The French state owns 12% of Airbus. Not exactly a controlling stake.

At the time, the French state owned 22.5% of EADS. More importantly, unlike any other pvt coy the state has a strategic interest (golden share) in national champions of this sort and critical decision relating to its governance. If Serge Dassault stayed on in charge, he did so with the consent of the state.

The French state is a shareholder in Dassault via Airbus. At the time, Airbus (then EADS) owned 46% of Dassault Aviation.

Fair point, thanks.

US FMS deals whilst not being the cheapest are pretty much take it or leave when it comes to contract details.

Yes but their system is more transparent especially in terms of pricing. And they don’t have any single national champion unlike Europe where the defence companies & the national govts are nearly indistinguishable.

So negotiating with the French state for example is not very different from negotiating with Dassault. In contrast, there isn’t a lot of flexibility with the Americans but the MoD/GoI can be relatively confident that the price is reasonable and more importantly, that the deal wouldn’t come back to bite them in the rear in the future. So that tends to move things along.

You can see elements of that in a great many Indian defence deals, at the moment it appears direct Government to Government deals are working best for India.

That would be US FMS deals that are ‘working best’. Israel offers a rather limited range of products. The Europeans are… lets say better suited to doing business in the Middle East.

As for the Russians, surprisingly the deal-fixer in question i.e. Sudhir Choudhrie has apparently received payoffs from (state owned) Rosoboronexport, RAC MiG & NPO M. They’re doing pretty well in the Middle East now too.

Leaving the Americans sitting pretty with relatively clean hands. Though given that their industry is less reliant on exports, more competitive in general with arguably better regulatory oversight, its not entirely surprising.

I see nobody’s mentioned the MiG-25 so far. Oh well..

Shiv Aroor (running the Livefist blog) claims in a tweet that it has been confirmed that only single-engine fighters will be considered:

https://twitter.com/livefist/status/788968399715958784

but no reference to which reports confirm this!?

Also reported here –

Defense News – Vivek Raghuvanshi

India has begun a fresh program to acquire single-engine fighter aircraft to be built in India on the basis of foreign technology, as invitations have been sent privately through Indian Embassies to “some overseas participants” to partake in the program, according to an official at the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

The Hindu – Dinakar Peri

Within days of signing the deal to buy 36 Rafale fighter jets from France, the Defence Ministry has issued a Request For Information (RFI) to global aircraft manufacturers, formally starting the process to select yet another fighter to be built in India under technology transfer.

Sources told The Hindu that an RFI for a single-engine fighter to be manufactured in India with extensive technology transfer was issued this week to countries involved in fighter aircraft manufacture. Based on the responses, a detailed RFP (Request for Proposal) would be issued later.

Economic Times – Manu Pubby

While India has received several unsolicited bids for a Make in India fighter jet – from Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Saab and even Dassault – an official letter has been dispatched for the first time to several nations earlier this month inviting interest.

However, the contents of the letter are confusing to say the least. The air force has asked for replacements to its `ageing fleet of single engine fighter aircraft’. The letter says that the requirement is for a `minimum fourth generation single engine aircraft’ to be indigenously manufactured under the Make in India initiative.

And here –

Business Standard – Ajai Shukla

On Monday, US defence giant Lockheed Martin became the first international vendor to respond to an Indian Air Force (IAF) letter, soliciting interest in building a single-engine, medium fighter aircraft in India, with full transfer of technology.

“We sent our acceptance [to the IAF] earlier this week”, Lockheed Martin’s Randy Howard, who markets the F-16 worldwide, told Business Standard.

Meanwhile, Swedish defence corporation, Saab, which was sent a similar invitation, is learnt to be finalising its acceptance. “We will definitely say ‘yes’; most likely by the end of this month”, says a Saab official.

As Business Standard reported (October 8, “IAF kicks off contest to make single-engine fighters in India”) the IAF sent out letters last week to top global aerospace vendors, inviting them to build a single-engine fighter in India.

When I say that FBW/M53 modification would put it in the same class as the F-16 I dont mean exactly equal. Im just saying that there would be significant improvement that would make it near to what the F-16 is.

It wouldn’t have. The F-16 was an unstable design and FBW was inherent to the design. And weighing about the same as the Mirage F1, the F-16 would still have had 20-25% more thrust.

To put it a different way, if the F1 could have been upgraded to match (or even nearly match) the F-16, it would have made the Mirage 2000 program redundant.