The Federal Council of Switzerland decided to purchase fighter-generation fighters Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II, reports Defense News.
It is planned to purchase 36 aircraft for a total amount of 6.5 billion dollars. Fighters must replace outacious F / A-18 Hornet. In addition to Lockheed Martin, the tender for replacing the latter, except Lockheed Martin, were advide from companies Eurofighter, Dassault and Boeing.
Edition notes that the victory in the Lockheed Martin contest inflicted a “serious blow” on European companies Eurofighter and Airbus.
Defense News writes that the F-35A Lightning promises the “highest characteristics at the lowest price”, which is 2.6 billion dollars less than the cost of the offer of the nearest competitor. Also, the American fighter demonstrated “the best results on efficiency, support for products and interaction” than its competitors for the tender.
In June, the veteran of the United States Marine Corps of United States, Alex Hollings in the blog Sandboxx, wrote that today the United States cannot produce fighter-generation fighters F-22 Raptor, since the corresponding production facilities and supply chains are involved under the aircraft F-35 Lightning II.