JAS 39 or F-16

[solo]

I heard that my country will get JAS 39C/D by 2011.

We already had F-16ADF/A so I want to know which is better.

[Matt308]

JAS 39. A much more modern aircraft. Not in airframe necessarily , but mission avionics, radar and weapons compatibility. Now compare with a Block 60 F-16 and things quickly begin to narrow.

[solo]

.....so you say that it's better than F-16 Block 15 that we have.
( I think that it still compatible to Block 25 F-16C )

[Glider]

I would go for the JAS39 but admit to being a bit of a fan of the Grippen. Avionics are first rate as well as the performance

[Ramirezzz]

I don't think there's any significant difference between the avionics performance of the Block 60 of the 16 and the one of the Grippen.
And I do believe the Grippen is a very specialised aircraft built to serve under specific swedish conditions (short narrow runways for example) at the cost of the general flying performance. If Thailand has no problem with that, it can surely buy it.

[solo]

Is it true that Grippen can land on highway?

[SoD Stitch]

Originally Posted by solo

Is it true that Grippen can land on highway?

Yes, it was designed to do that; in fact, one of the requirements for ALL Swedish ADF's is that they have short-field performance so that they can land on highways during time of war. This is one of the reasons the Draken ended up with a double-delta wing, and one of the reasons why the Viggen has canards and Volvo-designed thrust-reversers; the aeroengineers at Saab were hard-pressed to come up with a short-field capable supersonic aircraft in the '50's when the Draken was designed, but they did it.

I've seen pictures of a Grippen landing on a highway, and it is able to use it's canards as, in effect, air brakes; they will rotate down to about 80 degrees (near vertical), and provide a large aerodynamic braking surface.

[solo]

I didn't know that Grippen can use canards!

[Matt308]

Here is a video of a completely different aircraft undergoing landing trials on rough terrain. Not comparable by ANY means, but technically relevant.

As you can see, landing gear technology and flight control laws allow for some pretty amazing terrain to be landed upon. This is a 40 year old test. Imagine what the JAS39 can do elven with likely almost twice the landing speed. Engineering rules.

YouTube - OV-10 Landing Gear Test

[Glider]

I remember years ago going to a Farnborough airshow in the late 70's. At the time the Harrier was being pushed for sale and all the manufacturers were trying to show that their aircraft could use the least runway to get over the Harriers obvious advantage.
Each aircraft must have started as far back as possible to show they were the best. In the end the Jaguar took a different approach and started from about a third of the way down the runway and took off from the grass. This was pretty impressive but was beaten by the Viggen, which lifted off from the runway at about the half way point, but downwind!!

At the same time they showed on TV the Jaguar operating from a stretch of motorway. Interesting times

[solo]

I see....short take-off&landing can be advantage.
(thank you for video)

[Lucky13]

Swedish aircraft can also and has taken off from frozen lakes during winter manouvers....not something that you're likely to see in Thailand me think...but still....interesting.