Well you never know, this past two weeks the Eurofighter and Mig 35 have had several good news’. Dassault too

Please, what’s the good news about MiG 35?

Satorian, thanks for your efforts. It was most informative and surprising to me to see 1 US sourced part in the EF.

Do you happen to know if there are any US sourced parts in the engine?

This is the last foriegn fighter we are going to buy. After this it is all Joint Development and Indigenous.

So i guess we can make this RFP as tough as this is. We won’t be reliant on foriegn fighters after this. This is India’s farewell bid.

Being in a shambles when you run a procurement competition is not being tough. It’s being incompetent.

As Swerve and Victor noted, you lose out if you screw up your selection process.

If you think that an attitude such as the one you espouse bodes well for co-operation with any of the companies offering contenders for the MMRCA in the future, I think you are mistaken. With whom is India going to do a future joint venture if India disaffects Boeing, Dassault, EADS, LM, MiG or Saab?

According to Shiv Aroor

Update: The MMRCA “FET” Plan

Flight evaluation tests (FET) of the six medium multirole combat aircraft (MMRCA) kicks off officially in April. The six contenders from been asked to bring three aircraft to India for the month-long session.

http://livefist.blogspot.com/2009/02/update-mmrca-fet-plan.html

I have only heard of 1 Gripen demo aircraft. I have no idea how many MiG’s have been built.

It would be somewhat ridiculous for India to make this request at this point if there are not 3 of each type available.

They have been demonstrated in Aero-India 2007 also. Videos of the same are available on youtube. The above is your own assumption only.

If you look again you will see a question mark at the end of my sentence ie I was querying the article which said:

Although more cautious than the all-out performances of the established fighters, the Tejas went far beyond anything it had ever displayed before, surprising the spectators with steep climbs, an inverted pass, high-gravity turns and loops.

Note that Tejas Mk.1 will benefit little from EADs’ consultancy; it is these that will enter squadron service in 2011.

OK, so no big effort is to be made by a foreign consultant to improve Tejas Mk1.

As mentioned in a latest news report, EADs’ consultancy will result in larger wings, redesigned undercarriage, more weapons, bigger engine etc. The beneficiary of this will be Tejas Mk.2 that will enter squadron service in 2013 (as per IAF chief Mr. Major in an interview).

more weapons, bigger engine, etc. are NOT “design issues” as you said above, but a transition to a better fighter only.

Again, perhaps you did not read carefully enough. I was referring to the following in the article cited:

persistent design glitches that dog the LCA, including fuel distribution, uneven braking, flight controls

It’s not as though you have the “inside story” that others don’t know.

I’m sorry if I gave that impression. I don’t have the “inside story” that others don’t know.

Instead, it is people on internet sites like BR who are “lighting the candles” on how the Indian media is wrong and mistaken, and how the Tejas programme is progressing very well.

I don’t understand why you say the Tejas programme is progressing very well except in the sense that India has developed the capacity to build a modern fighter more or less from a standing start. That in itself is a major achievement to me and if Tejas Mk1 is the stepping stone to a much better Tejas Mk2, Mk1 has served its purpose.

By Ajai Shukla
Aero India 09, Yelahanka, Bangalore
Business Standard, 12th February 09

But the performance that evoked Mr Antony’s praise was that of the Indian-built Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA). Although more cautious than the all-out performances of the established fighters, the Tejas went far beyond anything it had ever displayed before, surprising the spectators with steep climbs, an inverted pass, high-gravity turns and loops.

Steep climbs, the ability to fly inverted, high gravity turns and loops evoked praise? They have not been demonstrated in displays before, many years after first flight?

Bangalore-based Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) has taken the crucial decision to bring in a design consultant, a global aerospace major that would assist HAL to overcome persistent design glitches that dog the LCA, including fuel distribution, uneven braking, flight controls, environment controls and testing.

So after all these years the Tejas still has multiple shortcomings but is due to enter service in 2011? It’s a bit late to bring in a design consultant at this stage, isn’t it? It sounds like ADA should have done so years ago.

In multiple interviews with senior Indian and EADS officials who requested anonymity, Business Standard has pieced together the EADS strategy. The company has decided to supply India with high technology for Indian products that are not directly competing with an EADS product.

Makes sense to me.

Explains a senior EADS official, “If we don’t supply technology, India will develop it anyway, perhaps with some delay. So it is better for us to establish our presence here, partner India in the Tejas, and perhaps even market it together.”

Makes sense, too.

“Let’s be clear that we are not underwriting the LCA programme”, says a senior European official related with the contract. Another likens EADS’s role to helping someone in a dark room turn on the light switch. But EADS will do no more than indicate the direction of the switch.

Sounds to me like EADS would not be re-designing the aircraft but rather helping ADA to gain better situational awareness of the design problems they have.

The metaphor of the light switch reminds me that Mikhael Gorbochov used this expression to explain glasnost and the apparent failure that ensued in the Soviet union. I think what he was saying was that for many decades the Soviet Union had kept its citizens in the dark about how bad things were in their country until glasnost (openness) had revealed the true state of affairs, at which point popular opinion was that things had got much worse under his leadership.

Time for a bit of glasnost where the LCA is concerned?

See, if US approval is needed for aircraft like Typhoon and Gripen also — not to speak of F-16 and F-18 — then these aircraft are likely to come with various restrictions and “strings attached”.

It may be recalled that a few months earlier, the US firm (either Boeing or LM) were refused tender for Tejas’ consultancy, because they demanded that as per US law, the Tejas would contain American “technology”

Does the EJ200 engine contain any US components or technology whereby the US may deem itself entitled to refuse permission for those components or technologies to be supplied to a customer whose policies run counter to those of the US? I ask because Tejas Mk1.5 would be at risk if the EJ200 engine were chosen. On those lines, what about US input to the M-88 engine?

It appears that the only way India can avoid the US pressuring it to follow US foreign policy is to ensure that it never buys any military equipment with any US input whatsoever, whether it be component or design.

India would be free to follow its own policies with Tejas MkII, MCA and PAK-FA as its fighter force, would it not?

No Otaku,
Personally I think Indians are going to get pretty established in the aerospace business

I hope you are right but I would like to ask why you think that. Can you cite an example of an indigenous program that has “worked” ie has produced what was supposed to be produced, when it was supposed to be produced, at the price at which it was supposed to be produced? I’m not suggesting there are none, by the way.