If India does not want the Rafale. There is only one fighter it can quickly induct without all the hassle of another competition. That is the Super Hornet. Just a few calls to Obama some negotiations and the deal signed using the FMS route.

I don’t know why HAL should have exclusive rights from every major contract.

Yes Reliance doesn’t have the experience or pedigree of HAL.

But I do think these things are a bit over stated, Dassault themselves can train Indian engineers working in Reliance.

In this day and age essential skills/tech can be taught relatively easy.

HAL is so full of middle aged government salaried engineers who will get paid regardless of whether the do any work or not. Yes they may have ‘skills’.

But if Reliance can hire freshers from the IITs in the country and the French can teach them proper, they will be much better than these old dinosaurs at HAL anyway.

I don’t think experience matters in Engineering as much as it does on Management.

You know what I will do if I ran the country is this.

Look around the world for disaffected engineers from major aerospace firms, offer them outrageous salaries, may be even take over entire companies and then use their expertise to teach Indians. In a globalized world money can bring you anything.

The alternate engine programme was only killed a while ago, they can go back to building it if they want to, surely.

Yes leave others out of it. Let us Injuns and the French enjoy the Rafale (:>

10-15 years from now India will probably be operating the PAK FA and the AMCA.

The AMCA, looking at the models have gone for a more traditional approach like the Americans and Chinese have done. The PAK FA seems to have a different approach, I am hoping for an Indian DACT between the two while the PAK FA may win I think the AMCA will have lower RCS.

Carrier capability requires a consultant that actually built a carrier jet before(ie Boeing or Dassalt, not Lockheed or EADS) and increases weight and drag penalty. This is in fact what Boeing’s pitching, that if they make the KFX a naval jet then Boeing could sell several hundred units to the US Navy as an F-35C replacement to build the economy of scale and that Boeing would put its own money down if Korean government agreed to this arrangement, but I doubt the Korean government would agree to this as this would increase developmental risks(Not that Boeing is a terrible naval jet maker); Koreans are extremely risk averse and a major cost overrun and delay is rare in Korean weapons programs. This is the reason for KFX blocks, in order to minimize the risks.

ADA-HAL is certainly doing that with the LCA Navy version now.

Its been a slow and painful process LCA Navy but the knowledge gained could mean we may not need an international partner for a carrier variant of AMCA.

Between the Pilatus and the Hawk its an intermediate jet trainer.

Why would America want Pakistan to stay out of it? Only reason I can think of is if India would be defeated too quickly under the combined onslaught.

Remember, we’re talking about the two greatest threats to America’s global primacy. There’s plenty of ‘national security’-type folk who’d love to see India and China tear each other to bits, the more comprehensively the better.

Actually I don’t think India would be defeated quickly at all even in a two front war with Pakistan and China. In a long drawn out war of attrition the Chinese would have the upper hand but that is it.

India has enough divisions and capability to fight an offensive war in Pakistan while holding off China in the East.

The Americans view India as a potential ally in the Asian theater against a rising China and would do everything to stop India’s speedy collapse apart from directly involving in the conflict.

They have done this in 1962 during the Sino Indian War, in fact Americans were ready to get involved more back then if the Indian leadership agreed.