VnomadThe Mirage-2000 upgrade did include ToT. And the cost of the MiG-29UPG upgrade (which is for 62 not 63 MiG-29s) is not a third of the price of the Mirage-2000 upgrade.
ToT for what components was included in the upgrade? AFAIK the EW systems and avionics are mostly being shipped in and the HMS and LCD displays are being delivered by an already existing co-venture i.e. Samtel Thales Avionics. There’s little ToT to be had let alone acquired in an economic fashion.
First off, the MiG-29 upgrade cost $964 million without any new weapons, which is clearly not a third of the Mirage-2000 upgrade cost. Secondly, the effectivity of the upgrade should also be examined in terms of how many more service hours you’ll get per unit and compare that to the cost of the upgrade per unit. the Mirages will likely get an additional 20 to 25 years/6000-7500 hours or so. The MiG-29s will get an additional 10 to 15 years/1500 hours or so.
The Mirage 2000 upgrade did not include weapons either. The contract for that was signed separately.
$2.4 billion for 51 aircraft is $47 million/unit, while $964 million for 62 (instead of 63) aircraft comes out to be $15.5 million/unit. Almost exactly a third of the former.
With regard to service life, the DID article says that the upgrade ‘may include airframe refurbishment’, but I haven’t seen any news report mentioning a airframe life extension program for the Mirage, let alone one that doubles its fatigue limit. I have however read several reports that say airframe modification is not included in the upgrade. Case in point-
The proposal is to upgrade all 51 aircraft to extend their operational life and update their capability. The ‘cardinal points’ of the proposal include: no airframe modifications, no changes to major aircraft systems, no modification to equipment bays, limited cockpit modifications, minimum retrofit line modification facilities/activities, and, most significantly, it does not cover the cost of supply of weapons.
VnomadI said less than 10 years. massive down sizing is surely coming. you cannot bet against the tide of debt.
.
.
.
Not fair. You promised not to explain and then went ahead and did it anyway. 🙁
VnomadIAF upgrades include ToT and most of the upgrade to take place in India by HAL, it cannot be Dassault fault India insist on transferring pretty much all technologies, and no countries will give them free.
The refit is to take place in India yes, but AFAIK there isn’t any significant ToT involved. As for what countries are giving away – the IAF’s MiG-29 upgrade for 63 aircraft (as opposed to 49 Mirages) included an airframe modification, life extension and re-engining in addition to upgrades to the avionics, cockpit and integration of the HMDS. All for a third of the price. And then to top it off there was the sale of the MICA complement priced at startling $2.5 million each.
The interesting question is, when the IAF’s Rafales are due for an MLU, will Dassault offer the ‘take it or leave it’ price or the ‘friends, family and fight-off-the-competition’ price?
Taiwan is a special case, and they’ve got maintenance issues with a few western item they’ve purchased a while back because even the USA don’t want to upset China.
Isn’t Dassault contractually obligated to provide consistent after sales support to the relevant Taiwanese entity?
VnomadDoes anyone know what are the implications of using hastily painted Desert Camouflage on Chinese Flankers in recent exercises????Do you think they are meant to operate in Syria? or Iran?
Gobi Desert.
Tibet
No need to involve Syria or Iran.
VnomadBecause only the front section has been built so far.
As the article is trying to cast a positive light on all the imrpovements on the whole aircraft, a picture showing a small section of it lying in the middle of a factory floor with lots of missing pieces wouldn’t be a good idea.
Of course they could also take a picture from afar and hide the section behind a crowd, thet’s wat they did in the article linked below but then we couldn’t read the serial number and message about the “first tranche 3 aircraft”.
There’s nothing missing from the picture. It was taken at BAE Samlesbury. The factory there manufactures the front fuselage, canards and vertical stabilizer. The final assembly on the other hand takes place at BAE Warton.
VnomadNot Kuwait. Kuwait has never operated any kind of Mirage.
I stand corrected. I vaguely recalled seeing some picture of Mirage 2000s in Kuwait (probably over for training) plus the three countries were looking to coordinate a MRCA buy, so… 2+2=5.
Edit:
Probably should have read the fine print; Emirati Mirage.
VnomadI don’t think the Mirage 2000 tooling exists anymore.
I was actually talking about second hand aircraft sourced from the Middle East. The Mirage’s production line of course has been closed for years.
India has always wanted to mix western and eastern sources in order to not put their egg in the same basket in case the political uncertainty.
Actually it has preferred to mix its sources of purchase. Which is one of the reasons why the Eurocanards enjoyed a certain edge over the MiG-35. But having a diverse force cannot be an end in itself.
Politically speaking, Russia has been as reliable an arms supplier as France. There have been questions raised regarding their business practices, but no one’s worried about political hurdles standing in the way of steady after sales support. Plus the PAK-FA will probably involve greater indigenization in terms of production à la Su-30 than the Rafale.
I don’t think production overlap is an issue especially since the planes won’t be used in the same role at all.
Of course they will be. They’re both multi-role aircraft intended to perform the entire gamut of air operations. I suppose the Rafale will enjoy an advantage at CAS in the near future, but eventually the PAK FA will match it in that role too, especially if the IAF can get western munitions integrated into its variants. In the meantime, the Mirage 2000-5 still remains a potent aircraft that can shoulder the burden well.
And finally, the logistical advantages of such an approach are undeniable. By 2030, every major air force except for the PLAAF will have consolidated around two or less fighter aircraft types. The IAF on the other hand will have four different types (Tejas, MKI, Rafale, PAKFA) in regular service, with possibility of yet another aircraft being operational in the same time-frame (AMCA). While it would have been good to have at least one western aircraft in that equation, realistically the Rafale is the only type that can be subtracted from it.
Vnomadall the more reason why India should’ve chosen the Mirage 2000 in the first place.. not only would they have gotten it sooner and retire the MiG-21 earlier, but that the MiG-2000 was something they probably could’ve built.
They could still get it. As a matter of fact if the MRCA acquisition drags on any longer, that would become a better alternative. The original idea was for the the domestically produced deliveries to start around 2015 and carry on till about 2022 resulting in minimal overlap with the PAK FA’s domestic production.
But if HAL’s deliveries of the Rafale are going to commence in 2017-18, it makes more sense to dump the plan rather than run PAKFA and Rafale production lines concurrently. In the interim, acquire Mirages from UAE, Qatar and Kuwait – unlike the IAF’s Mirages which are going through a remarkably expensive upgrade, these aircraft are already top-of-the-line and have a fair bit of service life remaining.
VnomadC-17 probably have better TWR than the old IL-76, and will definitely have better performance. But I think he has pulled this out from somewhere to just make his point that C-17 is superior to the Il-76 and and in the process completely sidelined the whole picture?
Well, he was scoffed at when he talked about the IL-76’s poor serviceability, but turned out that at least on that aspect, he was right on the money.
“We have finished all evaluations and selected the A330 MRTT. The deal will come up for final approval by the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) very soon. The Russian platform did not meet certain requirements,” Air Chief Marshal Fali Homi Major said in an interview with the Hindustan Times published on Monday.
Major said India was not satisfied with the level of after-sales service provided by Russia.
“After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russia has changed the whole pattern of doing defense business. Now we are faced with issues concerning spares, vendor support and built-in delays in the structure of their centralized military corporations,” he said.
India rejects Russian aerial tankers over poor maintenance – RIA Novosti
Serviceability of IL-76s, which perform crucial strategic air-lift work for IAF, has been quite a problem.
IAF has been facing the problem of serviceability of the IL-76s. Availability of spares for the four-engine IL-76 s has also been a major issue after the Soviet Union broke up.
The IAF’s two IL-76 squadrons and five AN-32 squadrons have been besieged with poor serviceability record of less than 50 per cent, meaning the fleet was available to the Air Force for less than half their intended utilisation and a huge shortfall in their assigned tasks and performance, mainly due to non-availability of spares and inadequate maintenance.
As for the specific instance, IL-76s have certainly landed in Leh numerous times before, but often enough the conditions, especially in summertime, can require a mission to be aborted while staying within the safety margin.
Manu Pubby of the Indian Express tweeted the same –
At the Leh airbase, IL 76 could not bring any load in June 2010. C 17 brought 30 tons.
VnomadI have seen the thrust/time curves for both the original and PEP motors. Fired from a Mach 2 platform, ARMAAM may briefly hit Mach 4, but that velocity will drop off sharply after motor burnout. You need a Meteor-style air-breathing powerplant to sustain Mach 4.
Motor burnout? At WVR ranges?
VnomadThe 9X has to come off the rail and turn quickly due to a short burn time on the motor. The AMRAAM does not have this problem as it has a much longer burn motor. Throw in a larger warhead (2x the Aim-9 size) and double the 9x speed and it is a very formidable WVR missile.
Besides having a lower G limit, its constrained by its significant higher speed (Mach 4+) compared to the average WVR missile (Mach 2.5). It will force the missile to exhibit a much larger turning radius. By extension this also applies to the MICA. And then of course the AMRAAM also has limitations in terms of its seeker – smaller FoV and less reliable target discrimination.
VnomadIt indicates it would be extremely foolish to bet the house on BVR only air wars in the future. The F-35 IMO bets the house on BVR.
Not quite. The F-35’s HMDS (assuming it doesn’t get cancelled) will allow the pilot to have an unprecedented field of view (look through the floor), the sensor suite will provide him with unmatched situational awareness, the DAS will have no equivalent in the foreseeable future and the F-35 is likely to be the first aircraft to field all aspect DIRCM.
The major drawback as I see it, is its limited payload. With a capacity of four missiles, there’s no space for the Aim-9X to be carried internally. And even if they do modify the weapons bay to carry six missiles, it still leaves it at a distinct disadvantage vis a vis hostile stealth fighters.
VnomadUm…pretty sure our russian friends can confirm here , but my understanding is that so far the total indian contribution to the program is the $295 millions for the PMI’s R&D.
Perhaps it is PLANNED for them to contribute 50% (or whatever percentage it is) which i suspect it has to do with PMI only not the overall PAK-FA programme. But feel free to correct me.
And as a sidenote , while i have great respect for the Indians and their stubborn independence/non-alignment struggle, and for having the 4th most powerful AF in the world, if LCA (a friggin’ little light fighter) is indicative of indian aerospace’s current capacity , it doesn’t look terribly encouraging. Let’s hope things will improve for Rafale licence production, AMCA and PMI.
Hmm.. well here’s an article from yesterday. It would appear the $295 million was for the ‘Preliminary Design Contract’ not for the entire R&D effort.
India and Russia going to sign biggest-ever defence deal worth $ 35 billion
India and Russia are getting all set to ink the full and final design or R&D phase contract for the 5th Gen fighter by this year-end or early-2013, say sources. It will again underline India’s firm rejection of the US offer of its Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) or the F-35 ‘Lightning-II’.
Ahead of the R&D contract, under which India wants to induct over 200 stealth fighters from 2022 onwards, a senior team of Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL) engineers and IAF experts is going to Russia within a fortnight to ensure that the “full documentation and other work” of the earlier preliminary design contract (PDC) has been completed.
While the Indian fighter will primarily be based on the T-50, it will be tweaked to IAF requirements.
India had inked the $295 million PDC with Russia in December, 2010. The R&D contract on the anvil is pegged at $11 billion, with India and Russia chipping in with $5.5 billion each.
“Russia has already given the draft R&D contract to us. It will include the cost of designing, infrastructure build-up at Ozar, prototype development and flight testing. So, India will have scientists and test pilots based both in Russia and Ozar during the R&D phase up to 2019. HAL will subsequently begin manufacturing the fighters,” he added.
Interestingly, after first specifying the requirement for at least 166 single-seat and 48 twin-seat of these 5th Gen fighters, India is veering around to the view that it will go in for only single-cockpit jets now.
“Both F-35 and T-50 are single-seaters. A second cockpit will compromise the stealth capabilities by at least 15% apart from adding to the weight and reducing fuel capacity. Moreover, R&D costs could go up by another $2 billion for the twin-seater,” he said.
Edit: Just realized that its already been posted, but I’ll leave it up anyway.
VnomadIndeed the idea has some merit, if only for the sheer surprise factor. Given proper ToT, Meteor could secretly be integrated into Pak-FA and kept operational to add to the Pak-FA’s arsenal.
ECM has always been a french strongpoint so I suppose those are very good. As for the DIRCM question… the new Rafale MAWS (DDM-NG) is DIRCM compatible, so it wouldn’t be that much trouble to add DIRCM to the Rafale.
I’m not sure if the Meteor will be much better than the future russian missiles, but for sheer surprise I think it is interesting.
For Russia of course opting for a Russian payload is the obvious choice. On the other hand, logistically the IAF would find it useful to have HAL integrate the Meteor on the PAKFA, just like MBDA has been contracted by the UK, to mate the Meteor to the F-35.
As things as stand, the Meteor is already looking likely to accompany the Rafale into service, and the IAF is examining the possibility of integration with the Su-30MKI. May as well, go step further and standardize on it.
MBDA has also received a request for information from the IAF for arming the Sukhoi-30 with Brimstone and Meteor, a beyond visual range air-to-air missile.
Vnomad“And finally, the 50% investment made at this stage will also translate into 50% by value for all export orders flowing to India.”
50%? Really?
Isn’t it? I remember reading about both countries agreeing to invest $6 billion each. Unless the FGFA is going to cost $12 billion over and above what it costs to develop the PAKFA.
Sign In
