mattahead ? :rolleyes: in fighters ?
embraer has a superlative niche capability in designing and assembling civil airliners.
as far as fighters go, HAL/ADA has vastly more experience and capability than embraer.
Whether it is military aircraft or comercial aircraft fact is Embraer know what they are doing when it comes to designing and building aircraft, but not as much as SAAB simple.
Embraer has experience of designing its own aircraft military or civil and competing in a global market and in cases winning. HAL has not, HAL is still very much routed in build to print mode, although trying hard to climb up via LCA and Dhruv.
mattThe Mig-35 OLS has problems and isn’t finished, would be a mistake to try to integrate that into IAF MiG-29s. Also they are supposed to have a new Zhuk variant, Zhuk-M2E.
Also what pic are you talking about, the one that I see on rianovosti english is one of a Su-30. Nice journalism.
Oh yeah! Ar$e beer goggles, shouldn’t start to early on Friday.lol sorry all.
mattUpgraded MiG-29 Makes Successful Maiden Flight In Zhukhovsky
Ria Novosti have a photo of the Mig 29 on their website, what a beautiful plane!
Says the IAF will have the Zhuk M radar upgrade, sadly no mention of upgrading to the Mig 35 OLS system, missed opertunity me things.
mattSays who? The list of potential customers is as long as my arm.
They are still potential customers, and the F/A-18EF will not get the type of sensor technology the F-35 will until a lot later…
Just having a nice graph called the international roadmap does not mean the F/A-18 can achieve the fairytale goal of turning from ugly duckling to swan.
It is such a shame the USN didnt go for the Super Tomcat!
mattIs it an Ali frame? Seems like a chromatic primer on it.
mattEmbraer is not the answer for amca, they are ahead of Hal/ada but not far enough ahead to pull Hal and ada along, which saab and uac are.
mattSorry for quoting myself – and also answering myself 🙂 In any case, seems there are thoughts into that direction. At least from LMCO. LOL
http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/letting-india-into-the-f-35-club-makes-good-sense?a=1&c=1171
India has apparently given a polite no thank you to partnering or buying jsf for the iaf. IN may go for it however.
mattI think the focus should be completing its role of providing air superiority over the area and carrying out strikes to damage the enemies capability. Does not matter how they do it.
Two question: Where would the IAF complete its role of air superiority and over whome?
I would have thought as a Indian Tax payer (or maybe not) you would have special interest in knowing that the IAF not only are able to defend its airspace but does it in the most cost efficient way possible.
mattThe Super Hornet already has a reasonable price and the majority made for the IAF. Would of course be constructed with in India.
As for upgardes who would fund them in the case of the other contenders???
How much is the Superhornet being sold for to India and which baseline version of the SuperHornet is being offered to India for that price. Ignore all the future upgrades. Just the baseline SuperHornet.. or is it the newer UltraHornet which is being sold to India?
mattOr have lots of JAS-39 Gripen, and some good quality roads.
Ability to take off from short runways, good quality road strips and damaged runways as design and development goals, rapid turnaround and minimal support requirements, sustained high sortie rates.
Low logistics footprint=easy deployment to forward bases when required, placed deep inside to protect from surprise attacks.
Perfect for the Indian North Eastern states. (roads from which the gripen can operate would require some amount of funding and work, not that the people will complaint if that happens, also the plane would need pilots to operate 38 hours within 48 hours)
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Agree with the above sentiments, not confident that the IAF has gotten used to playing second fiddle yet and therefor think assymetric. So although we looking in from the outside might think the Gripen is one of the best platforms and survivable platforms for the IAF the IAF might still be stuck in its old mind set.
i.e. its focus is towards the west over which it has dominance and thefore can act like a traditional Airforce with the big bases etc…
Which is not the case vis-a-vis the north. IAF has to take the role of the lesser air service and think of how to survive as apposed to dominate.
mattThat is a very naive view and one not supported by facts. The Super Hornet is the most Mature, most Advance Technology, and Best Cost vs Capability of any MMRCA Contenders. Which, is ready today and one that shares its Engine with the LCA MK2.
In addition Future Super Hornet Upgrades will be well funded buy the US Government.
I think we have to be clear that the USG will fund the development of tranches as long as it is usefull to the US Navy.
However if IAF want those upgrades it will first have to beg clearance from the USG and the 3-4 agencies that protect US technologies and thereafter it will still have to pay over the odds. So one way or other it will always pay for those upgrades.
What the IAF will not be able to do is fund its own line of upgrades using third parties to get the best pic and mix it needs or wants like it has been able to do on some of its other aircraft.
IAF will also have to go through those agencies if it wants to purchase the Aim 120’s, atog weapons etc
I do not believe the Ultra Hornet is being offered to the IAF for the price tag of $80 million and if i am not mistake IAF already has capability similar to the Ultra Hornet in service for less money.
mattAre you comparing the cost of a MKI with a Super Hornet, you do realise that the price of Su-30MKI has gone up in recent years – it was reported in the Indian media that the latest batch of MKIs was just under a 100 million USD a piece – how much is an SH?
Also overall life cycle costs of the F/A-18E could in fact be a lot lower than that of the Su-30MKI, who knows?:confused:
I am comparing to the cost I thought the Su-30s used to be which was around $65million a piece manufactured at HAL. Not sure what the cost of the MLU is or the cost of the new tranche of the Su-30s being bought.
I have also heard of the $100 million a piece price but not sure where that is from. If it is a Su 30 with a AF 41 and AESA radar I would say it makes completely sense, and makes me question the F/A-18 for the IAF even more.
What I cant get around is that the price of the contract has been limited to around 10 12 billion so how many F/A-18 E/F s could the IAF afford?
matta vague answer to an equally vague question would be : “a large number of sorties would be needed to take care of a large number of PLAAF fighters”.
in practice, a question like this makes very little sense and there are infinitely many variables to even try anything nearing a reasonable analysis by laymen like us. at the most we can compare the number of modern fighters that can operate in the region of interest, (namely himalayan border areas including tibet) in which PLAAF has a slight advantage in numbers and the quality and quantity of supporting infrastructure.
more importantly, this question should be asked in the IAF thread.
I do not understand how the question is vague, you obviously understand enough to give your opinion of it and also opine that it belongs in another thread.
If a problem is too complicated or confusing make some assumptions hypothesis simulate and check the results, do this for a few new set of assumptions and see what the comman thread is. This comman thread is probably one of the things to look at.
Also. No i think its a good question for this thread, because based on new information the role of the MMRCA has to change or be modified.
We should understand sortie rates, per hour costs, availability and load carrying capacity for such a large and important buy! It might help us understand what the IAF might be going for in the MMRCA.
mattI have a question, a recent paper from Australia re-published earlier findings that the US even with its superior tech will not be able to defend or dominate airspace near or above China due to the vast number of Su-27 derivitives (600 or so quoted) , large distance between the nearest US base and AAM carrying limit of US aircraft. i.e. even if the USAF achieves a kill with every missile it fires the US will not be able to win.
What then is the case for India?
How many sorties would IAF interceptors have to make to take on a large inbound wing of PLAAF including Su-27 dirivatives, J-20’s and J-10s ?
How many flight hours? for simplicities sake assuming IAF makes 100% kills (next to impossible).
mattIf the Gripen (C/D, I presume) is reported to cost <$5K per flight hour, how does F/A-18 cost $20K? I am aware that the F/A-18 burns more fuel and has 2 engines to maintain… but 4 x as much per flight hour?
As for PAK-FA, is that down to a great deal more replacement of short life engine parts?
Cost of flying Gripen for 5000 hours: <$25 million
Cost of flying F/A=18 for 5000 hours: ~$100 million
Cost of flying PAK-FA for 5000 hours: >$200 millionIf I assume a squadron flies 20 aircraft…
Cost of flying Gripen for 5000 hours: <$500 million
Cost of flying F/A=18 for 5000 hours: ~$2 billion
Cost of flying PAK-FA for 5000 hours: >$4 billionGiven the costs above, I think it is almost irrelevant whether an MMRCA contender costs $50 million, $75 million or $100 million to buy in the first place.
I believe the MMRCA selection rules say that the winner should be the lowest cost aircraft meeting performance criteria. I hope that evaluation is based on total through-life costs.
Wonder what the F-35 operating costs will be…
Agreed! make sense although not what is said in post above, in which i talk of unit costs only.
Gripen overall as a package apart from politically makes the most sense! Would love to see the Gripen NG in IAF colours!
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