SAAB to offer the Saab-2000 for the IN’s MRMR competition

SAAB to Bid for Indian Navy MRMR Tender
May 29, 2011
By Saurabh Joshi

Swedish defense and aerospace company SAAB is planning to offer its SAAB 2000 aircraft to the Indian Navy when it issues a Request For Proposal (RFP) for Medium Range Maritime Reconnaissance (MRMR) aircraft in the next few months.

The Indian Navy currently operates the Russian Tu-142 Bear and IL-38 aircraft, in addition to Dornier aircraft. It has also ordered eight P-8I Long Range Maritime Reconnaissance (LRMR) aircraft and is expected to buy an additional four.

The aircraft is built by US aviation company Boeing, which is planning to pitch a medium range ‘diet’ P-8 for the Indian Navy’s MRMR tender.

While the SAAB 2000 is being offered with the RBS-15 Anti Ship Missile and a fifth generation Selex AESA radar, what is also interesting is that SAAB is offering re-manufactured aircraft, since the company ceased production of the aircraft in 1999.

“We will take an existing SAAB 2000. We will re-manufacture it and build it up. So it will be ground zero flying hours. We will have all the warranties. We will have 35,000 flying hours. It will have 25 years of support,” said Tommy Hultin, SAAB’s Business Development Director for the program.

Hultin also says the Harpoon missile manufactured by Boeing, which India is already planning to acquire for the Indian Air Force (IAF) Jaguar and the P-8I aircraft, can also be configured on the SAAB 2000, which he points out, is one of the fastest turboprop aircraft flying.

If LCA were as capable as Mig-29, then Mig-29 would never have been ordered by the IN. Anyway I propose that we move all discussion of LCA and its derivatives to a different thread to keep this one on topic, so if you want to discuss it further then we can do so there 😎

The first batch of 16 MiG-29K were ordered before the IN committed any funds for the development of the N-LCA.

Anyway, my last comments on this thread, on the N-LCA.

The F16 is a medium fighter, Tejas is not. My point clearly stands.

Its illogical. So the IAF’s MiG-21s were LIFT fighters meant to be used as second-line defence till now ? And what of the IN’s Sea Harriers that the N-LCA is meant to replace and which is also in its weight class ? Was the SHar also a LIFT in the IN all these years ? :rolleyes:

Last time i looked up performance figures, Tejas did 7.5g, same as A-10 IIRC.
has that changed ?
Or is still like these IAF Marshal says:

Tejas would at best be akin to a three-legged ‘Cheetah’ on the inventory of the IAF
-Air Marshal (Retd) V.K. Bhatia

“At present it is not a fourth generation aircraft.”
-Air Chief Marshal PV Naik

That is very different from this:

The Gripen test pilot Fredrik Müchler tells me that the Gripen NG can easily be touted a 10G fighter
-Vishnu Som

because the last time you looked up the Tejas Mk1’s performance figures, it still hadn’t explored its flight enveloped fully. Sometime this year, when LSP-6 joins the flightline, it’ll be dedicated to high alpha and high G testing, so rest assured, that figure you’re touting will increase.

Oh and whatever you say about the Gripen NG being the greatest and the bestest, the IAF rejected the Gripen NG as well didn’t it ? 😉

AFAIK El-2032 was opted over Selex-AESA, primarily due to cost concerns and because its performance is good enough. Fitting AESA and GE 414 on this thing would be fitting mahogany panels and kid leather interiors on a $4000 car 🙂

No.

The Selex AESA was not left as an option because Lockheed Martin didn’t let KAI put an AESA radar on the T-50 since they didn’t want to share the source codes with a non-US company. The options were the AN/APG-67(V)4 and the Elta 2032, and the South Koreans chose the 2032. Even that radar will actually be integrated in the US, not in South Korea.

Deal for 10 C-17s about to go through

By Jay Menon [email]jaymenon68@gmail.com[/email]
NEW DELHI

India is likely to give the final approval this month for the purchase of 10 Boeing C-17 Globemaster III military transports from the U.S.

“India’s defense deal with the United States for the 10 giant strategic airlift aircraft is in its final stages,” Indian air force spokesman Wing Commander T.K. Singha tells Aviation Week. “We are awaiting an approval from the Cabinet Committee on Security. It is expected to happen soon.”

Separately, another defense ministry official says India’s federal Cabinet Committee is expected to meet this month to give the final approval. “All matters regarding costs and offsets have been discussed and have been resolved. We expect the deal to take off soon.”

Aviation Week quoted Boeing officials early this week saying that the Indian government is “going through the final steps” toward confirming its order for 10 aircraft, with the first expected to be delivered at the end of 2012. The Indian air force had short-listed the C-17 to be its new heavy-lift transport aircraft two years ago.

link to AW article

count on DDM to come up with an asinine headline. this one is a crash, the other two were what are called minor accidents.

Otherwise we could say that an F-16 Block 60 crashed at Aero-India 2009, couldn’t we ?

Its so frustrating to see sensationalist headlines from DDM who seem to be incapable of doing even the slightest bit of research into what they write.

Rafales choice does surprise me though I expected it to be one among the 3-a/c contest in the final stage between MiG-35, Rafale & Typhoon with L1 finally getting through or a split between L1 & L2 (MiG-35 & Rafale). And yes dissapointed to see that MiG-35 could not clear it….but surprising to see the engine power being one of the reasons mentioned. This is surprising as the two most underpowered a/c in the contest was the F-18E/F & Rafale.

Was clearly mentioned by some “sources” that the MiG-35 fared poorly in trials. It was also the least convincing offer in terms of what the IAF gains in weapons (such that it cannot get with the Su-30MKI) and it has no guarantee of being a fighter that can last 40 years with upgrades since no one else may operate it (apart from some hollow promises that the Russian AF would get MiG-35s if the IAF would buy it). Only thing going for it was its price.

Some likely facts

1) There could also be other factors to the Rafale becoming the no1 in selection and that could be the IAF selection/evaluation committee. If it was filled with the M2K guys, then make no doubt it was them who tilted it in its favour. Else on engine & Radar, Rafale would be the last.

Pure speculation- that’s it. The IAF has a very large pool of MiG-21, Jaguar, MiG-23/27, MiG-29 and Su-30MKI pilots who have risen to Wng Cmdr and Grp Cpt ranks. This can be seen in the spread of test pilots of the LCA- they come from all different fighters. To suggest that Mirage-2000 pilots were the only ones who evaluated the fighters and consequently tilted the evaluation in the Rafale’s favour is simply your imagination.

2) Like in the mid-90s (M2K deal for additional 10 units, insider leak) there probably was a leak from the MoD (!!!) regarding the shortlising/probable shortlist of the contestants. It was probably the single reason why we saw the French with full confidence, arrogance & greed that they demanded a staggering a $2.2billioin for the upgrade for the M2K and wanted it to club it with the Rafale deal. After connecting the dots, to me it looks like the French had an absolute idea about who the other contestant could be and they pretty well knew they were/could be the L1 (considering Typhoon is higher priced). So probably they showed the guts to demand the $2.2 billion considering two factors
1) they were the L1 &
2) MiG-35 will not be an obstacle (L1) to their price demands.

It has nothing to do with arrogance or greed. It has to do with the size of the order of parts to be produced for the upgrade- Dassault no more produces Mirage 3/5 like fighters that were so popular and consequently more affordable. The Greeks ALSO were offered Mirage-2000-5 upgrades at very high prices. This is not an India specific demand. Dassault’s suppliers don’t have the volumes of orders that LM or Boeing or even EADS does. Consequently, their order sizes are smaller and their costs that much greater.

BTW, why don’t you check out how much Thailand paid for its F-16 upgrades. The prices were close to $36 million per unit. Not cheap either.

3) Also, the MMRCA tender also looked like some stupids play and I feel bad (frankly) for the Lockheed & more so Gripen consortium. It is because, from the onset it was clear that single-engined a/c did not have a chance and still the idiots who formulated the tender made a fool of the F-16 & Gripen guys, making them waste their precious budget (more so the Gripen).

Precious budget? Who the hell asked them to participate? Did the MoD hold a gun to SAAB’s or LM’s head and tell them that they had to participate? If they felt that they had no chance of winning they should’ve just declined to reply to the RFP. If (and I don’t believe that there was any known bias back then for twin-engined fighters) there was a bias towards twin-engined fighters, then SAAB and LM should’ve wisely spent the money they did spend on the evaluations and Aero India shows, elsewhere. It is they who must be fools, not MoD.

Such rants are so ignorant, its just incredible!

4) Now that the shortlist is over, will Lockheed (f-16), Boeing (f-18) guys be sending bills to the fat guy (more weight = more fuel 😀 :p) from Livefist and other media persons who have been having the ride of their dreams over the years.:D ……. and if we are lucky enough, we’ll in the distant future see who all the Lockheed & Boeing guys paid in the background to see their products being promoted in the Indian media (& even in the forums) :p

Add MiG to the list- they’re broke and still gave joyrides to Vishnu Som and Shiv Aroor, apart from a bunch of IAF pilots who must’ve realised just how much better the Typhoon and Rafale cockpit, avionics and ergonomics are.

Some of the mentioned things for the shortlist does surprises me and I’ve put my view below. In my view, considering the data from the open sources the individual parameter for the contestants would have looked like this.

Engine/power (determining the performance,
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showpost.php?p=1730659&postcount=693)
1) Typhoon
2) MiG-35
3) Rafale

Problems with the MiG-35’s engine were apparently listed down by the IAF technical evaluation team and given to MiG after it was informed that it didn’t qualify- So your listing is probably just a fanboy’s list that simply evades facts.

A-A combat
1) MiG-35 (one of the reasons why Rafale/Typhoon etc have been avoiding MiG-29s during Exercise with IAF)
& Rafale (have beaten the Typhoon http://russiadefence.englishboard.net/t930-interview-with-a-rafale-pilot)

2) Typhoon

Comical ! 😀

Strike role (considering the weapons/available, Russia offered the most long-ranged ones.)
1) F-18E/F
2) Rafale
3) MiG-35 (Kh-series of SEAD, anti-radar etc,)

Wow! This good huh? Better than the F-16IN too?

Radar
1) F-18E/F (operational & matured,larger than Rafale)
2) MiG-35 (in full-fledged testing, larger than Rafale)
3) Typhoon (probably way behind the Russians in development, larger than Rafale)

You consistently forget the F-16IN whereas overestimating the MiG-35, whose Zhuk-AE was not a full production model when evaluated. The range mentioned for the Zhuk-AE is hardly astonishing and doesn’t impress compared to even the RBE-2 AESA.

Value for Money (Cost/Unit & capability)
1) MiG-35
2) Rafale
3) F-18E/F

You have no access to data on true serviceability rates of the MiG-29 in the IAF and yet you can bring out a rating on this? You come across as a truly disgruntled Russian fanboy.