"Alan Minyard" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 3 Nov 2003 04:04:47 -0000, "Matt" wrote:

Just the standard 'blah blah America superior to the rest of the world in
absolutely every respect blah blah" Al post.

The Rafale is a nice aircraft, and excellent value when you take it's
weapon
systems - MICA, SCALP-EG, etc - into account. The Republic of Korea's Air
Force wanted the Rafale with uprated engines, but since the US offered
the
F-15K with economic offsets that actually outweigh the price of the
contract
(i..e. they essentially payed the Koreans to take it), they went for that
instead. Suprise!

The F-15K is a very nice aircraft, but the base airframe is getting on in
years.

Matt

The Rafale has ZERO export sales, despite offsets equal to any offered
by the US. The F-35 has thousands. Do try to keep up.

Al Minyard

Nice to see you completely failed to do any research whatsoever before
opening your ass, I mean, mouth.

The Rafale deal offered to South Korea was essentially a licensed production
deal, with Dassault offering to transfer an entire Rafale production line to
Seoul. France would build the first few aircraft, and then provide a few
limited components once the line was established. In the end, it worked out
to around a $4bn offset.

The US/Boeing offer was a transferred-tech deal that directly shook out to
about $3.2bn once the US government gave Boeing a $250m subsidy to reduce
the overall price, but was closer to $6bn in linked defence and economic
loans. The bottom line from the US was "If you don't buy our fighter, we're
not going to give you these loans. Oh, and we're currently reviewing your
most-favoured-nation trade status. No pressure!"

The F-35 has zero - nil - export sales. A number of foreign governments,
including the UK, are contributing financially to the development process as
partners... but no-one has actually bought the aircraft yet, including the
US. All the 'partner nations' get for their money is technological
information and, in the case of the UK, component production contracts.
After all, Bush might still cancel it to pay for his adventure in Iraq.

Do try to keep up!

Matt