i recently found this on a australian website :diablo: :diablo:

guys it is easly to maintain a rafale then a f-16 or f18 we have never used american jet in 60 years of our independence last thing i remember which was american was a skikorsky helicopter which we had in 50’s ,india has the technicans and infrastcture to maintain 150 mirage 2000-5 type aircaft but currently we have only some 60 ,we have experience with french aircraft but not with american one
know one wants them now, if i remember even iaf air chief had refused considering purchase of mig-31
i think 50 rafale is enough but a option of more 20 to 30 should be open
any chance of naval rafale to indian navy they will love having them .remember they have seen them many times in air exercise with french navy
what if america tried selling its f-16 and f-18 to india without nuke carrying capability ???? will the upa goverment will show middle finger to usa ,i am sure if bjp govt comes to power they will surelly send those planes to russia to make them nuke capable and then all hell will break lose (my imagination is on over drive today )
best bet for india is mig 35(80) combo with rafale (50)
here is the artice Israeli F-16I crashed while taking off laden with weapons
sorry then
we could love to see pak going for chinese j-10 ,and dude which place are you staying ???? lca has moved from drawing board a decade ago and now morw then 4 prototypes have made 543 flights and all four have gone supersonic in thier flights
Two Russian Su-30 fighter jets arrive in Venezuela