Which for me raises the wisdom (or lack of it) of sending German specification Typhoon on important sales drives like the Swiss and Indian fighter programs. By all means have the Germans lead the sales drive if they want but when it comes to actually sending aircraft to be tested send those which have been fitted out to the most advanced standard! It would be galling to find the Typhoon lost points purely because the airframe didn’t have equipment fitted!

The only lower spec version of Typhoon is the Austrian examples…

As for MMI, frankly I regard its as a rather subjective matter. Gripen, Typhoon and Rafale all have very good MMI that is better then that of the aircraft they are replacing.

For whatever reason the aircraft seen in this short clip is fitted with the necessary stuff:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0EiIE8G2AU

Thanks for the clarification.
I’ll add Typhoon to the list.

It is possible that the additional (follow-on) order is just a speculation. But the fact is, as of today, IAF have evaluated all the aircraft’s performance. i.e the tedious process of performance testing (consuming years) of all the aircraft’s are over and for any follow-on order, only spec, price & offsets negotiation will remain. We can expect that to consume 6-12 months. i.e within next financial year.

If they don’t exercise the follow-on order now, even the Rafale will not be available for the current L1 unit cost in the future.

I don’t think there will be any additional aircraft added to the IAF inventory. It is just a measure to ensure the loosers behave and refrain from filing lawsuits etc.

If there ever is a follow on order, it will be additional Rafales. Better yet, Tejas Mk II to get a better fleet compostion. At the moment the IAF get’s a bit top heavy.

And what do the majority of voters favour instead?

No money wasted on fighters at all.

Unless there is a new “battle of england”/WW3 with massive BVR duels with an hypothetical enemy with equal training/technology/facilities/economical strength, the entire point with the typhoon is irrelevant. a salvo of tomahawk, storm shadows and other stand-off weapons will take care of the vulnerable airfields quickly. I can’t see a situation where the type of capability brought by the Typhoon would actually be used, especially for the NATO partner nations.

I think you should check your sense for reality. We are talking here about India. The reason they are investing that much in arms is a real or anticipated thread from China. Massive numbers of conventional aircraft.

Oh, and what a surprise, hughe numbers of Flankers. Exactly what the Typhoon is perfected for. (If we believe the critics !)

Oh, and you are wrong in another point. Typhoon was designed with a2g in mind.

Just not with deep strike. The required capability benchmark is the Jaguar. Now that’s obviously not in the same league as the Rafale(that had to replace the Mirage IV ) but is far from the old mantra of “not a pound for air to ground”.

/rant off.

Leaving that aside I’m convinced Rafale is the better fit for India. The longer range will allow it to operate from central Indian bases, while places like Leh (where the Tiffy demonstrated superior performance) should be reserved for cheaper frontline fighters. (read MiG-29, with their ability to operate from roughly prepared/repaired airfields)

Saves India some headache vs. tanker support and allows it to have a common weapons pool and logistic chain with the upgraded M2K.

Further more I think the MMRCA will form the technological basis for Indias AMCA. Here SNECMA is already the partner for Kaveri developent. Add to that the brainpower already invested in reducing IR signature for the basic M88.

The nose. Oh well, I don’t think the Rafale needs a bigger Radar. Obviously, the Tiffy/Meteor will do better. But point is as long as the RBE2 AA/Rafale can fully explore the Meteors’ envelope vs. Chinese/Pakistani legacy fighters
it enjoys superiority over said platforms.

Guess it all boils down to the weighting of multirole vs air superiority, and the planned fleet compositions.

AFAIK Switzerland wants always 2 Jets in the air and 2 ready on the tarmac. Plus some reserve for large events. For simplicity reasons lets assume both aircraft offer the same availability rates.

Then IIRC numbers needed are around 60 aircraft total. No matter how efficient the Rafale is, there is a minimum number of aircraft to fulfill the requirenments.

Gripen isn’t bad at creating sortie rates and NG offers substantially longer loiter time than c-models.

In the end it is a Tiger replacement, and as such Gripen is already quite a quantum leap in capability.

Issue is they want it as future Hornet replacement, too. In the long run they aim at single type fleet. Benchmark therefore ist the F-18.
Gripen scored lower then the benchmark (F-18) in some categories.

I think there is way too much conflation of Typhoon current capabilities with those that will be available by 2015 for the Indians and whoever else wants them- whether that is a partner nation or the UAE (for example)…

There is still a question mark behind every planned capability. Maybe you should look at the roadmap for Tiffy development/weapons integration from 2001.

All vaporware ! I don’t believe in the marketing bullsh!t from Eurofighter anymore.

Remember the Sigaporean competition ? Now compare what Eurofighter promised, and what actually materialized.

With that non-performance in mind, I don’t share your optimism.