There are newer A300s than A310s out there, but potential customers have all preferred A330. Germany is now looking into joining the NATO AAR consortium, presumably with a view to replacing the A310 MRTTs, & the consortium has selected the A330. The first two have just been ordered by the Netherlands & Luxembourg, i.e. for the Dutch air force & the NATO E-3s.

You’d need to pay design costs upfront to convert the A300 to MRTT configuration (despite the similarities with A310). The net cost will almost certainly be higher than paying to convert a (larger) 767.

Yes, but would the IAF & MoD settle for used 767s?

Like I said, it would be the smart play. Whether the MoD will be flexible enough to seriously consider it… we’ll see I suppose.

It should also be noted that this particular blogger has been known to be unreliable source of “scoops” in the past. He’s hit or miss, at best, so YMMV.

And a blowhard to boot –

Following my sustained awareness campaign that no one else in India had bothered to undertake against the spectacularly outrageous public posture of India’s Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar concerning the legally untenable blanket-blacklisting of Italy’s Leonardo Finmeccanica conglomerate (see: http://trishul-trident.blogspot.in/2016/06/thats-airpower-for-you-2.htm), the Indian Prime Minister’s Office has now decisively intervened and overruled the blanket-blacklisting norm and has thus cleared the decks for the commencing the long-overdue ‘deep-upgrade and service life-extension’ of the IN’s AgustaWestland Sea King Mk.42B and Kamov Ka-28PL shipborne ASW helicopters.

We need to see the oversized load statistics. Again, a single variable if of no use when dealing with a complex problem.

Precisely. Unless you’re routinely transporting ammunition or bullion the aircraft will never reach anywhere near max tonnage. Drive in two BMP-2s (not exactly built out of wood), and your total payload will still only register at 30 tons. But that doesn’t mean the aircraft is ‘under-loaded’.

This is one thing that registered in the old C-17 v IL-476 debates. While technically the Ilyushin’s payload has been increased from 40 to 60 tons, in practice, lifting capacity still remains nearly unchanged since volume almost always maxes out before weight.

____________________

The other interesting thing from the IAF audit report is –

So for a 40 ton payload that’s a range of 5650 km for the PS-90A equipped Il-76 (110 kL fuel) and 9000 km for the C-17 (140 kL fuel). That’s 19.47 L/km & 15.55 L/km respectively. Surprising considering the C-17’s empty weight is 30 tons higher.

It means you choose a cheapish maintenance model.. A purely reactive one, aimed to saving a buck.. whenever anything gets broken, you put the aircraft aside, order spares and wait.. even worse, you cannibalize other aircraft, you don’t keep your own stock of parts, don’t perform proactive maintenance based on statistics.. many forces do this, for example Poles were often criticized for their maintenance concept on the F-16.. their readiness rate were so poor that it is illegal to publish true numbers.. and I don’t think that either the Falcon or LM are to blame..

Here’s the actual report.

Nothing had changed since 2012.
And that US is “playing” with F-35 sales pitch, in order to promote F-16/18 FACO is borderline rude. India has clearly said F-16/18 is not the right stuff.
And F-35 FACO is BS. Will never happend.

Nothing has changed? You can’t seriously mean that?!!

How about this?

Dassault Rafale wins MMRCA deal beating Eurofighter Typhoon – Jan 2012

Or this?

FGFA to Reach India in 2014 – Aug 2012

The first prototype of the FGFA is scheduled to arrive in India by 2014 after which it will undergo extensive trials at the Ojhar air base (Maharashtra)…we are hopeful that the aircraft would be ready for induction by 2022. – Air Chief Marshal N A K Browne, Aug 2012

The original F-35 ‘offer’ was rejected on solid grounds. With the MMRCA & FGFA programs close to being inked, the (at the time) deeply troubled F-35 made no sense.

With own 5G jet plan, India ‘rejects’ US offer – Jan 2011

NEW DELHI: India has no plans as of now to either join the US-led joint strike fighter (JSF) programme or buy the F-35 `Lightning-II’ fifth-generation fighter aircraft (FGFA) when it finally becomes operational.

“We cannot have two types of FGFA. We have already launched preliminary work for our FGFA after inking the $295 million preliminary design contract (PDC) with Russia last month,” said a top defence ministry official on Friday.

This comes in the wake of comments made by a top Pentagon official, undersecretary of defence for acquisition, technology and logistics Ashton Carter, in Washington that the US was open to Indian participation in its JSF project.

Interestingly, the comments came during a function where an aggressive sales pitch was made for India to select either the American F/A-18 `Super Hornet’ (Boeing) or F-16 `Falcon’ (Lockheed Martin) over their European rivals in the ongoing IAF’s medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) contest.

The other 4.5-generation fighters in the hotly-contested race to bag the $10.4 billion MMRCA project, under which 18 jets will be bought off-the-shelf and another 108 will be manufactured in India under transfer of technology, are Eurofighter Typhoon, Swedish Gripen (Saab), French Rafale (Dassault) and Russian MiG-35 (United Aircraft Corporation).

The IAF force matrix for the coming years revolves around the 270 Sukhoi-30MKIs contracted from Russia for around $12 billion, the 126 MMRCA and 120 indigenous Tejas Light Combat Aircraft, apart from upgraded MiG-29s and Mirage-2000s.

In the decades ahead, the advanced stealth FGFA to be developed with Russia will be the mainstay of India’s combat fleet. “Our FGFA will be cheaper than the F-35. Moreover, the intellectual property rights of the FGFA will equally and jointly vest on both India and Russia, with full access to the source code and the like,” said another senior official.

With a potent mix of super-manoeuvrability and supersonic cruising ability, the “swing-role” FGFA will of course not come cheap. The cost of designing, infrastructure build-up, prototype development and flight testing has been pegged at around $11 billion, with India and Russia chipping in with $5.5 billion each.

Over and above this, each of the 250-300 FGFA India hopes to begin inducting from 2020 onwards will cost around $100 million each. In all, India will spend upwards of $35 billion over the next two decades in its biggest-ever defence project till now.

The Indian FGFA will primarily be based on the single-seater Sukhoi T-50, the prototype of which is already flying in Russia, but will include a twin-seater version and a more powerful engine with greater thrust.

“Its complete design will be frozen by the end of the 18-month PDC. Six to seven of its prototypes should be flying by 2017. After that, there will be 2,500 hours of flight-testing over 25 months before the series production begins in 2019,” he said.

Politically too, I don’t think anybody foresaw just how rapidly Indo-US strategic ties would improve after the Modi govt came to power. Its one of the main reasons why the F-16/SH were back in contention despite flunking out the MMRCA trials. And if the F-16 has indeed been rejected, I see nothing ‘rude’ about LM pushing for an F-35 sale instead. Its a perfectly logical (albeit slow) response.

You realize Lockmart isn’t exactly offering F-35 now, it’s talking around 2030. Lockmart wanted to sell them F-16 now, F-35B to Indian Navy later

That’s not what the article says. If India has indeed turned down the F-16, it makes no sense for Lockheed Martin to back off and twiddle its thumbs until 2030.

So Parrikar does not fancy the Dassault price tag.
And India is not keen on F-16/18.
And lest not forget the last turn down of F-35.. so whatever course remain?
More MKI and LCA in the Short/medium term.
And LCA/PakFa in the medium/long term.

Last (and only) turn down was in 2012 IIRC. Radically different scenario today in 2016 with the F-35 on the cusp of operationalization, the Rafale proven to be a pricey ordeal and the FGFA induction at least 10 years away.

Additional Su-30s and stepped up Tejas production is sensible. But they still need a (more capable) western aircraft to complement that. With the SH & F-16 orders dwindling away and consequently losing economies of scale, the (ramping up) F-35 program offers the best value for money, although the capital costs associated with a local FACO line will be substantially higher for the (decommissioned) SH/Viper.

Finally Parrikar Admits Rafale Deal Nowhere Near Closure

RAHUL BEDI

Friday, July 22,2016

NEW DELHI: The government has finally declared that both the Inter Government Agreement (IGA) and negotiations over offsets, in procuring 36 French Rafale fighters are yet to be finalised.

In a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on 19 July said details on the Rafale purchase, including the transfer of technology through offsets would emerge after the negotiations were completed.

“The negotiations are underway and the IGA and offset contract are yet to be finalised,” Parrikar stated, a month after categorically declaring that the Rafale deal would be completed by June.

India has been insisting on France discharging a 50% offset liability of the overall contract cost, which has appreciably hiked the final price that too remains unresolved.

“The minister does not appear to be in the know of what is going on in his ministry” a senior Indian Air Force (IAF) officer said.

The Rafale import seems increasingly indeterminate and unlikely, he added declining to be identified.

Other IAF officers conceded that if the IGA were not inked before the year-end, the fighter purchase would not fructify despite the fanfare with which Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced it in Paris in April 2015.

The Indian media touted the decision as yet another instance of Modi’s decisiveness.

At the time both sides had agreed that India would acquire 36 Rafales off-the-shelf for the same price that manufacturers Dassault sold them to France’s Armee’ de L’air.

The Rafales had been shortlisted in 2012 from amongst six fighters vying for the IAF’s Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft tender for 126 platforms, issued in 2007.

Modi’s surprise announcement superceded this deal which had been under negotiation since early 2012, but was deadlocked on transferring technology to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited to licence build 108 Rafales in Bangalore. The additional 18 Rafales were to have been bought off the shelf.

Official sources, meanwhile, said National Security Advisor is believed to have recently ‘urged’ Parrikar to fast track the Rafale contract, as the continuing delays in confirming it had become embarrassing.

PM Modi and visiting French President Francois Hollande had confidently declared in Delhi in January that the fighter deal would be concluded ‘within days’.

But defence industry insiders believe Parrikar is dragging his feet on the Rafale purchase, as he is reportedly not entirely convinced of the economic and operational efficacy of acquiring only two squadrons at an astronomical price.

The overall Rafale purchase, including its weaponry and engineering support package, is reportedly $10.5-11 billion.

A back-of-the-envelope calculation makes it whopping $290 for each fighter, accounting for a major chunk of the IAF’s capital acquisition budget, even though payments would be extended over several years.

The Defence Minister is believed to be of the view that for the price of each Rafale, the IAF can acquire multiple licence-built Su-30MKI’s and many more Tejas Light Combat Aircraft to make up flagging fighter numbers and hence, is subtly stalling progress on acquiring the French fighter.

In early 2015, when negotiations for the MMRCA were deadlocked, Parrikar had declared that upgraded Su-30MKI multi-role fighter were ‘always there’ for the IAF as an alternative to the Rafales. Insiders claim he continues to pursue this line of thinking.

Parrikar is also believed to have repeatedly declined, since April, to meet a team of senior French officials seeking to discuss-and finalise- the Rafale contract.

Consequently, in an odd turn of events, cursory negotiations have begun recently between the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the French Embassy in New Delhi. In most foreign materiel procurements, particularly one as high profile as the Rafale tender, local embassies, at best perform a liaison role.

To add to France’s irritation Parrikar is in advanced and much publicised negotiations with executives from Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Saab, all offering to transfer their production lines to India for the F-16 and F/A-18 Hornet and the Gripen-E respectively.

Earlier this year Parrikar had declared that the MoD would shortlist at least one foreign fighter by end-2016 for indigenous manufacture under the governments Make in India initiative.

Perhaps the Defence Minister should first vindicate what his PM had promised France rather than cast about for additional fighters, which for now too appear somewhat fanciful.