Cheaper and better alternative planes for RSAF

Top end operational 5th Gen fighter planes cost 100+millions EACH!

I believe Singapore need a squadron of those stealthy planes to penetrate enemy SAMs or naval ship striking roles with powerful air to air combat planes escorting, acting as strike or A2A missile carrier for A2A combat roles like F15SG.

However, due to the limitation of the F35s in all aspects except stealth and those avionics and electronics, they are really really expensive to operate and own a large fleet.

I would strongly recommend Singapore to invest in Gripen and "tune" it to our requirements. Cheap to maintain, cost per plane, better abilities like shorter runway to takeoff, able to turn better than F16s, having supercruise... etc. I find the Gripen is very suited in patrolling our Singapore sky and with some modifications, maybe they can fly off from a ski ramp of a flat top deck while carrying more load than the F35B.

Why spend so much money to buy those untested 5th Gen planes?!

We need those cheap and good or so called "can do" planes to make our numbers so as not to over spend on those expensive toys.

I agree we need some F35s as a force multiplier, but they should not be our main stay work horse.

We got F15s which can carry out long range strike mission and good A2A mission. It's too expensive to patrol our sky with a twin engine heavy fuel drinker.

If Singapore really decided to get a flat top deck vessel, hope the designers could include a ski ramp and arrestor hook recovery system which I think the gripen can be modified into. Of course those system can be "module type" which can be installed as and when it's required.

I really hope our RSAF would seriously consider Gripen. Dropping an airfield on main land, RSAF really need to find alternative way to improve our security of our sky while maintaining a reasonable budget.