The Royal Thai Air Force is considering the acquisition of new fighter aircraft, and favors the Lockheed Martin F-35. Among the arguments, in addition to its advanced technology, it is argued that it has a cheaper acquisition price than the Saab Gripen.
According to the Bangkok Post, Royal Thai Air Force Commander-in-Chief ACM Napadej Dhupatemiya spoke of the need for a new fleet of fighter jets, as the F-5 and F-16 have been in service for more than three decades, and as the aircraft age, maintenance costs and risks to flight safety are likely to increase.
The F-35 Lightning II aircraft, made by U.S. defense giant Lockheed Martin, have become the better option now that costs have come down, as they have dropped to $82 million (2.7 billion baht) each, compared to $142 million for the model when it was first released, ACM Napadej said.
He added that the new Swedish-made Saab Gripen is priced at $85 million per unit, making the Lockheed Martin product more convenient and within the Air Force’s reach. He even stated that, depending on the negotiations, the unit prices of the F-35 can be reduced to a little more than 70 million dollars each.
Comparing recent F-35 prices
The price of USD 82 million per F-35A unit is close to what Lockheed Martin predicted the Lot 12 aircraft will cost. The same was on par with the USD 77.9 million for the Lot 14 aircraft, which is still far from the optimistic USD 70 million mentioned by Commander Napadej Dhupatemiya.
But beyond projections and wishful thinking, we can get a good idea of what the real price of the F-35A is from the Swiss and Finnish contracts.
Switzerland will pay USD 4.029 billion for its 36 F-35A Block 4s, giving an individual cost of almost USD 112 million for each aircraft.
Finland, on the other hand, will pay an acquisition price of USD 5,349 million for 64 aircraft (also F-35A Block 4), just over USD 83 million per unit.
The difference in price between what Switzerland and Finland are paying for their F-35s may be due to the number of aircraft purchased and the financing conditions. In both contracts, the published cost refers to the cost of the aircraft purchase, separate from the price of the armament package or the logistics and support package.
It seems unlikely that Thailand will get better purchase conditions than Switzerland or Finland, for so few units. Furthermore, the US has not yet sell even one F-35 to a country that is not a staunch ally (Japan, S. Korea, Australia or Israel) or outside Europe.
Why compare with the Gripen?
The Saab Gripen E/F is a modern and capable light fighter, generally considered to be one of the most economical exponents within the 4.5 generation combat aircraft. Unfortunately there is no up-to-date, publicly available information regarding the purchase price of a Gripen E, but USD 85 million is a number repeated on various websites, and it sounds reasonable.
What we do know a little more about is the cost per flight hour, which is around $8,000. The USAF establishes a current cost per flight hour for its fleet of F-35As at $33,300, or slightly less. Therefore, compared to future F-35 lots, the Gripen would have slightly higher purchase price, but significantly lower flight hour costs.
However, both the Swiss and Finnish authorities argued that the F-35 was the best cost/benefit investment, if its full life-cycle economics were taken into account.
In fact, the Finnish Government’s report on the HX competition, where Girpen E participated and Lightning II won, states that no bid was significantly less expensive than others in terms of operation and maintenance costs.
Not only F-35 but also Loyal Wingman
Commander-in-Chief Napadej said the Air Force is also interested in the latest modern air warfare technologies, especially those involving the Loyal Wingman, an unmanned combat air vehicle.
Developed by the Royal Australian Air Force and Boeing, the unmanned aircraft flies teamed with other piloted aircraft to provide support and can be equipped with different weapons and sensors.
«We don’t need a full fleet of F-35 aircraft. We can use only eight to 12 and use drones to fly alongside manned aircraft.» «This will help save costs. This is relatively new, but these technologies are likely to develop quickly» commented ACM Napadej.
Under the plan, the new fighters will be deployed from the Nakhon Ratchasima-based 1 Wing, from which F-16A/B aircraft currently operate.
Are you stupid a saab gripen is priced anywhere from 30 to 60 mill and has rhe lowrst operational cost of any modern fighter. Donr waste your money thai from a problematic plane
Saab is by far!!!!! Cheaper!!!. Anybody with experience in the defence market knows that the acquisition cost is just about 30% of the total cost to sustain a fleet long term. For that reason the operational costs are the ones that drive your question. If you really want to write something, at least do it with the right info.
Saab cheaper by 20 millions…. 61M for the saab and 82M for the F-35. The operationnal cost of Saab 4,700dollars and F-35 33000 dollars. Oh yes this propanganda article is just garbage…. It is not even journalism it is a garbage.
I dont even mention the problems in the actual F-35 that can shoot itself, that cant be operated in a cold weather etc. Etc.
So yes big garbage
Amazing on how childish and less than factual people ramble on about a platform designed for combat operational dominance.
The Saab gripen is a » lightweight fighter»- it does NOT have the ability to Penetrate enemy radar defense networks nor does it have the sensor ability of the F-35.
Too many look at » video game» and outdated tactics to judge fighter aircraft. In a REAL world combat scenario the Gripen would most not detect a F-35 until fired upon by the F-35 and the hit to kill probability would go against the Gripen.
The Thai Air Force also has to contend with potential threats from the Chinese who use potent J-11 air superiority fighters, will deploy their own stealth J-20
Open facts are clear: Gripen E have more capability than F-35 A, superiour sensor capability and better connectivity. It is made for operations inside enemy air defence zones. It is made to avoid detection from radar, visual and infrared light. American propaganda lies are just that. Facts is as i write.
With all due respect, Thailand might not be a reliable enough defense partner for the F-35. This is not an indictment of the Thai people. One simply has to question Beijing’s ability to insert itself into Thai politics and defense. Gripen E should be more than enough for Thailand, but please, don’t compare its ability to that of the F-35. That quantum leap in air dominance, enemy airspace penatration electronic warfare etc, etc, make it every bit as cost effective and more so than Gripen e.
It may be necessary to mandate that a Thai F-35 fleet carry less sophisticated sensors – aka, maybe not get to have the AN/APG-81 radar to make sure the Chinese can’t get at such capabilities through espionage.
Cheaper for the aircraft, but unless they’ll fly clean (no pods/ECM, internal to the F35) then it’s much closer.
Gripen e has the arexis system integrated. GaN based ew/ecm. Arexis pod for gripen e is for dedicated ew/ea roles thanks to higher output.
Mira a todos estos fanboys del Gripen llorando por su chatarra de Saab … el F-35 es un caza de quinta generación, mucho más superior al Saab Gripen E, independientemente del precio … que el F-35 sea más barato es solo una ventaja adicional…
Saab offered 64 gripen e and two global eye to the finns. So the unit price for the gripen e is likely way lower then that of the f 35’s. Global eye ain’t cheap.
1st: Thailand can’t buy more of any kind of Gripens at the moment, since the country is a Military Dictatorship.
Sweden will not sell until democracy is restored in Thailand. (Good for Thai people)
2nd. They can’t even afford to buy new Gripen C/Ds, so how could they afford the Gripen E or the F-35?
But all that said:
The Thai Military deserves the F-35, let them buy as many as they want. (Bad for the Thai people, though)
Will be fun to see them try to intergrate it to the existing Thailink system.
LOL