If so that is excellent news ? But what engines ? May be Refurbished M53s? I am not sure the M-88 will fit or have enough thrust.

they won’t change the M53-P2. they’ll overhaul it and possibly upgrade it based on recent work done on the M53

Snecma M53 brochure

Over the last few years, Snecma has introduced new technologies into the M53-P2 in order to reduce the number of engine removals and maintenance costs.

It does appear to be the case, the avionics/radar setup is almost identical to the proposed offer for the JF-17. However, it seems the reluctance of the PAF to accept the offer in light of the Chinese radar/avionics package, not to mention the greater technology ToT, was probably a better decision for the PAF over the long term. Seriously, why is it taking so long for the upgrade?

I think that the cost was the real factor behind why Pakistan didn’t go in for the French avionics/weapons combo on the JF-17..no way that they’d be as liberal with credit as the Chinese for the Pakistanis.

Should we take this as a hint that the Mirage 2000 will shift more and more towards the ground attack role? Possibly even getting more of a strategic role with Scalp-EG.

Is there any word about the AASM being integrated?

Nic

hardly so..considering that nearly 400 MICAs were to be ordered as part of the package for 52 Mirages its a large enough number to show that an air-to-air role will still be very important.

I hope you are getting paid for your response as Indian military including e border guards are having problems with the Dhruv and you wish the same for the Thai

nonsense. but I can guess what the motivation for your post was. Not hard to guess.
:rolleyes:

the BSF issues have been discussed here earlier and if YOU followed Indian aviation you’d know what the BSF’s history has been with all its rotary assets.

the Indian Army and IAF on the other hand swear by it.

X-32 looked classy from the top.

To be honest before AMCA design was made public i half expected AMCA to be a delta shape like X-32 (atleast from the top) with twin engines and conventional twin intakes (to minimize work by retaining delta wing fbw of Tejas)

Not to mention the massive wastage of bandwidth for the last 10 years, when IAF decided that it needed some planes.

you do know that this was only the design of the X-32 A/B for the first 2 prototypes right? They dumped the delta wing and the later design went to a more conventional wing with 4 poster tail instead of the delta wing.

The reason was that the USN changed its requirements and required more maneuverability. The delta wing design was found to be heavier for those requirements and the design was changed, but it was too late for the prototypes whose wings had already been fabricated.

A good deal for France, however I wouldn’t say its as good as deal for India too…But anyway…

In terms of improving France’s chances for the MMRCA deal, maybe, maybe not, some people might consider France will walk away with the MMRCA deal now that India has gone ahead with the Mirage upgrade…I wouldn’t put any bets on that.

I remember when the other contenders were still in the MMRCA competition when India selected the GE F414 engines for their Tejas aircraft, many, many members were adament the Americans were going to walk away with the deal with their F/A-18, like, seriously sure, the likes of Scooter & Co were a million percent sure it was a done deal. But got a bit of a shock.

I think what Charles Edelsteinne of Dassault said about the Euro to USD exchange rate clearly explains why the deal is so much costlier than a comparable F-16 upgrade. After all, the entire Dassault supply chain deals in Euros and pays its workforce in Euros. Consequently every item becomes costlier just due to that.

other factors like the small number (51 units) of upgrade kits to be produced and the fact that the Mirage has been out of production for several years now, also mean that some new developments may be needed for parts that cannot be produced anymore (especially electronic items).

This will be the case with ANY European procurement. i don’t think that a deal with EADS (if it was EADS instead of Dassault) would’ve been any cheaper- if anything, the messy structure of having parts manufactured in 4 different countries would make it harder to manage.

Gimme Dhruv over those Bell any day

Yes, first of all considering the vintage of those Bell 212’s the Dhruvs would be more modern helicopter..and considering the kind of terrain and climes that the IAF and IA operate their Dhruvs in, such as in the North East of India where weather can change abruptly or in the high altitudes of the Himalayas, they could well be very useful to the Thais. And it helps that they’d likely be cheaper too.