Both Portugal and Canada are considering alternatives to the now controversial F-35 combat plane, manufactured in the United States, according to recent reports from the media.
Micael JohanssonCEO of the Swedish company Saab, confirmed to Swedish media that Portugal and Canada are studying the possibility of buying the JAS 39 flu plane E/F.
The news comes weeks after Nuno MeloMinister of Defense of Portugal, said it was skeptical about the purchase of the American plane F-35A Lighttening IIproduced by the American aerospace and defense company Lockheed Martin.
It is a feeling shared by their government counterparts in Canada, who told Euronews Next that they have initiated a review of the acquisition of the combat plane, but have not canceled the contract.
Part of the concern about F-35 is the fear that a “safety switch” that could leave the airplanes on land be incorporated on board, despite the fact that there is no concrete evidence of this and the refutations of Lockheed Martin. Is the Swedish manufacturing plane a viable substitute for F-35? If not, is there another European alternative that is?
First, experts say that E/F influennuts and F-35A Lightning II are not interchangeable because they are “designed for different things.” Walter Kowalskiformer NATO project director said that the main advantage of Saab’s flu fighters is that they can house a variety of different weapons, including long and short -range missiles and guided bombs. This interoperability allows countries that buy the influenza customize it with the pieces and weapons it already has, Kowalski said.
“The F-35 is like a Ferrari and the influen’s is like a Honda Civic,” Kowalski explained, adding that finding spare parts for one of the 150,000 pieces of the flu is easier than for F-35. “You can’t fix a Ferrari next to the road … but a Honda Civic can probably be fixed.”
For example, Saab says on its website that the Tripen contract of Brazil also came with a transfer of knowledge to Brazilian companies that will help the country “develop, produce and maintain” combat planes for up to 40 years without the need for Swedish teams to make updates.
Andrew Erskine, researcher at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy (IPD), believes that F-35A Lighttening II is designed following what Americans consider “the perfect combat plane according to Americans.”
The flu exceeds the F-35A Lighttening II at maximum speed, reaching up to 2400 km/h, compared to 1900 km/h of the F-35. The flu can also reach greater distances in missions and has greater fuel capacity.
The flu is also less expensive than the F-35, Kowalski added, with an estimated operational cost of between $ 4,700 (4,135 euros) and $ 7,000 (6,159 euros) per hour, compared to the $ 33,000 (26,391 euros) to 40,000 dollars (35,188 euros) per hour of the F35.
Erskine explained that the response time from one mission to another is also quite different: the flu is ready for a new mission in 20 minutes, compared to the 3 hours that the F-35 needs.
But when the flu is ready to fly, it has a lower payload, which means that it can transport less heavy weapons than the F-35. What the F-35 is a “system system” that make it stealthy and virtually undetectable for radar systems, Erskine added.
“The F-35 has a complex software that requires many sensors, many radar interferences and many electronic war capabilities,” he said. Therefore, if a country is looking for a poaching plane, the flu “is not the gold standard” for that type of mission, Kowalski added.
Another important consideration for countries, in which both Erskine and Kowalski coincide, is how “American” is his combat plane.
International regulations on the United States arms trafficking (ITA) establish that this has the final control over what technologies manufactured in the United States can be exported to other buying countries in the name of the protection of national security, such as most F-35 components, for example.
Erskine said this also means that European nations looking for pieces of F-35 have to deal directly with the US administration in power without “any other way” to obtain the pieces.
Then, buying the F-35A Lighttening II means that a country is investing in “a high-cost plane with a very complex logistics and depends largely on being a friend of the private administration of the United States at that time,” Kowalski added.
Erskine said that it is also estimated that 30% of influennial aircraft are made with US pieces and that the patents of that technology would be under American control.
One of the most striking examples of this is that the influenza uses an F404 or F414 engine, manufactured by Volvo but with a design of the American manufacturer General Electric that Swedes updated in 2023.
The vital support system of the plane, which helps its pilots to survive in case of emergency, as an support of support oxygen, is manufactured by Honeywell, an aerospace company based in North Carolina.
If the main concern is to avoid any influence of the US administration, Kowalski said that Dassault Rafale F4 in France is the closest combat plane in the market that has very little participation of the US government.
Rafale F4 is considered “extremely balanced” because it has an easy transition of land operations to aircraft -based operations, it is easy to maintain and has a good stealth that means that it is useful for many types of missions, he added.
But, said Kowalski, Dassault – and by extension, the French government – face many obstacles if they want to market their plane as one that has had no influence of Americans.
“When it is sold to countries such as Egypt, Qatar, India, United Arab Emirates, etc., they are accustomed to US components and systems,” he said. “That’s what they want … and the client is always right in that aspect.”
Kowalski warns European countries that are reconsidering having the F-35 in their fleets that think of the “next 25 years” of their national security.
“Raising your hand and, somehow, criticizing the current administration and saying: ‘We are going to stop investment in national security,’ it doesn’t seem sensible to me,” he said.
Instead, he advises that EU countries “reach an agreement” in Washington DC to find a “solution provided and equitable” that is good economically and strategically. For Erskine, the question is this: “Does Trumpism end when Trump ends?”
“If we look at its vice president, JD Vance, it seems that he would be very willing to incorporate certain Trumban elements (if he reaches the presidency), whether the protectionist or transactional diplomacy of President Trump,” he said.
Erskine said that Europe should form a coalition that shares technology, critical pieces of combat aircraft and supply chains to end that dependence on US technologies. “What we need is a greater strategic forecast”he said.