Boeing pulls out of Belgian fighter coompetition

So it seems that Boeing has pulled out of the Belgian fighter FG story competition citing gripes about a non level playing field. And it seems they are sending a none too subtle message that it wont bother with other European competitions where it (presumably) believes the result is a foregone conclusion or the particular nation is looking for a "European" solution.

This seems to come off the back of the ongoing protest over the Danish competition which seems to be mired in a desire not to reveal all documents and exactly what it took for LM to win with the F-35, something that has been hinted at by SAAB as well. Personally I have never seen the need nor reasonable justification for why Denmark needs the F-35 when clearly a Gripen E will not just easily do the job but actually be affordable without gutting the rest of the Danish defence force in order to run it.

It will be interesting to see where this all goes as well.

a reply to: thebozeian

Its not all that shocking though. Aircraft purchases are political beasts in most cases and the case to buy Europe will be a strong one. Whats more disturbing to me is the continued decline of the EU member states defense capabilities (The US has its issues as well)

They are looking at basically replacing only half of the F-16's. I do realize that the new air frames will be no doubt be highly capable but...............

a reply to: FredT

A number of new nations, including at least four European nations are expressing great interest in the F-35.

A lot of the European countries have always been about intercepting Soviet assets rather than being offensive so why F35,s?

a reply to: Blackfinger

Because of the leap in capabilities and interoperability it offers them.

Do they realise that they have to update their whole network to suit the new technollagy.?

a reply to: Blackfinger

They're in the process of updating a lot of their capabilities.