I am curious- does the RuAF commonly perform interceptions, lets say, over the Baltic Sea of say, NATO assets patrolling close/in the direction of Russian airspace? Or do they not care?

could have.
would have.
should have.
:diablo:

Baltic 2011 : 2 French Mirages intercept Russian AWACS and 2 Flankers

On 30 May 2011, a patrol of two Mirage 2000 RDI intercepted over the Baltic Sea, a Russian HVAA (High Value Air Asset) consisting of a Beriev A-50 “Mainstay” and 2 hunters Sukhoi-27 “Flanker”.

Alerted at 11:40 am, the two French hunters take off quickly from the air base in Siauliai in Lithuania to control an aircraft performing the air link Saint-Petersbourg/Kaliningrad.

Indeed, the flight plan filed by the crew of the Beriev A-50 indicated a single unit of AWACS but not the two Su-27 escort. In addition, two Swedish Jas-39 Gripen were already conducting a surveillance behind this impressive device. The two Mirage 2000 relayed the Gripen to accompany the three Russian aircraft to the limit of the Baltic airspace.

did I hear right? that news report said
2007 Sukhoi – 40 mill
2010 Sukhoi – 100 mill?

that’s so expensive that it’ll make the French blush!
its not a natural inflation increase.. did the 2010 deal include something else like.. a cargo airplane or a submarine that was not factored in the calculation!?

If i recall correctly, those 42 were ordered from Russia and not to be license produced in India. The license production agreement was for 140 aircraft, later increased to 180. This order was over the existing order.

There are time limits (and restriction by numbers as in this case) for repeat orders under contracts, beyond which any order is treated as a fresh order and price has to be renegotiated.

PS : 180 Mki’s ordered 40 mil a pop is goddamn awesomely cheap. Even if we consider the trollish rants that flankers are overrated, I would still risk a limb to call it the best bang per buck deal in the history of defence.

Edit : Is this the same batch which will roll off the production line with Super-30 upgrades ?

As if Indians were not profit minded when they signed ridiculously cheap deals in the 90s.

Its called a deal. Other than that i agree with you, Mki at the price of Gripen NG is ridiculous.

you mean they are not as good backstabbers as the americans ? :p

Its seems to be more of a case of inefficient supply chain established with poor planning, inefficient management and financial constraints than that of backstabbing. Even though in the engineering line, “A machine is bread, spares are the butter”, Mikoyan, Ilyushin and Tupolov have to manage only with spoonfuls of butter, while Sukhoi gets majority funding and sales as well.

Russia has stepped up for India diplomatically in some very bad times (insert sad sound of violin), lets hope this phase is only a small speed breaker.

Don’t let national fantasies stop you though!

I do not want to get into the my equipment strongest spat, but Arjun did manage to prove that it meets army’s criteria after the competitive trials held in presence of neutral observers. What actually offends most people about this issue is that some of the reasons given to reject homegrown machine were found in T-90 as well (failure of electronics due to intense heat) and some borderline absurd (size of the tank, when the basic design was frozen in 1995). Its like purchasing F-16’s for Russia when they can produce Mig-29.

Btw whats your take on Ilyushin spares issue ?

In France people are friendly to guests, so they let EF have the 2 fights. In real simulations and exercises Rafale dominates though.

Oxymoron : Real simulations :p

Is there any tranche 3 prototype on display or flying around ?