Spitfire9Personally I think a factor in favor of Rafale is if the Indians DON’T buy it the French may offer it to the Pakistanis. OTOH the Eurofighter consortium is unlikely to sell to Pakistan.
Can’t see the US wanting to give Pakistan Rafales. Why pay for aircraft when you can have other aircraft for little or nothing?
Spitfire9I’m even surprised to see the EF in the final since A to G and AESA was a strong requirment and it has none of the two.
I thought the evaluation was on what was in the aircraft being evaluated, too. Not what would be there in the future. Did the rules get bent?
However I still fear a dumping from the Eurofighter using the profit of Airbus (France created by half may I recall) to pay for the financial fiasco of the EADS defense department…
I cannot make sense of what you say. Sell Typhoon at a loss “to pay for the financial fiasco of the EADS defense department…” ??? What are you talking about?
Spitfire9Could someone point me to what’s included to get the L1 price, please?
The flyaway price of a Rafale is less than the flyaway price of a Typhoon, I think we all agree.
The price of Rafale + spares for 10 years may be less, about the same or more than Typhoon.
Spitfire9The F-22 was axed by the Republicans and the F-35 can face the same fate after 2012. 😉
If F-35 were scrapped due to the cost getting out/remaining out of control, what would replace the types it is scheduled to replace? More A-10’s? More AV8-B’s? Not easy. Updated F-15/16/18’s?
Then wouldn’t it be necessary to embark on a/several development program(s) to design something like F-35A MkII, F-35C MkII and perhaps a different design to cover STOVL/VTOL and another different design to cover A-10? I can’t see that costing less than continuing with F-35.
Better the devil you know at this point IMO. Unless the aircraft itself has serious problems.
Spitfire9I thought the USN recently ordered some more SH?
Also the SH may win in Japan.
I thought Japan wanted F-22 (an air superiority platform) rather than an excellent bomb truck but not so good air superiority platform – compared with F-15, Rafale, Typhoon.
Spitfire9The Typhoon’s nose could potentially house an AESA radar of between 75-80cm diameter housing around 1400-1500 T/R modules with a fully populated array. Although it’s also possible that a thinned array with fewer modules may well be chosen in order to keep costs down.
What’s the point of building a bigger, more expensive system, then economising by not taking advantage of its size?
I don’t know, I have never understood the minds of the military where equipment is concerned. I once did some work for the British MOD and was talking to someone about the cost of standard, branded batteries for hand torches. It was more than double the price I would pay if I walked into a hardware store and bought one, not thousands. Why? The cost of the MOD checking each battery was “good” exceeded the cost of buying each one!
Spitfire9Might be time to stop calling referring to the MMRCA purchase as a “$10 billion fighter aircaft deal”. $20 billion would be more accurate.
Spitfire9According to the rules they should go for L1 after a down-select, is that correct?
If so, which will be cheapest, Rafale or Typhoon?
The Eurofighter consortium are probably not happy about losing the Tejas engine deal to GE right now… that could perhaps have given them an edge, with an established assembly line in India?
Cheapest aircraft means?
(a) cheapest flyaway
(b) cheapest flyaway + through life costs
(c) (a) or (b) + weapons
(d) cheapest say 24 flyaway + balance of 102 locally assembled
(e) etc etc
Anyone know the criteria used for assessing “cheapest”, please?
Spitfire9The latest rumor:
Rafale and Typhoon made it to the shortlist, the others not:
http://www.stratpost.com/india-selects-ef-rafale-for-mmrca-shortlist
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! From the article (my bold added):
“One question some of the vendors losing out are already asking is why the ministry asked all the vendors to resubmit their offset proposals early this month if they already knew the outcome of the technical evaluation submitted by the IAF last summer, and waited till a day before the expiry of the commercial bids to effectively announce a shortlist by inviting extension of commercial bids from only two vendors.
The commercial bids of the other four vendors will lapse on Thursday, tomorrow.”
IF TRUE…
Amazing. This is not the way to treat your business contacts. You don’t ask potential suppliers to do a lot of work (offset proposals) and – while they are doing this – then suddenly decide that you’ve made your mind up which potential suppliers you wish to continue to deal with because you’ve run out of time because you are too incompetent to get things done on time.
Incredibly unprofessional. Bunch of jokers. It would be great if one of the suppliers or more demanded compensation for being asked to do a lot of work under false pretences. IF TRUE…
Spitfire9F-136 terminated by US Dept of Defense
The possible alternative engine for the F-35 appears to have been killed off finally.
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2011/04/25/355922/dod-orders-f136-termination.html
Spitfire9I firmly believe now that India will not choose the Rafale because,
1- Dassault tried to blackmail them with 44 mln dollars M2K upgrade offer.
2- The Rafale is an extremely expensive fighter that costs around 200 mln dollars package price. Its a 4’th gen fighter with a price tag of a 5’th gen.
3- At the moment the Rafale is taylored to French weapons at first which are much more expensive vis-a-vis US weapons. Example,MICA is massively inferior to AMRAAM but costs more .
4- Buying the Rafale means 100% dependence on France in the future and paying any price for upgrades,spare parts,maintenance Dassault sees fit.
5- Rafales future BVR capability is in question..The new AESA RBE2 radar with 850 T/R Modules is totally insufficient for an air superiority fighter
The UAE were not impressed with it., to compound the problem for the Rafale is the small array that would not allow more modules.The availability of the METEOR with its original specifications is also a question mark.
6-Being the first export customer of a new fighter is always risky .Besides ,If its such a capable fighter, why have the French being unable to find any buyers for it? Its been in service since 1998, and still no foreign buyers.Many customers today would rather prefer an F-16 with AESA and AMRAAM that costs 100 mln dollars to a RAFALE with PESA+MICA that costs twice as much .
I think the Rafale is an impressive airframe but its radar, missiles and electronic warfare systems are lagging behind others like the Super Hornet for example.
1- Dassault tried to blackmail them with 44 mln dollars M2K upgrade offer.
Agreed. Greed.
2- The Rafale is an extremely expensive fighter that costs around 200 mln dollars package price. Its a 4’th gen fighter with a price tag of a 5’th gen.
You think a 125 Rafale package would cost $25 billion? By the way, I think the popular figure of $10 billion for 126 MMRCA’s is now history. I suspect that India has delayed the competition for too long for that old figure to be possible now.
3- At the moment the Rafale is taylored to French weapons at first which are much more expensive vis-a-vis US weapons. Example,MICA is massively inferior to AMRAAM but costs more .
Sounds like a fair assessment to me. Is MICA really so inferior to AMRAAM? (I ask because I don’t know)
4- Buying the Rafale means 100% dependence on France in the future and paying any price for upgrades,spare parts,maintenance Dassault sees fit.
Wouldn’t that be the case with any other supplier? But I gather Dassault risks being greedier than other monopoly suppliers might be.
Spitfire9Something that could derail Indo-Russian co-operation in the long term.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GDxTtvZPSKQ/TbB_phfhLpI/AAAAAAAAM-k/G61jecmRMgY/s1600/Vishal_SP.jpg
The contents of the jpg paint an alarming picture of abysmal after-sales support (which could be put down to incompetence) but when you are providing lousy support and then want to hike prices, too, you become a supplier to avoid if at all possible. Well done for issuing requests to tender for parts that are not being supplied as they should be.
Indo-Russian co-operation in the long term does not promise to be particularly useful to India on the basis of what is reported. It might be an opportune time to fight to establish a proper relationship, particularly with upcoming 5th generation co-operation in mind.
I don’t suppose MiG’s chances in MMRCA are enhanced by all this either. Wouldn’t selection of a top performer (eg Rafale/Typhoon) help? If Russia chose to play silly games with the Sukhois, the winning MMRCA could be ordered in larger numbers and the Sukhoi numbers curtailed.
Spitfire9Here is another article:
From which I quote:
“This program has never been quite as troubled as many critics thought. I think it’s probably progressed more smoothly than other fighter development program with the possible exception of the F-16,” said Loren Thompson, an analyst at the Lexington Institute, Arlington, Va.”
Wish I had some of what he is smoking!!!
Spitfire9Swiss May Upgrade F-5s Pending Decision on New Fighter in 2019.
The DDPS to Examine the Overall Planning of the Air Force to Fill Gaps in Air Defense
Oh for ****’s sake. Buy some Gripens and be done with it.
May be good advice. By 2019 most/all of the 4 original contenders may be out of production: F/A-18, Typhoon, Rafale, Gripen. The one that is most likely still to be in production is Gripen, I think.
Buying 20+ second hand Gripens soon seems a better bet than updating F-5’s. If it proves to be the only survivor when a decision is taken to buy a new fighter, Gripen NG would be relatively cheap to integrate.
How old are the F-5’s? According to Wikipedia, they were purchased 1978-1985. Is it sensible to upgrade aircraft of this age? By the time an upgrade was started, the youngest would be nearly 30 years old.
Spitfire9Isn’t it rather overkill to use 1000 lb bombs against ground vehicles?
Yes. A 500 lb bomb would be overkill, too. And a 250 lb… If only the Libyan dissidents had shown a bit more patience and had waited a few more years…
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