if we can afford it. Nobody out there will ever try to make Romania a big military player. On the contrary. You can also look at Iran's case. I'm sure it can afford a lot of stuff from Russia but it has a hard time getting small deals signed and delivered.

Now the conclusion is up to us. Either our politicians are really clueless "dudes" unable to make up their mind and sign a deal after 3 or 4 years of thinking or the deal is stuck somewhere upstream in the US or EU, for strange reasons that are undoubtedly the subject of conspiracy theories.