Most of these things the LCA MK2 “will” get in future and unlike the Gripen basically any no of LCA MK2 can be ordered.

Cost will be an issue and after burning their hands once I do not think the IAF will let any plane go through technical evaluation who they do not want to win.

And what makes you so sure that IAF do not want the Gripen to win. It is not pitting one plane against the other and choosing the best performer. The cheapest plane which satisfies the IAFs min requirements should come out on top and the Gripen has a great chance of being that.

Why cannot any number of Gripen be ordered ? See the Su 30 MKI more and more are being ordered now, it makes no difference to future orders whether the plane is foreign or Indian. The swedes are likely to transfer more tech than the Russians did with the MKI and when it comes to the engines both will be using F 414G variants so the restrictions or lack of it wrt to that will be applicable to both.

I really do not know why people see the Gripen as a threat to the LCA program. Ordering more Gripen is at worst (or best) a backup in the event of the LCA MK2 not living up to its specs on paper.

ES-05 has a swashplate array which should increase the scanning angle.

It will be in operational service by the time the MRCA enters service one would think. And if a European MRCA is selected it would make more sense to buy WVRs only at first and wait for the Meteor rather than investing on inferior AMRAAMs which comes with strings attached.

In this months Force Magazine in the by invitation section the marketing and communications manager of MBDA has written about both the SCALP and the Taurus basically meaning the weapons are on offer to India if they need it.

There was competiton from the IL 78 Midas and the reason was given as financial and not violation of DPP 2008 like in the case of Artilery trials. The new RFI will be issued to Boeing as well so may be some American pressure in that as well one could assume.

There are already reports that IAF will not do a down-select and will just submit the data to the decision makers.

May be true may be not.

But I will not be so sure, do check up on organic keyboards.

Well according to some interesting people LCA is really advanced than another fighter it is often compared to.

http://livefist.blogspot.com/2010/10/jf-17-not-as-advanced-as-lca-but-it-can.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FUQMw+%28LiveFist+-+The+Best+of+Indian+Defence%29

Hey hop a LCA with Mach 1.6 , 3 tonnes armament and cant pull trough 6 G. Is that what we are competition for? And its been in the works for 40 years!!???? And can still not outperform the MiG-21 from 1950?!

Gotta love HAL DAL or watherver you call it…

Why don’t you speak about the LCA in the IAF thread and keep this one to the MRCA. The MIG 21 can outperform many modern fighters (not just the LCA) on certain performance parameters even today !

I thought HMDS and HMCS were the same. So is JHMCS inferior to the Elbit DASH ?

Yes I know. Like the real RCS numbers etc. But then again do you see manufacturers advertising them ? No.

What would anyone gain from hiding basic performance charecteristics like payload and range ?

Perhaps IAF is also doing the same thing; perhaps the weight of Tejas is not 6500 kg. Who knows?

Then lets assume that this is true in the case of every military aircraft, all our discussions are a waste of time then ?

The F 16 is the real darkhorse in the MRCA and I will not be surprised to see it win.