It will look exactly the same as the current LSP versions, there are no pictures, the tender for the 99 engines with a option of 45 is underway.

If you want direct quotes all the information you will get is this.

http://www.domain-b.com/aero/20090206_lca_programme.html

Information flow about defence programs is slightly restricted and never updated on a month to month basis, as for the ADA’s Website
http://www.ada.gov.in/

Ok, TY. So the decision to go ahead with the Mk2. was actually in March of 2003? I did´nt even know an official decision had taken place.

But that is the official website of LCA? Not very user friendly if you ask me, there must be millions of programmers in India that can make a ten times better page. ADA should really think about putting together a PR-team and hiring a few programmers and such. There is´nt even a presentation of the aircraft on the page (at least not what I could find)…

See, for the Home Air-Force the price is likely to be much cheaper. The discount of 1,500 million SEK is only over and above all this. You can try to find the export cost to say, Thailand, Hungary or the Czech republic. It will be much higher than $30 million.

Yes, but what has been explained dozens of times in this thread alone is that there is a difference between a fly away cost and buying an entire new system of aircrafts that incorporates everything from spares, training, infrastructure, simulators etc to simple things like new tank trucks etc. SAAB also includes a life-cycle costs, a commitment, of 20-30 years in those deals.
Do you understand?
Buying new fighters to your airforce is not like you buying a pair of new shoes and you go around and compare prizes, it´s a bit more complicated then that…

Dont go by the indian orders, they have to send the RFIs issue tenders and invite bids, the whole DPP problem, e.g: the Navy sent notices naval versions of eurofighter and gripen for carrier based aircrafts.

Are you serious, Indian Air Force is spending money on the planes development (the big tender for the engines)

My answer was´nt for you, it was for quadbike. Since he keeps thinking that the Gripen NG is just a paperplane like the LCA Mk2. I think it is a legit question why so many countries are even considering NG paperplane and not the Mk2. paperplane. They are after all, considered by most Indians, totally equal planes (if not the Mk2. is even better)…

1. You do not have the price of Gripen NG either. Both planes are not ready although the NG has a demo flying. I am comparing the price of the current Gripen C/D with that of MK1 and there is a significant difference.

In capability it is comparable but the Gripen C/D is a better platform at the moment and that is why it is in the MRCA. The LCA MK1 is however cheaper.

Only Gripen Demo is flying although it is admittedly much closer to completion than the LCA MK2. But in effect both are paper planes.

Actually the price for the Gripen NG is well known. Just search for the SAAB proposals for Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands. I don´t know if the Swizz and Brazil tenders are public yet. But remember, those costs are not the fly-away cost for just clean aircrafts, it´s for the whole deal. As I said, last batch of C/Ds delivered to the SwAF was about $31 mil./unit. How much are the planned unit cost for LCA MK1. suppose to be? 25-26 mil.? I don´t think the difference are SO significant….

No, it´s the Gripen IN or something like that being offered to India. That is a Gripen NG, not C/D.

Wow, just wow. The Gripen Demo have been flying now for..what is it? Almost 2 years? (I forgot, times flies by). The AESA radar is being integrated soon (think I read next month) and IIRC most other avionics and computer stuffs (I don´t know their technical terms ATM) have been integrated. Whats left I suppose is the weapons integration. So in fact, the Gripen NG is actually as much as a paperplane as the LCA Mk1. when you think about it…

so please enumerate them. I can bet the one you’ll say is that the Gripen is in service. using that same argument, the JF-17 won’t stand any chance either, so why would it be successful for export ?

the reason is cost- plain and simple. a Tejas could cost around $30-35 million per unit for export (since the IAF’s Tejas’ cost around $25-26 million per unit), whereas the Gripen C/D goes for anywhere near $50-55 million per unit. name one system on the Gripen C/D that the Tejas doesn’t already have or won’t have when it enters service this year.

Actually IIRC the SwAF paid $31 mil. per unit for their last batch of Gripen C/Ds, that was something like over 10% cheaper then first estimated. So when it comes to fly-away prices the Gripen does´nt seems to be that much more expensive then the LCA. When it came to operational costs and other things surrounding the system it also proved to be cheaper then they first planned for, but that´s only like 10 years of operational service experience speaking so what do they know? Who knows, if/when LCA gets operational it may turn out to be cheaper then what they are thinking right now, or it could also become more expensive. India will only know after it has become operational for a while.
But fly-away pricetag is´nt important when it comes to export sales. What the customer wants to know is, how much is it gonna cost us to buy, own and operate this aircraft for at least a couple of decades. That is where the Gripen have the edge of most of its competitors at the moment IMO. Time will tell how LCA will be able to tackle those issues. Right now I think it´s pretty pointless to discuss the export chances of an aircraft that is only on paper (Mk2.)

Tejas PV-5 test flight successful,flew for 30 minutes ,pilots were Gp Captain Tyagi & Air Cmdre Verma.

Wow, only like 20 years behind schedule. Congrats for this enormous success!

The Swedish example is somewhat unique, but, the same basic principle holds. They are missile trucks just trucks that are fortunate enough to be able to lurk behind convienient lumps of rock sticking out of the water.

You make a good point suggesting that as technology has improved more capability can, and has, been built into the modest hulls. As I said though start adding stuff and watch what that does to the sticker price of your cheap ‘asymetric’ warfare platform.

During the cold war these “missile trucks” were at least used live numerous times in chasing Soviet submarines in Swedish waters. Or patrolling the waters outside Soviet Baltic gathering ELINT/SIGINT.

And today the Swedish FAC HMS Malmö caught 7 somali pirates off the coast of Somalia. So I´ll guess they can be used as something else then just a “missile truck”… 😮

FACs grew out of the 1870s French Navy’s Jeune Ecole argument for poussiere navale, or ‘naval dust’. Part of the idea that small, heavily armed vessels could take on larger, more powerful warships. FACs embody that idea, by being heavily armed, small, fast, cheap and therefore numerous. FACs were sold by their manufacturers as the nemesis of larger warships like corvettes and frigates.

I would like to say that the idea of the FAC is at least 200 years older then that. Sweden built a large “archipelago fleet” of small, fast boats/ships that could travel around in the archipelago but still were heavily armed and could take on large warships during the 18th century. These were successfully used in several battles against the Russians. These vessels could been anything from the small “cannon boat” to larger “archipelago frigates” that could been both sailed and rowed…