Belgium F-16 replacement update

At some point in time, Belgium will replace there F-16s.

The RFI was sent to these five parties:

The Joint Program Office (JPO) in charge of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II program; the Navy Integrated Program Office (NIPO) for the Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornet; the Directorate General of Armaments (DGA) of the French Ministry of Defence for the Dassault Rafale; the Swedish Defence and Security Export Agency (FXM) for the Saab JAS-39 Gripen and the UK Ministry of Defence for the Eurofighter Typhoon.

Planning stands that these talks will take the entire latter part of 2014 and a large part of 2015 with the Belgian DoD planning to make the internal assessment of all proposals in 2016 and request for a formal LOI that would make a government decision possible in 2018. This way the new aircraft would find its way to the Belgian Air Force starting in 2023.

It will be interesting to see what kind of a competition this will be. I suggest a full-blown fly-off in addition to the desk-study. If it is a true competition, the F-35 is in trouble. It does not have the capability. It does not have the affordability. These limitations can't be fixed by upgrades.

Also interesting is the fact that when you are a JSF Partner Nation (Belgium is not), you are cowed/bullied to do everything to avoid an honest competition. Both by foreign interests, and your own countrymen.



Let us hope that the requirement is not rigged so as to describe an F-35 along with the use of the dishonest term: "fifth-generation fighter".



H/T- www.f-16.net


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-Time's Battleland - 5 Part series on F-35 procurement - 2013 
-Summary of Air Power Australia F-35 points
-Bill Sweetman, Aviation Week and the F-35
-U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO) F-35 reports
-F-35 JSF: Cold War Anachronism Without a Mission
-History of F-35 Production Cuts
-Looking at the three Japan contenders (maneuverability)
-How the Canadian DND misleads the public about the F-35
-Value of STOVL F-35B over-hyped
-Cuckoo in the nest--U.S. DOD DOT&E F-35 report is out
-6 Feb 2012 Letter from SASC to DOD boss Panetta questioning the decision to lift probation on the F-35B STOVL.
-USAFs F-35 procurement plan is not believable
-December 2011 Australia/Canada Brief
-F-35 Key Performance Perimeters (KPP) and Feb 2012 CRS report
-F-35 DOD Select Acquisition Report (SAR) FY2012
-Release of F-35 2012 test report card shows continued waste on a dud program
-Australian Defence answers serious F-35 project concerns with "so what?"
-Land of the Lost (production cut history update March 2013)
-Outgoing LM F-35 program boss admits to flawed weight assumptions (March 2013)
-A look at the F-35 program's astro-turfing
-F-35 and F-16 cost per flying hour
-Is this aircraft worth over $51B of USMC tac-air funding?
-Combat radius and altitude, A model
-F-35A, noise abatement and airfields and the USAF
-Deceptive marketing practice: F-35 blocks
-The concurrency fraud
-The dung beetle's "it's known" lie
-F-35's air-to-air ability limited
-F-35 Blocks--2006 and today
-The F-35B design is leaking fuel
-F-35 deliveries
-ADF's wacky F-35 assumptions
-Gauging performance, the 2008 F-35, Davis dream brief
-Aboriginal brought out as a prop
-Super Kendall's F-35 problem
-LM sales force in pre-Internet era