What this article by Strategic Affairs on the MRCA down-select makes clear is that till the official report or the official statement of the IAF or MoD is not released, we cannot say for sure who has or who hasn’t been recommended by the IAF to make it through to the next round. What I cannot fathom is how an F-16 Block 60 IN variant can make it into the next round with the MiG-35 while the Rafale and Super Hornet would’ve failed..only aircraft common between both the reports to have passed is the Typhoon and only to have failed in both is the Gripen NG..

Anyway, to the Indian posters in the know, how reputable is this Strategic Affairs mag ? Can one lend any credence to its report ?

its Damocles not Damasclese :rolleyes:..BTW, something is better than nothing..the F-18 E/F basically has no IRST so as things stand it is at a disadvantage compared to the OSF. And what are you basing your “they are considered obsolete and God knows how many are left even working” statement on ? Your own sources I presume ? Or would you actually provide some sources to back up such sweeping statements ?

Some details on the nearly $30 billion deal between the US and Saudi Arabia. 84 F-15E Strike (or Silent?) Eagle and the upgrades for 70 F-15s and also 72 Black Hawks. As is usual for Saudi Arabia, its a direct govt.-to-govt. contract.

article link

Saudi F-15 deal bodes well Boeing, St. Louis
St. Louis Post-Dispatch 08/10/2010
Author: Steve Giegerich
Copyright 2010, St. Louis Post-Dispatch. All Rights Reserved.

The possible sale of seven dozen F-15 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia would keep Boeing Co.’s St. Louis defense division viable for years to come, analysts said.

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that the deal with the Saudis had been reached and put the value of the deal at $30 billion. The fighters sold to the Saudi government would be modified in deference to security concerns expressed by Israeli defense officials.

“It’s taken a long time to finalize the deal, and now we know why,” said Richard Aboulafia, a defense industry and aviation analyst with the Teal Group in Fairfax, Va. “Eighty-four is a fantastic number.”

Bloomberg Businessweek reported the sale would include the production of 72 Black Hawk helicopters, manufactured by the Sikorsky unit of United Technologies Corp, and the refurbishment of 70 existing F-15 fighter jets.

Sources told Businessweek that congressional notification of the contract should occur within two months. A Boeing official here said she could not confirm the transaction, noting that such a deal would be brokered between the U.S. and Saudi governments.

“It’s strictly a government to government sale, so we can’t talk about it,” explained Boeing spokeswoman Patricia Frost.

But Aboulafia, an independent authority on defense industry matters, said, “It’s a fair bet (the deal) will keep the line going until at least 2016 or 2017.”

To have simulated a SARH missile and guided it all the way to its target, I think that the Rafale’s small RCS, coupled with the OSF and MICA IR combo would’ve come into play. During such a simulated DACT, the Typhoon pilots would’ve had no way of knowing that the MICA IR was simulated to be launched at them since those launches were basically simulated after the Rafale pilots identified the targets using their OSF. In reality, a missile launch plume would’ve likely been picked up by the DASS and warned the pilot. DASS is also to include wideband RWR and ESM systems with 360 deg coverage and had the Rafale been illuminating the Typhoon with its RBE2 PESA, the threat would’ve been picked up..

However, Tranche 2 Typhoons only feature a limited or basic DASS system so it is possible that they went into the DACT without adequate self-protection and warning systems on board. Nevertheless, that only illustrates that EXISTING maturity of the Rafale vs the Typhoon. No doubt though that the Typhoon will get there eventually, but with partner nations looking to cut orders and save budgets, it might take more time than anticipated.

BTW, AFM recently carried a pic of the first 2 seat Typhoon for the RSAF..a truly stunning look bird with the best camo scheme of all Typhoons to date.

It may have a long range radar but it lags behind the Rafale in passive detection and attack. The longer range radar may not help it in many occassions may be it will give tis position away to enemy rwr.

The Rafale clearly showed its superiority over the Typhoon in recent exercises and is the better multirole platform, it can carry more load and go longer.

All things equal Rafale should win, but the points arthuro made makes typhoon the favourite.

Those results may have been for PIRATE-less Typhoons. The PIRATE did have some developmental troubles, but these were said to have been resolved and the PIRATE will be likely standard fit for Tranche 3 Typhoons. It was definitely offered to the IAF for the MRCA contest since every other MRCA contestant had an IRST either in development or already operational. A Typhoon with a PIRATE will be just as able to conduct passive detection and tracking as the Rafale with its OSF (which has had its IR channel removed recently as per some reports on this forum from Air & Cosmos, to be replaced by the MICA IR’s sensor. the TV sensor will stay though).

As things stand, the Rafale is without a doubt the more mature all-round multi-role fighter but as others have pointed out, EADS with the combined might of 4 nations pushing it, will be hard for Dassault and the French govt. to beat. Nevertheless, what I must point out (and especially to Arthuro who has said this in the past) is that a couple of French posters were probably right, about Dassault choosing to maintain a low profile and concentrating instead on putting up a strong performance during evaluation and doing the lobbying with the actually influential people in the IAF and MoD..compare that to the marketing blitz by Saab and Boeing and even EADS which had many people and even media completely believing that they were the ones in with the greatest chance to win the contest.

I did state just a couple of days before news of this down-select by the IAF broke, that the IAF now has a budget that may allow it to put performance, capability and growth potential as its main requirements, which may be bad for the single engined fighters and the MiG-35 whose biggest advantage over the heavier twin-enginers was their lower acquisition cost and (except for MiG-35) their lower operating costs as well.

I’m personally extremely happy to see that the IAF has basically validated all the points I made about the best choices being the Rafale and the Typhoon.

link to my post dated 3rd Aug-10

[b]
Also, over time the MRCA budget has swollen to a level that may allow the IAF to put performance, technology and capability as the prime requirements, rather than just looking at cost and possible numbers it can acquire within a smaller budget. But then again, numerical superiority is a huge advantage as well, so the MRCA cannot be the most expensive fighter out there. So there are contradictory factors that are at work here and the IAF has to decide (and it must have since its evaluation report is to be submitted to the MoD soon) about what particular niche does it want the MRCA to fit in.

Now it’s clear that they love the Su-30MKI, the capability, the operational multi-role flexibility it brings, the variety of payloads it can carry as well as the range and endurance of the platform. But 280 Su-30MKIs (including the additional 42 that were signed for recently) is a lot, nearly 15 squadrons worth. There is talk that even more may be contracted for afterwards which might mean a 300+ Su-30MKI force.

That also means that a huge chunk of the operational budget is going to be used to fly and maintain this heavy fighter. While India spends only a small portion of its GDP on defence, the IAF cannot be sure that its budget will always keep increasing to allow it to operate close to 400-450 heavy to medium-heavy class twin engined fighters. And with the IAF wanting to induct large 5th generation FGFA fighters beginning in 2018 or thereabouts, it becomes clear that the fighter structure is more and more leaning towards medium-heavy fighters. That could possibly leave the IAF with just the about 150 odd Tejas Mk1 and Mk2 as it’s cheap to acquire and operate single engined fighters in 2025 (when the Mirage-2000-5 will likely retire).

So should the MRCA be a fighter that adds to the top-heavy structure or should it be a Gripen NG or F-16IN type fighter that is lighter and cheaper to operate albeit has issues with growth potential due to inherent space constraints and carries smaller payloads as well?

Here again is the dilemma. The IAF has predominantly been a strike oriented force with a bigger emphasis on strike and interdiction fighters than air defence fighters (which has been the PAF’s predominant focus in the past). With MiG-27’s, early model Jaguars and MiG-21M fighters retiring or beginning to retire in this decade, the IAF will lose a large chunk of its ground attack fighters and the MRCA was predominantly meant to address this shortfall of strike fighters. The Tejas Mk1 and Mk2 will replace the MiG-21 Bison, so the light weight category is to some degree covered, but the MRCA has to be a fighter that can carry a meaningful payload over a long distance, deposit it from a safe distance and return safely.

With the recent news about C-130J and P-8Is as well as possible C-17s being supplied to the IAF and IN without important communications equipment due to the non-signing of CISMOA agreement, the IAF would do well to simply eliminate the F-18E/F and F-16IN and concentrate on fighters that will not sold in a compromised or neutered manner. Some other countries will gladly accept such fighters but the IAF shouldn’t have to when it can afford not to. The only fear in this regard is that the current Indian govt. is so hopelessly pro-US that there is no way that they will allow the IAF to remove both US fighters from the list even though privately, all IAF officers express deep concerns over continued US sales and heavily subsidized transfers of fighters and other weaponry to Pakistan, the sanction happy nature of US Congress, as well as the guarantee that there will be insurmountable hurdles to ToT with the export control laws that the US has.

That leaves the European fighters mainly since I believe that the IAF wouldn’t want to end up being nearly all-Russian.

So the choice should ideally be between the Rafale, Typhoon and the Gripen NG (my opinion of course). How they fared in the evaluations, and how they fit into the IAF’s expectations from the MRCA should basically dictate who gets shortlisted and what recommendation the IAF makes.

Some people believe for instance that the IAF has to cater for the threat that the PLAAF poses. For decades, the IAF has neglected its eastern front with most of its air-defence fighters and SAMs located on the western front. Which was fine till the PLAAF operated short-legged J-6, J-7 type fighters and had little advantage in terms of infrastructure in Tibet. But with J-11B and J-10’s proliferating and the advances that China has made in making Tibet accessible to the PLA and PLAAF, the IAF has to be able to tackle these as well as deal with the PAF in a possible future conflict. That requires a Typhoon or Rafale class aircraft which can not only defend airspace but also be able to ingress, carry out strikes while avoiding China’s formidable SAM defences and then egress safely.

about Saab and its lobbying 😉

http://www.gripen.com/en/MediaRelations/News/2008/080303_jetset.htm

just a coincidence, of course 😀

Danell, Vishnu has flown on several fast jets, including the MiG-35 and the F-16 (he was invited to fly it in the US, so it wasn’t the Block 60). I’m not sure that when he writes that this news report may be incomplete, he is showing bias. OTOH, he does work for a rival news channel, NDTV (which is in general, better than TimesNow).