For the IAF, the current numbers of Su-30MKI seem adequate. what the IAF needs is to replace the MiG-27s and Bisons by 2015 and get the MRCA winner and the Tejas in place. Also buy a couple of ex-AdlA Mirage-2000 squadrons and upgrade them to -5 specs. and

so, for me,

maintain 230 X Su-30MKIs
200 X Tejas Mk1 and Mk2 (AESA and Meteor)
180 X Typhoon/Rafale
75 X Mirage-2000-5
200 X PAK-FA (after 2020) or 200 X Medium Combat Aircraft (MCA)
66 X Hawk Mk 132
66 X Combat Advanced Trainer
140 X IJT Sitara
66 X Tejas LIFT
120 X Medium Transport Aircraft (MTA)
30 X Il-76
25 X Il-78 Midas tankers
5 X An-124
10 X Il-76 mounted Phalcons
10 X Embraer EMB-135/145 mounted AEWACS

Indian Navy

50 X MiG-29K
50 X Tejas-N
12 X P-8A Poseidon/Airbus 320 solution

I’m too lazy to go into the helis now, but the Mi-17, Dhruv, Fennec and Light Combat Heli (LCH) should be adequate for most IA and IAF roles and Ka-28 alongwith Dhruv for the Navy. for specialised anti-sub roles, maybe the IN should get a few Merlins.

surely the configuration can be changed to suit the role. in a pure Anti tank role, they could fit in 4 Nags in place of the Mistral. it’ll be very interesting to see the LCH derived from the ALH..slimmer fuselage with RCS reduction features, IR reduction features, and a more stressed airframe to take a higher payload of weapons..and a GIAT nose cannon..:diablo:

I’ve personally spoken to a number of pilots who’ve flown Rafale, and all acknowledge that it’s a bloody good aeroplane. I haven’t met anyone who doesn’t place Rafale ahead of the US teen series (with the exception of the latest F-15 variants, which do have some enthusiastic supporters). But of those who have flown both Rafale and Typhoon I have found plenty of people who liked particular elements of Rafale, but I have yet to find a single person who preferred Rafale overall.

That’s not to say there aren’t such people – find a pilot whose only experience is the M2K and there’s a chance that he might prefer Rafale overall. I almost spoke to a Greek M2K driver who I thought had flown Rafale and Typhoon, but the bug.ger pretended he couldn’t speak English and wouldn’t discuss it…..

that’ll be interesting from an IAF point of view..some of the senior most evaluators will be Mirage-2k pilots and the rest will be MiG, Sukhoi or Jaguar pilots..considering what the MiG and Jag pilots have been flying, both the Rafale and the Typhoon would be considered absolutely smashing. Wonder if the M2k pilots will push for the Rafale then..

IAF may order more Topsight-Es for its Mirage-2000H/TH upgrade program and like mentioned here already, the MiG-29K is TopOwl-F qualified.

From what I understood these “unforseen costs” you refer to above derived exclusively from the “unforseen devaluation” of the US dollar against the rupee and the rouble. Since the US dollar was the currency used to determine the contractual values on both those cases, naturally the indians didn’t complain when they noticed that in Indian rupees their big Russian high tech purchases were geting cheaper every day…

Am I correct on this assumption?

Regards,

Hammer

would the Russians have been so kind as to renegotiate if the Rupee had infact become weaker against the US $ making the MKIs more expensive? I think not. The deal was negotiated and an escalation clause was included to cater to such devaluations- this is what the Russians wanted changed, well into the contract fulfilment period. They threatened with foreclosure of the deal knowing fully well that India would not invoke penalty clauses, since the IAF was already having falling squadron numbers and was very happy with the MKI itself.

Just an observation and one which i have made before. While MKI might be comparatively cheaper than M2K-5, i believe it would be a lot more expensive per flight hour. Im basing this observation on a fact (taken from an article on IDAF F-15 published in AFM some 3/4 years back) that IDAF F-15 pilots had to make up their hours on smaller fighters simply because one F-15 flight hour would cost around $15K (or was it $20K?) most of which was fuel costs. Considering russian standard of maintenance and engine efficiency vis-a-vis western ones as well as much heavier MKI airframe, inflation, and much high oil prices of today, i have absolutely no doubt that a single MKI flight hour would cost (as of now) at least what it was costing IDAF per F-15 flight hour a few years back. Over the years (lets say 6,000) these flying costs add up to a lot.

thats correct, it will be costly to operate. Indeed, the MRCA requirement started off with the IAF clearly wanting ONLY 126 Mirage-2000-5s. single engined, larger than the Tejas, and with suitable upgrades, capable enough to tackle the threats from PLAAF and PAF..then the Govt. was scared of accusations of kickbacks and single vendors, and opened it up to every other vendor..which is why the MRCA contenders all vary in size and capablities and which is also why the IAF did not want the heavyweight Su-30MKI or F-15E to participate in the contest. they bring a lot of capabilities, but the IAF needed a fighter that would be somewhat cheaper to operate but offering good enough capabilities. In some ways, a Gripen NG would have been ideal, since being larger than a Tejas, their roles would not overlap completely..but that is again only on paper as of now..

and now, the MRCA contest is a beast of its own, with widely varying requirements being quoted..

Vikas, I was referring to the article that Joey posted where it was claimed that the Lifecycle costs aspect will no longer be considered due to its complicated structure..

awesome !:diablo: