Perhaps the high price is more of an issue? Maybe the FAB realize that if they go for Rafale the high TCO will in the end mean fewer fighters and/or less equipment and/or less money to train. My understanding is that FAB is aiming for much more than 36 fighters in the end and that this is just the beginning?

That’s the point of the ToT, a made in brazil spare part would certainly be cheaper than made in France of the same goods.

I doubt this unless u include the developmental costs that UAE paid for it. It is one of the contenders in the MRCA competiton (a modified block 60) and still regarded as much less expensive than the Rafale.

I just took the price UAE paid for it.
About the “block 70” for India, I don’t think we got an official price from LM.
Anyway, any Block 60+ can’t enjoy the industrial advantage of older F-16 that were produced in insane numbers.

Surprising if true… Could the French have some second-hand F-1 they may would like to offer Iraq?

Not only we just solved that question of those useless F1 but on the other hand, who in the world would be foolish enough to buy only 10 planes with so limited capabilities for its price ?

Honnestly, if Iraq want second hand fighter, we have that, but it’s Mirage 2000 from UAE 😀

Bold indicates where the journo has believed Dassault PR nonsense and spin, or has gullibly repeated it, obviously. (eg: “Dassault officials are convinced that the Rafale was a clear winner of the new fighter evaluations in both Korea and Singapore–until superpower politics intervened.”)

Im not sure about Singapore since nothing serious has leaked from that competition, but in Korea, I think it was quite obvious.
Of course “clear winner” is taken from the mouth of a marketing guy.

So my question then becomes: How does the Mirage 2000 compare to the F-16 MLU? It is out-dated and outclassed by the old American midlife-upgraded bird? Or can it hold it’s own?

What do people think?

Mirage 2000-C ?
Mirage 2000-5 ?
Mirage 2000-9 ?

Well, could it be possible to keep focus on the Rafale sale to Brazil and other industrial cooperation related to it ?

Yup. EADS – and who owns EADS France? It’s a 100% subsidiary of the EADS group, of which the majority of the shares are held outside France.

Those 47% of Dassault belong to EADS France, not to anybody else.

Right . . . so you don’t count anything built by EADS-CASA, or Eurocopter, or most of EADS Defence Electronics, or any other branches or subsidiaries, any of the companies which merged to make EADS (if you don’t do that, you have to ignore all Dassault products before EADS formed). But you do count Airbus Military. Very odd.

EADS CASA ? I thought about them a bit after posting my post. Well, yes, some nice products, but none of them really high-tech.
Eurocopter ? Sure, but we were talking of EADS, not Eurocopter.
EADS Defence technologies ? How many very succesful fighters for instance ?

This is very, very silly. Why are a couple of French people engaged in EADS-bashing? It’s probably more French than it is any other nationality.

Apart from an obvious “typical french arrogance” we like to bash our own forces 😀
Honnestly, you miss my point. Well, nobody even tried to answer them in fact.
My point is that for a cooperation for the KC-390, Dassault is the right guy, not EADS.

And why are they claiming that the worst failure in the otherwise illustrious history of Dassault was, despite being completely unfit for purpose, a triumph, while the greatest European (& largely French!) success in civil aviation, Airbus, is a disaster? Bizarre?

1) I don’t understand why several posters are trying to explain us why a cheap/user friendly/extremely reliable plane is a disaster.
2) Nobody said that EADS is a company with only bad products (we have SAGEM for that in France:p) but EADS military is hardly a happy story. Of course, we could speculate all night long about the political decisions that plagued the begining of the A-400M program.