Is it cost effective to keep 3rd generation combat aircraft?

[helmutkohl]

The F-15EX thread got me thinking about aircraft generation and cost effectiveness
For example a lot of 5th gen aircraft are expensive to acquire, expensive to maintain (at the time), and require more infrastructure and maintenance overall
thus why the F-15EX is being pushed, it could do some other jobs more cheaply.

there are some jobs that people argue don't really need fancy equipment.
routine air patrols, transports, etc.

how about in terms of 3rd gen combat aircraft?
there are still quite a few countries operating them... although it may change when the global situation of spares changes
Do you see them as keeping them for some specific duties, as being more cost effective than moving over to the 4th or 5th gen counterparts?

 

[Deltafan]

I think that, for example, some new trainer and modern light fighter aircraft (like Korea's T/TA/FA-50, Pakistan's JF-17, China's JL-9 and J-7/F-7, US T-7 and further developments, maybe India's LCA, maybe other that I forget ) will be attractive to do the job and replace at relatively low cost the 3rd gen combat aircraft (even if J-7/F-7 are direct derivatives of MiG-21).

But when it comes to countries where even these new models are very expensive, this is probably a waiting solution. But until when ?

 

[Foo Fighter]

It probably depends on the nations involved and the threat they face. Going up against the Chinese air force etc, with third gen aircraft, would be over very quickly imho.

 

[Archibald]

Well we are presently see this. Country X with a decent economy (say, within the 30 richest in the world) wants to defends its airspace.
Well in this case, and according to the budget available, they are (broadly speaking of course) three options
- buy F-35 and become another member into the big worlwide networked coalition
- buy Rafales or Typhoon - not quite stealth but independant from the above
- buy F-16s: end of career, still efficient, 4500 build make them pretty cheap.

It all depends from the country budget and objectives, really.

 

[helmutkohl]

It probably depends on the nations involved and the threat they face. Going up against the Chinese air force etc, with third gen aircraft, would be over very quickly imho.

okay how about these two scenarios

1
lets say its somewhere like Finland or Ireland..
largely peaceful, but occasionally you have to deal with aerial intrusions from another country. bomber or spy aircraft that likely wont bomb you, but need to be escorted out.
in this situation.. would you still try to push for a fleet of expensive types like an F-35 or F-15 to do the interception..
or a mix fleet.. F-35s/F-15s for serious tasks, and maybe F/A-50 Golden Eagles to do the daily routine escorts, and patrols?

2.
Somewhere like South Africa
you have neighbors that do not possess serious aircraft threats
but there may be constant issues with low scale militias /rebels/etc in a border region, equipped with guerilla army type of weapons.

 

[Foo Fighter]

In those scenario's the third gen combat aircraft would be prohibitively expensive to operate even with limited ops. A good trainer with enhanced ability like the Hawk 200 would be more effective. NOT saying the Hawk 200 but something LIKE it.

 

[kaiserd]

It probably depends on the nations involved and the threat they face. Going up against the Chinese air force etc, with third gen aircraft, would be over very quickly imho.

okay how about these two scenarios

1
lets say its somewhere like Finland or Ireland..
largely peaceful, but occasionally you have to deal with aerial intrusions from another country. bomber or spy aircraft that likely wont bomb you, but need to be escorted out.
in this situation.. would you still try to push for a fleet of expensive types like an F-35 or F-15 to do the interception..
or a mix fleet.. F-35s/F-15s for serious tasks, and maybe F/A-50 Golden Eagles to do the daily routine escorts, and patrols?

2.
Somewhere like South Africa
you have neighbors that do not possess serious aircraft threats
but there may be constant issues with low scale militias /rebels/etc in a border region, equipped with guerilla army type of weapons.

Re: category 1 Ireland (my country for better or worse ) won’t be buying any of them....

 

[galgot]

It probably depends on the nations involved and the threat they face. Going up against the Chinese air force etc, with third gen aircraft, would be over very quickly imho.

okay how about these two scenarios

1
lets say its somewhere like Finland or Ireland..
largely peaceful, but occasionally you have to deal with aerial intrusions from another country. bomber or spy aircraft that likely wont bomb you, but need to be escorted out.
in this situation.. would you still try to push for a fleet of expensive types like an F-35 or F-15 to do the interception..
or a mix fleet.. F-35s/F-15s for serious tasks, and maybe F/A-50 Golden Eagles to do the daily routine escorts, and patrols?

2.
Somewhere like South Africa
you have neighbors that do not possess serious aircraft threats
but there may be constant issues with low scale militias /rebels/etc in a border region, equipped with guerilla army type of weapons.

Re: category 1 Ireland (my country for better or worse ) won’t be buying any of them....

Long live to the Gaels ! Hum... OT ,sorry

 

[Deltafan]

It probably depends on the nations involved and the threat they face. Going up against the Chinese air force etc, with third gen aircraft, would be over very quickly imho.

okay how about these two scenarios

1
lets say its somewhere like Finland or Ireland..
largely peaceful, but occasionally you have to deal with aerial intrusions from another country. bomber or spy aircraft that likely wont bomb you, but need to be escorted out.
in this situation.. would you still try to push for a fleet of expensive types like an F-35 or F-15 to do the interception..
or a mix fleet.. F-35s/F-15s for serious tasks, and maybe F/A-50 Golden Eagles to do the daily routine escorts, and patrols?

2.
Somewhere like South Africa
you have neighbors that do not possess serious aircraft threats
but there may be constant issues with low scale militias /rebels/etc in a border region, equipped with guerilla army type of weapons.

Finland has F-18 and is selecting between F-35, F-18 E/F, Typhoon, Gripen and Rafale.

South Africa chose the Gripen.

Ireland thinks about to buy or not to buy fighter (they don't have any) because of aerial intrusions from Russian reco bombers. I think that they need supersonic fighters to intercept them as far as possible and because there are Tu-160 among the "visitors". In the western corner there are, for example, new F-16, FA-50 and T-7 (maybe not soon for this one) or second hand fighter : for example F-16, Mirage 2000, Gripen, Kfir ...
Or they ask for help from one or more countries (like NATO in the Baltic States)

 

[uk 75]

It is interesting to look back at a time before F16 and F18 when serious NATO airpower still included F5s (Canada and Netherlands), F100 Super Sabres (Denmark) and Mirage V (Belgium and France). By the end of the Cold War, Portugal was replacing A7s and Alpha Jets with F16s.
Buy the best you can afford is now the rule.

 

[helmutkohl]

Re: category 1 Ireland (my country for better or worse ) won’t be buying any of them....

I thought Ireland was interested in buying new aircraft?

but in any case countries aside. my point was

1. A scenario where you have constant hostile intruders who you are unlikely to go to war with. but require you to intercept and escort their aircraft away
2. A scenario where you have hostile enemies, but its a low intensity conflict and your enemy has no aircraft. just jeeps, technicals, etc

in this case would it be more cost efficient to keep running cheaper 3rd gen jets (Mig-21s, F-5s etc).
or even 4th gen advanced trainers like F/A-50s, M-346s, T-7s, etc

 

[_Del_]

Well, under #2, you're probably fine with a dedicated COIN or adapted turboprop trainer aircraft. Even something like the Textron Scorpion is going to be easier to justify than a new trainer like an F/A-50.

Under #1, assuming Ireland wants to pay for an "interceptor", why not go with something like the Dassault Falcon 900MRA like Japan did for their coast guard? ISR, MPA, even pylons for EW and strike. Shouldn't be hard to add a short-range AAM for appearances sake. Two or three would make one nearly always available, and could also replace their Defender. Would probably have a lot more utility than a short-legged interceptors they could afford, and it's certainly more capable than anything they can put up right now (PC-9). Especially since, presumably, in conflict actual air defense would be "outsourced" so to speak to some NATO contingent or another.

Not as sexy as a M-346 buy, but probably makes more sense. Finland shares a land-border and is a lot closer to the action. The odds of having to handle an incursion (air/ground/sea) unaided, at least initially, is substantially higher. Here, something more capable, either older F-16's or similar second-hand or a newer attack/trainer makes much more sense than for Ireland.

 

[NUSNA_Moebius]

What is the F/A-50 cost per flight hour? I presume a single seat version of the T-7 with perhaps a proper AESA will be similar. F404 engine commonality too.......

 

[uk 75]

At the risk of being political, Ireland is very adept at using its membership of the EU and UN to point out that it is a peaceful and constructive member of the international community.
Russia is the only country which might be daft enough to regularly enter Irish airspace. I think that between France, the US and the UK political downsides for Mr P would come thick and fast.
A more reasonable requirement might be a jet trainer capable of taking a look at an airliner in trouble or a lost aircraft of the civilian kind.

 

[kaiserbill]

Ireland will not be getting interceptors.
It was tabled as part of a report of potential future investment strategies, which certain sites and media picked up and extrapolated and blew out of all proportion as usual.

The defence budget and armed forces are miniscule, and cannot sustain this.
Even with a massive, massive increase, it would simply suck funds dry from every single other function of the armed forces.
The last fighters operated by the Air Corps were a handful of propellor driven Seafires, got postwar when thousands and thousands of military planes were being scrapped.

This is not to denigrate, but not operating jet fighters is a wise decision, considering the resources. It would be a money pit vortex, to operate a token force, with no real threat, whilst actual useful branches such as the Naval Service would suffer catastrophically.
And I say this being a great lover of military aviation..but reality is reality.

On the "3rd generation" ( I dislike the term) topic, plenty of aircraft of that era have been usefully upgraded.

The Cheetah C readily springs to mind.
Modern multi purpose radar, BVRAAM, helmet sight for SRAAM, precision strike capabilities, data link, air to air refuelling, glass cockpit, HOTAS, internal EW/ECM suite..
However, I am not convinced the Cheetah C is still a Mirage III, in anything but essence and very basic layout.
A picture of a Cheetah C and a Mirage IIIC together for example shows a physically larger, different aircraft in reality.
There is almost nothing that is the same.

 

[Foo Fighter]

I cannot see a reason for the Irish to WANT to buy fighter aircraft when there are plenty of nations around them to carry the weight. Who is going to intrude into Irish airspace that would not be intercepted much earlier?

 

[uk 75]

Why do British jets 'protect' Irish airspace?

Ireland lacks aircraft that can climb high enough or go fast enough to intercept Russian aircraft.

ukdefencejournal.org.uk

Detailed article. The key thing is that NATO nations (Norway, Denmark, Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal and of course UK)form a pretty wide shield for Ireland even before Bears, Backfires et al can be chased into its airspace.

 

[kaiserbill]

Agreed.
In fairness, Russian bombers have never been in Irish sovereign airspace, no matter how certain "media" outlets portray and muddy it.
And it has been stated that the cost of maintaining a single small squadron of interceptors is higher than the entire defence budget.

It's simply not worthwhile to counter something that isn't happening, and the costs would not be accepted by the electorate.

Anyhow, on the subject of upgraded "3rd generation" fighters, didn't the Chileans also operate a vastly upgraded F-5E variant?
I seem to recall a radar and avionics upgrade, with in-flight refuelling capability, and BVRAAM capabilities, if I remember correctly. Brazil and Thailand also did a thorough upgrade of theirs.
Taiwan I think also looked at a comprehensive F-5 update, that even investigated a re-engining concept as far as I remember?
Difficult to envisage re-engining an airframe that housed an engine as slim as the GE J85. You'd probably end up with an F-20 Tigershark type aircraft...
Also, Dassault also threw their card in with the Mirage IIING, as did MiG with their MiG-21-93.

 

[kaiserbill]

And of course, speaking of the MiG-21 you would have to include the Chengdu J-7, which has had a truly bewildering array of variants, with almost all permutations looked at or tested, from materials, avionics, aerodynamics..etc...and has morphed into the Guizhou JL9/FTG2000 which is now being built.
But I guess this has crossed that line between upgraded, and "developed from" I suppose.

 

[helmutkohl]

a related question to this is.. these upgraded MiG-21s, J-7s, Kfirs, Cheetahs, and F-5s
are they still cheaper to operate than new light fighters, such as JF17s, Golden Eagles, etc?
I would imagine after time, the cost of spares begins to rise again for vintage stuff

 

[kaiserbill]

I suppose one would have to consider the sunk costs already spent?
What capability leap is required?
Things like cost of upgrade vs new acquisition costs, remaining airframe life, spares availability, training, existing spares holdings, maintenance facilities... etc.
It's a minefield I rarely bother to walk into, especially as politicians are inevitably involved.

 

[helmutkohl]

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