As for the long run I've read that the Gripen is cheaper to run.
It's also absurdly expensive to maintain. it requires special hangers and maintenance bays, all up to US requirements.
Even the US military has to use Lockheed to do all the work.
The F-35 is a pork trough, designed to provide employment and jobs more than defense.
And anyone buying it is locked into wonderous maintenance costs, all benefitting US employees.
One telling sign of this is that Gripens are designed to be maintained anywhere. You know, like when you're in a thing called a "war", and your bases have been blown up?
You can turn around some Gripens in 30 minutes with them landing on a highway.
Try that with a princess like the F-35.
I prefer to have planes which are designed to be in the air, instead of to provide jobs.
1. https://www.dote.osd.mil/Portals/97/pub/reports/FY2024/dod/2...
Gripen is a 1980s design updated with the latest software, just like Typhoon and Rafale. The F-35 is a 2000s design, there's just no way to close the stealth gap with it.
This vulnerability is why KrakenSDR had to pull one of their git repos a few years ago.
Stealth might help at long ranges, but think of it like locks on doors, only effective at keeping honest people out.
Notably, those are the capabilities that modern near-peer warfare stresses most heavily.
I'm a huge F-35 fan myself, so I'm pretty hard-pressed to undersell the plane compared to other single-engine fighters. The Gripen isn't equipped to handle contested airspace whatsoever, the F-35 is absolutely king in that department. That said, a Gripen armed with Meteors is a mean payload even compared to an F-15 lugging around AMRAAMs. Unless you have expeditionary/naval operation roles to fill, the Gripen isn't lacking much that a normal customer would want.
Gripens shot down: 0
Q.E.D. /s
