By Eddie Walsh
At this week’s Air & Space Conference and Technology Exposition, I had the chance to speak with Bjorn Bjune, Vice President of Business Development at Kongsberg Defence Systems, whose company is an F-35 consortium partner. Bjune expressed his concern to me that ‘the F-35 isn’t currently attractive enough for Norway to proceed with its planned acquisition of 56 additional F-35s next year.’
From his perspective, one of the major issues facing Norway is the fact that the F-35 currently lacks sufficient anti-surface warfare (ASuW) capabilities, which represent a requirement not only for Norway, but also Asia-Pacific consortium partners and potential future buyers including Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. With this in mind, he said that it’s critical the US and Norwegian governments agree soon on the integration of his company’s JSM missile with the F-35 baseline. He believes failure to do so, or identifying a comparable ASuW weapon alternative, risks a decision by Norway to delay its purchase authorization for the additional aircraft.
Read the full story at The Diplomat
(Posted due to the Asia-Pacific Partners mentioned in the story.)