The leadership of the largest state in South America in terms of area and population continues to skillfully maneuver between large aviation companies, trying to knock out the best offer for themselves. It is not excluded that in the next round of this game a certain place will again be given to Russian aircraft manufacturers, but joy over this may be premature.
The story of the purchase of new fighters for the Brazilian Air Force goes through another sharp turn. Dilma Rousseff, who took office as president of the country, canceled the previous results of the qualifying competition, effectively restarting the competition.
… And now everyone left and entered again
The classic Latin American "soap opera" about the renewal of the Brazilian fighter aircraft has been dragging on for the twelfth year. In 1999, the government of the republic decided to replace the outdated Mirage III aircraft purchased from France in the 70s and 80s. To replace them, it was planned to purchase one or two squadrons (12-24 aircraft) of more modern fighters, spending about $ 700 million on this.
The competition was named F-X. Among the main contenders named Mirage 2000BR (a joint application of the French concern "Dassault" and the Brazilian "Embraer"), the JAS-39 Gripen of the Swedish concern SAAB and the American F-16E / F from Lockheed Martin. RSK MiG was ready to supply a new modification of the MiG-29SMT. She also showed interest in the South American market and the Sukhoi Holding Company, which had a successful track record of selling modernized Su-30 aircraft to China and India. The holding planned to bring an early version of the Su-35 (Su-27M) fighter to the Brazilian competition, acting in conjunction with the Avibras company.
However, delays in the allocation of funds delayed the tender. In 2001 and 2003 it was "temporarily postponed", and in February 2004 it was finally canceled (for the first time, but, as it turns out, far from the last time). In July 2005, the Brazilian Air Force purchased a temporary alternative to replace the outgoing Mirage III - ten Mirage 2000C interceptors and two two-seat training Mirage 2000B. Deliveries from the presence of the French Ministry of Defense made it possible to drag out time for several more years. Having received a squadron of "used" fighters (produced between 1984 and 1987), the Brazilians slowly began a new "approach to the projectile."
In November 2007, the purchasing program was relaunched under the name F-X2. Now, three categories of Brazilian aircraft have come under the scope of modernization. First, these are light tactical fighters AMX A-1 jointly developed by the Brazilian Embraer and the Italian Aeromacchi and Alenia (53 aircraft). Secondly, the American Northrop F-5E / F Tiger II aircraft (57 units). And thirdly, the 12 already mentioned "substitutes" of Mirage 2000. In total, it was planned to purchase at least 36 ready-made fighters, while an additional agreement established the possibility of localized production in Brazil with the aim of bringing the total number to 120 aircraft.
The cost benchmark for the 36 aircraft purchased, named by the Brazilian government, was $ 2.2 billion, but experts noted that the total contract for 120 aircraft would be between $ 6 and $ 10 billion.
Who is last?
Naturally, there were a lot of people willing to take part in the F-X2. Almost all major aircraft manufacturing concerns in the world lined up. First, the Europeans came (traditionally - separately). The French offered Dassault Rafale, the Swedes - the same Gripen, all other interested parties - the Eurofighter Typhoon.
Boeing arrived from the United States to the competition and wanted to sell the F / A-18E / F Block II Super Hornet to the Brazilians. Lockheed Martin tried in parallel to include in the number of applicants the duty officer F-16E / F Block 70, unified with the proposal for the Indian MMRCA competition (MIC has already talked about it in No. 45 for 2010). The idea of supplying the fifth generation F-35 fighter quickly died, mainly for financial reasons, but not least due to serious delays in the operational readiness schedules of the machine (Brazil wanted to update its fleet of fighters no later than 2016, and get export "Lightnings" II by this date was already almost unrealistic).
The Russian aviation industry made a fairly readable move - it put forward a hypothetical export version of the Su-35S for a tender. For the second competition, the next version was released from the same line that had already been offered to the Brazilian military.
The subtleties of Latin American skies
The Brazilian competition is a good illustration of the more or less civilized lobbying process in today's high-tech industry.
Embraer, the national aircraft manufacturer, is the pride of the Federative Republic of Brazil, breaking into the international market for small aircraft for civil air transportation. It was argued that high-ranking officials from Russia were ready to go for package approval of an unprecedented counter-deal on the deployment of joint civilian production with the Embraer to promote the Su-35 in the first part of the competition. However, the Brazilians reacted very nervously to the Sukhoi Superjet project, considering it a competitor, and imposed conditions that complicated the launch of the Russian airliner into series, which, for obvious reasons, was unacceptable.
In turn, Embraer, as a potential co-executor of localized production, had a habit of choosing favorites among the contestants. In the first race, this was the French company Dassault (a minority shareholder of the Brazilian aircraft concern), as a result of which a joint proposal was submitted to the tender, conditionally ready for localization - the Mirage 2000-5 version called Mirage 2000BR. "Dassault" solved its own problems (the 2000s "Mirages" were removed from production in France, and it was necessary to put the accumulated technological and personnel potential somewhere), "Embraer" - its own.
The second part of the "Brazilian ballet" wrote off the "budget" proposal of the Mirages, forcing "Dassault" to play "like an adult": "Rafali" are in service with the French Air Force and are regularly submitted to all major military air tenders, but have not won either one of them.
In October 2008, Brazil announced that, based on the results of consideration of initial applications, the circle of applicants was narrowed to three - Superhornet, Rafal and Gripen. The Russian aviation industry, having taken off from the competition, received a "consolation" deal for the supply of 12 Mi-35M attack helicopters to Brazilian aviators for $ 150 million.
In autumn 2009, the press confidently named the future winner "Rafale". The military of the regional Latin American power modestly reported that, in their opinion, Rafale was indeed in the lead. The reaction of the expert community within Brazil itself was rather ambiguous: for example, some experts believed that the possible purchase of "French" would turn into a disaster for the national air force. At the same time, talks began about reviving the Dassault-Embraer alliance on the basis of a future deal.
Here "Embraer" and threw out the main trick, saying that he was much more interested in "Gripen" and the idea of developing joint production with SAAB. JAS-39NG, they say, is one and a half times cheaper than "Rafal" and even more economical in operation. The shocked French retreated in order to rewrite the technical and commercial proposal, and the Americans, who abandoned the fantastic idea of selling the unprepared F-35 fighters to the Brazilians, perked up and began to actively lobby the Superhornets.
Against the background of this cheerful chaos, Dilma Rousseff's predecessor, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, made a Solomon decision: he postponed the announcement of the tender results to 2010. Sources in the administration of the head of state indicated that the president himself, in principle, is sympathetic to the French proposal, but believes that the price for the Rafale is completely inadequate.
The French really, according to a number of sources, demanded $ 8.2 billion for 120 cars (having moderated their appetite after the Embraer affront to $ 6.2 billion) and four more - for the supply of spare parts and provision for 30 years. For comparison: the same source cited the proposals of SAAB (4.5 billion for aircraft and 1.5 billion for service) and Boeing (5, 7 and 1.9 billion, respectively). True, unlike its competitors, Dassault was ready to meet the Brazilian side halfway on the issue of maximum technology transfer.
2010 passed in delays. The accelerating inflation and large external debt insisted on saving on heavy military programs. Lula, the outgoing head of state, did not want to make a final decision, which, whatever it turns out, would put the ruling party at risk of criticism ahead of the elections. Solving the problem of the F-X2 fell to his companion and successor Dilma Rousseff.
Approach to the third circle
Rousseff, daughter of the Bulgarian communist Rusev, is a rather original figure even in Latin America. The radical left, which took part in the guerrilla war, even had a hand in the "expropriation" of the contents of bank safes, did not make the "unpleasant obvious" choice of the Dassault concern for its predecessor. The first thing she did was to stop the tender and restart it. Now, from a purely formal point of view, Russian companies can again try their luck, and the Brazilian press has already recalled the Su-35 rejected almost three years ago.
So it looks like an F-X3 is waiting for us? Not having agreed with the French on discounts on the Rafali and not particularly wanting to take the Superhornets (the last attempt to "push through" Boeing's proposal in the competition was made by the famous Senator John McCain), which are not at all attached the same package of modern aircraft construction technologies as was willing to provide Dassault, Brazil is trying to force the main stakeholders to seriously compromise their financial appetites.
The extremely expensive (about 110-120 million dollars per car) pan-European Typhoon cannot be considered a scarecrow for the contestants, but a Russian plane will perfectly cope with this role (it does not matter if it is a Su-35 or a MiG-35). Relatively inexpensive and high-quality products of the domestic aviation industry can add nerves to the new qualifying round.
Most likely, this is precisely why the tender was "reloaded". It is unlikely that the new administration is ready to buy Russian equipment, but it may well be used as a lever of pressure on Dassault or Boeing (depending on who is more responsive to the transfer of advanced technologies to Brazil). Moreover, the heirs of the founder of the French concern Marcel Bloch also have nowhere to retreat: this tender is almost the only real chance for them to grab the first export order, breaking through the wall of neglect of Rafals from the third world.
