Singapore-made Fighter Jets
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Do we think Singapore would ever has the technology, capabilities and will power to built its own fighter planes or at least replicate the production of such planes just like the building of the stealth frigates by our ST group ? Taiwan, India, China are already building that...I wonder...
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Only planes we have upgraded is the F-5 and A-4
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IMHO unless we are capable to develop anything that is more advance or superior than Vipers, which is off the shelve anytime, I don't the see the reason why we should made our own fighter.
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Answer is "yes" we have the resources in public and private sector to design and build. Some of the electronics may have to be purchased off the shelf. But the problem is economics....
As a rule of thumb, you need to sell about 400 aircraft of the same variant in order to just re-coup your R&D and production costs for these 400. And each aircraft is going to cost you at least USD 70m , excluding munitions. This would buy you an aircraft of about F16 D or F18 E standard.
The RSAF is unlikely to put in an order for 400 a/c at one shot. And we are pretty sensitive about exporting our own technology to other countries. Unlikely to sell more than 150.
So at the end of the day, Mindef might as well do a deal with the US government and manufacturers , and negotiate to buy more F16 C or Ds at USD 50+m each. -
The world is not ready for singapore as a arms exporter..
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Singapore already is an arms exporter.
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Yup! Including exporting parts for nuclear weapons, it was reported in the 9/11 hearing with regards to the Iraq WMD ambition.Originally posted by patriot:Singapore already is an arms exporter.
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IMHO UAVs and precision weapons (if you put a warhead in them) is the more cost effective way to go.
Another way is to continue upgrading....like the Falcon One for F16A.
F5 - take out the remaining gun, put in a IRST and I think you have a stealth air defence figther. Replace the gun in a centerline conformal fairing....if you shape it right you get better transonic flight characteristics as bonus.
Even the Iranians put canards on those their F5s! -
but we can built f-16 under liscense can we? pretty bad if one day USA or other major aiplane supplier suddemly stop sellings us planes. at least we can build more ourself....
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The wings (slat designs) are one of the most guarded secrets in the industry. I doubt they (Boeing, Northtrop etc.) will ever reveal it to their clients. So I doubt you can ever get the designs to manufacture under license from them.
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there's also reverse engineering.
like that we don't do that with all the other stuff we've bought. -
Not worth it, we have no nat resources, importing them is enough to kill the interest.
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ya if we want to produce our own stuff,need to import the raw materials and all the other nitty gritty small stuff..very difficult to find certain restricted materials too i guess..