Global fighter aircraft market heats up

By Jim Wolf
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With the game-changing F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft in early production stages, rival manufacturers are racing against time.
The F-35 may be regarded almost as much as an industrial and coalition-building policy as a warplane made by Lockheed Martin Corp, the Pentagon's No. 1 supplier by sales and the world's largest aerospace company.
It is a projected trillion-dollar enterprise designed to dominate the lucrative global fighter market for decades while plugging its buyers into U.S.-built defense architecture and cementing U.S.-led alliances.
Unlike Lockheed's premier F-22 fighter, which flies faster, and higher and can range further, the radar-evading F-35 was intended for export from the get-go. It will be the first radar-evading, "stealth" U.S. warplane to be exported. And it is the costliest planned acquisition in Defense Department history.
The United States alone plans to spend nearly $300 billion for a total of 2,443 F-35s in three models to be delivered over 28 years. All are derived from a common design and would use the same sustainment infrastructure worldwide.
"The plan has firmed up" with no defections among foreign development partners, says Richard Aboulafia, a fighter-market expert at Teal Group, an aerospace consultancy in Fairfax, Virginia.
The F-35 is co-financed by the United States, Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, Canada, Australia, Denmark and Norway. All the U.S. partners appear to be largely sticking to plans to buy a combined 750 F-35s, at least for now.
F-35 competitors include the Saab AB Gripen, the Dassault Aviation SA' Rafale, Russia's MiG-35 and Sukhoi Su-35, and the Eurofighter Typhoon made by a consortium of British, German, Italian and Spanish companies.
Dassault has been pitching its Rafale to the United Arab Emirates in what would be the first overseas sale of the aircraft.
Brazil has short-listed the Rafale, Gripen and Boeing Co F-18E/F Super Hornet as finalists in a competition that could involve the purchase of more than 100 aircraft.
Next month, India is due to start year-long flight evaluations for the purchase of 126 multi-role fighters worth up to $10.4 billion, the biggest such market in decades. Indonesia and Malaysia are weighing Russian-made Sukhois. Switzerland is looking at the Eurofighter, Gripen and Rafale. Greece is evaluating the Eurofighter and the Super Hornet.
In India, Boeing is pitting its Super Hornet against Lockheed's F-16, Dassault's Rafale, Saab's Gripen, Russia's MiG-35 and the Eurofighter Typhoon.
Of the Swiss and Indian fighter competitions, Stefan Zoller, chief executive of EADS' defense and security division, told Reuters: "Both campaigns are hot; both campaigns are running exactly on schedule".
Chicago-based Boeing, the Pentagon's No. 2 supplier by sales and the top U.S. exporter, says it sees big opportunities for its F-15 and F/A-18 fighters before Lockheed works out kinks in the F-35, production ramps up and the price goes down.
"It's a great time to be in the fighter business," Bob Gower, the head of Boeing's F/A-18 program, told a briefing ahead of the Paris Air show next week. Continued...
Source: Reuters