Forget about the F-35, countries should be buying Saab’s Gripen fighter jet

[randomradio]

Gripen is extremely expensive for what it offers. At best, its flyaway cost must be no more than $40 million.

Unit costs of all aircraft will be quite similar. All fighter aircraft have one radar, one EW suite, one or two engines, a smaller or larger airframe etc, so unit costs will be quite similar if the equipment is made in similarly rich countries with similar labour costs, with slight differences depending on engine and airframe.

What matters is the operations cost, which is primarily dependent on how many engines the aircraft has and the size of the airframe, which means less complexity and less fuel and maintenance costs.

Since operations costs are generally 2x the unit cost, you want to focus more on operations cost.

 

[Viking 63]

All said and done its not a bad fighter.

 

[A.P. Richelieu]

Unit costs of all aircraft will be quite similar. All fighter aircraft have one radar, one EW suite, one or two engines, a smaller or larger airframe etc, so unit costs will be quite similar if the equipment is made in similarly rich countries with similar labour costs, with slight differences depending on engine and airframe.

What matters is the operations cost, which is primarily dependent on how many engines the aircraft has and the size of the airframe, which means less complexity and less fuel and maintenance costs.

Since operations costs are generally 2x the unit cost, you want to focus more on operations cost.

So far about 100 has been ordered.
Development cost = 2B$.
Just to recoup the development cost, you get an adder of $20M per aircraft.
Obviously if the orders are doubled, the adder is halfed.

 

[rcrmj]

its a decent fighter, has its own kicks, but still too expensive for the package
its ideal customer would be a relatively rich small country, that does not have serious and imminent threat from neibouring countries.