The F15T is a good choice.
Economic of maintenance:
F15T will share a large number of standard spare parts with our
current fleets of F16. The technical expertise gained in
maintaining the F16 fleets could be applied on the F15T, thus
reducing the lead time for our intregation of F15T into RSAF.
Blanket order of spare parts and standardization of critical
components could be more readily available from USAF storage for
us. Price of these spares could be cheaper. We could also get the
scrapped F15A/B/C from US for our own "mod" as well (just like the
A4 skyhawks). We could get the first 1 or 2 batches of brand new
F15T, then followed by 30-40 mothballed F15A/B/Cs stored in US
deserts with special technical modification done with the help from
our friendly Nation X. This will enhance our technical capability,
and will prove useful in building our next gen UCAV as our NGF in
20xx.
On surface, the Sukkoi fighter and Rafale deals looks more
spectular. But this is only from surface. The Russians and French
would not be willing to share with u the in-dpeth knowledge w/o
your heavy investment. Sukkoi are not young, the Sukkoi is designed
and built in late 1970s. But the special russian mod with Nation X
equipments in Indian Sukkoi, has transformed the Su30MKI
into a deadly foe for any western planes. Rafale is a young planes
currently only backed by France. The time & cost factors could
be very very high to develope the Rafale into a mature plane.
Operations:
While F15T is going to be a yesterday plane sooner or later, but
the "mod" could enhance the lifespan of the F15T as well. We can
expect to see a lot of "funny mod" in our F15Ts, possibly using the
F15T together with UCAVs for ground supression missions. F15Ts
heavy payload is good for carrying Stand-off weapons in RSAF for
deep strike missions.
While Rafale would be used in junction with the French UCAVs in the
future, F15T could be our local test platform. When the production
line closes in states after 2010, we could get the equipments and
blueprints in-house. In addition, we could also get the F15T
engineering teams into Sg for our future projects (eg thrust
vectoring F15S??, stealth F15S?? or ALCM F15S??). The French Rafale
team is a great engineering teams, but we have more experience in
working with our friends in states.
Finally, when coming to post modern air combat, the victor is
always the side with the furthest reach and detection range. The
AMRAAMs and Python4 would be the deadliest AAM in this era,
expected to dominate well into next decade. Russian AAM are good,
but the electronic miniaturization is way behind that of Nation X,
let alone our friends in States. That is why the R77 electronic
sensors are bigger in size for similar performance envelope as the
AMRAAMs.
