Turbulence ahead with Indian jet deal
The Indians, stormed “senior government sources,” had gone for the “Asda option instead of Waitrose”.

By Andrew Gilligan9:30PM GMT 04 Feb 2012

By preferring the French Rafale jet rather than the British-built Typhoon, they rejected, according to the Prime Minister, a “superb aircraft with far better capabilities”.
How dare they, asked MPs, snub Britain, which had given them £1.2 billion in aid? One newspaper even blamed the decision on the Gandhi family.
The truth about Britain’s “failure” to land the £6.3 billion Indian military jet deal — and the thousands of jobs it will sustain – is different. The game is not yet over.
But if we do lose, it will have nothing to do with the Gandhis, or the aid — which, as we report today, the Indians simply do not care about either way. It will be because of our own mistakes.
Senior Indian figures and military aviation experts have told The Sunday Telegraph that British defence cuts played a key part in India’s decision to prefer France for the huge 126-warplane contract. But they said the deal could still be rescued for the UK.
RELATED ARTICLES
India tells Britain: We don’t want your aid 04 Feb 2012
Government to replaced Indian aid with small business loans 21 Oct 2011
Aid to India will be stopped, pledges minister 13 Jun 2011
Britain to continue aid to India 27 Feb 2011

“For David Cameron to say that Typhoon has far better capabilities is embarrassing, and I say that as a strong supporter of the aircraft,” said Jon Lake, defence editor at Arabian Aerospace magazine, and an expert in Asian procurement.;)
“It would have been true to say that it has better potential than the Rafale, but thanks to the cheeseparing of our Treasury, and the other Typhoon partner nations’ treasuries, that potential has not been realised yet.”
Key to the Indian decision, said one senior defence source in Delhi, was the country’s wish for a radar and set of weapons which already exist on Rafale — but which are not currently present on Typhoon.
The French jet can launch a wide suite of smart weapons including Scalp, an air-launched cruise missile, Exocet, an anti-ship missile, and AASM, a precision-guided bomb with extended “stand-off” capability allowing it to be dropped from further away, reducing the risk to the pilot from anti-aircraft fire.
It also has an advanced reconnaissance pod and the latest electronic scanned array radar. This combination of capabilities proved highly effective in the recent war over Libya.
Typhoon currently has none of these things. The RAF badly wants the aircraft to have Scalp’s British equivalent Storm Shadow — along with the anti-tank Brimstone missile, a reconnaissance pod, and the radar.
These capabilities, apart from the radar, are currently available on the RAF’s Tornado jets and were heavily used by the British in Libya. But their arrival on Typhoon has been delayed by defence cuts.
“For the Indians it’s all about credibility,” said Mr Lake. “If they believe what the Typhoon consortium told them, then by 2018 Typhoon will do everything that Rafale does now. But they clearly don’t believe it, and I don’t blame them, given the programme’s history of delays and cost overruns.
“At the moment, Typhoon can drop a laser-guided bomb, and that’s it. The combination of Typhoon and Tornado was quite effective in Libya. But on its own, Typhoon was less versatile than the Rafale.”
Tim Ripley, of Jane’s Defence Weekly, said: “The RAF are desperate for further weapons on the Typhoon but it is something the Treasury have been trying to avoid doing. This is a crucial test of the Government’s export rhetoric. The Indians ask why they should buy this kit for their own aircraft if we won’t put it on ours.”
Typhoon is built by a four-nation consortium of Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain. The Indian marketing campaign was led by the Germans, a decision which Mr Lake described as “clearly mad” given India’s historic ties with Britain.
The culture and structure of the Indian Air Force is still heavily influenced by its British origins, with identical ranks and near-identical Air Force blue uniforms.
“The Typhoons they sent to India [for evaluation] were German, flown by German aircrew, but the Germans have a completely different culture,” said Mr Lake.
“It was mindblowingly inept.”
The British Typhoon contractor BAE was later brought in to partner the bid in apparent acknowledgement of the mistake.
Despite these failures, both Indian and British defence sources say that the contract could still be rescued for Typhoon.
A spokesman for BAE said: “The assessment made last week was basically a view from the pricing committee. There’s an awful long way to go before there’s a signed contract. It is far from a done deal.”
Though Typhoon is currently less well armed than Rafale, it is probably the more capable aircraft.
Experts say it can deliver a higher kill-loss ratio in air-to-air combat than the French jet.
“If they take the Rafale, the Indians will have to continue to rely on their Sukhoi 30s [fighters] for air dominance,” said Mr Lake.
“That’s all right if you are fighting Pakistan. But if you are fighting China, who also have Su-30s, you are not going to win.”
Commercially, Rafale has a track record of “winning” at this stage of a competition, then being overhauled in the final stretch.
The aircraft was selected as preferred bidder for a 60-jet order by the United Arab Emirates, but was then dropped as “uncompetitive and unworkable in commercial terms” by the customer, though there were reports last week that it might be back in the running.
Typhoon is now again in contention for the UAE business. Rafale was preferred by the Swiss air force, but the Swiss government chose the rival Gripen fighter instead. A supposed order with Brazil has also failed so far to materialise.
The Rafale has been assessed by the Indians as cheaper than the Typhoon.
The prices offered by the two bidders are secret. But official figures for Britain’s spending on the Typhoon, compared with France’s spending on the Rafale, appear to suggest that the British jet is slightly cheaper, though the science is very imprecise and cost figures for the same aircraft can vary by up to 40% depending on what is included.
Mr Lake said: “I would suspect when the Indians probe hard into the French price they will find that it is not satisfactory and hasn’t included things.”
Yet even if the Typhoon does, in the end, come through, it will not be the British jobs bonanza that some reports have claimed.
Because the aircraft is a four-nation joint effort, Britain would only have a 37 per cent share of the deal. And perhaps the most important part of the bargain for the Indians is that they want more than half — and perhaps up to four-fifths — of the aircraft to be manufactured in India.
Even on the Indian-made jets, substaintial components would still be British – but we could end up with less than a fifth of the actual work.
In other words, Britain may end up with less than 10 per cent of the production work on the deal.
It is still a good bargain, though, according to Tim Ripley.
“The real value is not in the assembly of the planes,” he says. “It is being involved in their future support and development over the next 40 years, it is keeping the production line going, and it is being embedded with one of the world’s major economic players.
“It is the life-support system for the British military aerospace industry. That is why it is so important that we get this right.”

From http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/9061868/Turbulence-ahead-with-Indian-jet-deal.html

Would it be viable to just scrap it altogether and use the Hawk as the sole jet trainer like most of its other users do?

I dont think scrapping it at such a late stage is a good idea..getting it into service somehow is much more important..because lets face it..after the hawks retire (several years from now) what then?do we again buy a trainer or maybe use the experience from IJT to make one ourselves?

The article is a little too harsh.

There was no way LCA was going to enter service by 2004, especially whn it took the air in 2001 :confused:

This is the amount spent on the LCA project. Compare that with what the IAF is willing to shell out for imports. Also compare it to the project costs of Gripen, which entered a good one and a half decade earlier. Thousands of crores really sounds big, but it isn’t exactly a mount everest when comparing with modern aircraft budgets.

Isn’t every other aerospace project without massive govt backing struggiling ? Check out “Eurofighter- Weapon of mass construction” which recounts a similar horror story with EF’s project management.

Why stop at operation Parakram, lets blame delay in LCA project for falling squadron strength during Kargil conflict.

Ironically, the current IN, IAF Brass is more supportive and understanding of domestic projects than the old brass and is not hesitant to seek out consultancy from those who have more experience. Unlike the older brass they are willing to get involved in the project from the beginning and bring in operational experience which a designer lacks.

Helicopters are perhaps the only field where HAL has started to emerge as a global player !! 😮
ALH Dhruv is going strong, and is a fairly good product for a first design.
Rudra is about to enter service.
LCH is going at a rather good pace.
IMRH and LUH are likely to be more reliable products based on lessons learned from ALH design experience.

Well it did sound a bit more harsh to me too than it was justified.
But still I feel there are quite a few loose ends.I am sure , the delays as frustating as it is for us , it must be more so for someone who is/was in charge of protecting this country.So lets give the former chief some leeway there.

As for the point about cost that you made , well I dont remember the HAl /ADA clamouring for more money or being refused more money by the government when they wanted it.I mean the money allocated to each project or stage , hal must have had a say in the projected costs before they are okayed by the Fin min.It must be quite a bit more complicated than that but Hal (or the agency in charge) must have some input to how much the money required would be.

Yes , helicopters are one area where HAL have done very good work.So I guess no complaints there.
But several other loose ends like the IJT etc need to be tied up.

And as I said before I am not at all sure about HAL going alone for the AMCA…we need to do a JV definitely preferably with someone who is more experienced.

Mayday, mayday!

Pretty hard hitting article on the indigenous effort by the former air chief!
Still I would say that something is better than nothing and what we have achieved today by no means can be ignored.

But we surely missed a few tricks and among them I would include the ambitiousness of HAL to go at everything by themselves.I have heard the reasoning not to include pvt cos because maybe they were not as mature as HAL et al in aerospace field..but now with tatas and Mahindras venturing into defence , its a different scenario altogether.Anyway the cycle is thus:

HAL > Try >Fail >desperately look for JVs > delayed timelines
Why not correct assesment of capabilities and start a JV from the onset?
I am sure it doesnt apply for every project , but quite a few though.

And a few projects which could have been done by now and is getting on my nerves somewhat:
1.IJT should have achieved IOC by now..the hiccups seem never ending
2.We should have had a basic trainer flying [its really a 😮 that we have to buy this from outside]
3.why o why did they have to choose such an unconventional design for the saras and not gone with simpler designs on their first effort!
4.And I am seriously concerned about the AMCA seeing daylight if HAL/ADA etc went at it alone.

All in all its a bit of rant from me..but I am interested to know other Indian posters’ take on this..Teer , Boom , BA and others?

@Twinblade: what does “Dassault bahane kar ke le gayi dil” mean Just curious…

Its a song from a Bollywood movie wihich goes as “Dus bahane kar ke le gayi dil”
Dus= 10 in Hindi
It means – (you) made 10 excuses and took my heart away
Twinblade’s sign would mean “Dassault made an excuse and took my heart away”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE3DfF66DNA&feature=fvwrel

enjoy :p

How does one say “Rafale” in Hindi ? :confused:

The same way it is said in English. Proper nouns are same everywhere.There might not be any special name given.earlier there used to be one for every aircraft.But now its not.everbody calls the Su 30 as either “sukhoi” or the “Su30MKI” pronouncing Su as “soo/sue”
Btw..although most of the aircraft have Indian names like “Vajra” for Mirage or ‘baaz’ for Mig 29 , or shamser for the Jag , I have never heard any pilot call them by those names[only parade commentators do].everybody just calls them jaguar , mirage and mig etc.

Former air chiefs hail fair and free selection of Rafale

It took two years for the Indian Air Force to work out the formula to calculate the lifecycle costs of multi-role combat aircraft that were in the fray for the mega deal for purchase of 126 jets.
…..

“It was the first time that the complex calculation was used in an Indian military contract and the IAF consulted experts from the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, Harvard University and even Metroman E. Sreedharan,” former air chief S.P Tyagi said.

Former air chief P.V. Naik, who was at the helm last year, said it was a good step. He said the credit for keeping the bidding process fair goes to a team that was set up to spearhead the contract.

Naik’s predecessor Tyagi gave some more insights. He said the formula to calculate lifecycle cost was worked out keeping in mind that it should not suit a particular vendor.

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/former-air-chiefs-hail-selection-of-rafale/1/171721.html