Samtel-Thales JV is now manufacturing Rafale IRST in India

http://www.samteldisplays.com/?page=irst

German opposition at selling Typhoons to India :confused:

http://frontierindia.net/german-red-and-green-criticize-merkel-for-pushing-eurofighter-in-india

Merkel pushes for Typhoon

http://frontierindia.net/eurofighter-will-have-no-end-user-monitoring-and-on-location-inspection-clauses-for-india

I know Indian guys think software is their forte, but I don’t think you want to lecture me about FCS software,
but if you insist…

if you take out 1 ton of weight out of an aircraft , FCS software has to be redone. and if you redesign you primary structure, looks like have to be for weigh issues, some of the critical stuff has to be changed.
at least some of your critical points and aeroservoelastic and closed loop flutter points has to be re-flown.
and if you are not lucky, some of your handling characteristic could change based on the critical stuff that is changed.

It is going to take a heck a lot of more flight test hours and $$$ than you imagined.

No no , no no.
Dont change your tack now.
You disdainfully claimed that since the full envelope in not cleared then IOC cannot be done/IOC has no value.Which is totally wrong.That is not how flight testing is done.In fact it is rare that at IOC any military aircraft would have its full flight envelope.

which means IOC is pretty meaningless wrt the development or technical merit of the airplane.

Which proves that indeed you have no idea about flight testing and IOC at all.

SAAB to bid for Indian Navy MRMR tender

Swedish defense and aerospace company SAAB is planning to offer its SAAB 2000 aircraft to the Indian Navy when it issues a Request For Proposal (RFP) for Medium Range Maritime Reconnaissance (MRMR) aircraft in the next few months.
….

While the SAAB 2000 is being offered with the RBS-15 Anti Ship Missile and a fifth generation Selex AESA radar, what is also interesting is that SAAB is offering re-manufactured aircraft, since the company ceased production of the aircraft in 1999.

“We will take an existing SAAB 2000. We will re-manufacture it and build it up. So it will be ground zero flying hours. We will have all the warranties. We will have 35,000 flying hours. It will have 25 years of support,” said Tommy Hultin, SAAB’s Business Development Director for the program.

Talking of F 16s , here is another enlightening wikileaks cable! 😉
Some relevant portions…full cable here

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/11/2019 TAGS: PGOV, PREL, PTER, MARR, PK

SUBJECT: THE WAY FORWARD FOR PAKISTAN’S F-16 PROGRAM

Classified By: Anne W. Patterson for reasons 1.4 (b) (d)

2. (C) What is broadly referred to as the “F-16 case” is really three individual cases: (1) a Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program purchase of 18 new aircraft, to be paid for entirely with Pakistani funds; (2) Renovation (Mid-Life Upgrade) on 35 of Pakistan,s fleet of 46 older F-16s, which include aircraft acquired through the Excess Defense Articles (EDA) program, to be paid partially with FMF funding; and, (3) a $641 million munitions case, to be purchased using Pakistani national funds. The Pakistanis also will have to pay $80 million to install the upgrade kits in Turkey and approximately $25 million to build and defend a separate F-16 base because of USG concerns about potential technology transfer to China.

———-

ISLAMABAD 00000177 002 OF 004

————–

9. (C) There are three related cases in the current program:

–New Aircraft. In 2006, the GOP signed a five year contract to purchase 18 new Block 52 aircraft. The first delivery is scheduled for 2010. As of September 2008, Pakistan had paid $388 million in national funds, leaving a balance due of $1.04 billion. The GOP is over 30 days behind schedule on its December 2008 payment; its September payment was made almost three months late and only after Pakistan received the first tranche of its IMF Standby Agreement payment. The next payments due are: $113M in December 2008 (now overdue), $99.5M in March 2009, and $301M in June 2009.

Finance Minister Tareen confirmed to Ambassador January 28 that Pakistan would make the overdue December payment “soon,” but he asked for three-four months grace period on the next two payments, so that they could be included in the GOP’s next budget cycle, which begins in June 2009. Both Tareen and Defense Minister Mukhtar have admitted they are not sure if Pakistan can continue to pay. Post firmly believes that the GOP cannot afford to continue to make these payments, and we do not expect this situation to change. The GOP is also reportedly behind in payments to China, Sweden and other countries for JF-17s, Erieye Airborne Early Warning And Control(AEW&C) radar and other aircraft/programs.

–Excess Defense Articles Aircraft and Mid-Life Upgrade. In 2005, the U.S. agreed to give Pakistan 14 used U.S. older type F-16s, adding to the Pakistani fleet of 32 aircraft, and it now has received all of these aircraft. All 46 older F-16s need an upgrade to bring them up to the avionics capability level of the new F-16s. The current upgrade case is for 35 of these older F-16s. In 2006, Secretary Rice notified the Congress that, due to technology transfer concerns, the U.S. required that installation of the upgrade kits must be performed outside of Pakistan; there is still debate about when that decision was conveyed to Pakistan. Pakistan has now contracted with TAI in Turkey to perform this estimated $80 million installation, which is tentatively scheduled to begin in 2012.

The U.S. agreed to assist the upgrade through U.S.-funded FMF. To date, we have provided $334 million in three installments, the first ($108 million), which supplied all the funding needed through March 2008. When Pakistan failed to meet its June 2008 payment, the U.S. Air Force issued a stop-work order on the upgrade kit production line in August 2008. The Congress then approved $116 million for the June and September 2008 payments, and $110 million for the December 2008 and March 2009 payments. Pending is a congressional notification to use $142 million in FMF to cover the June and September 2009 upgrade program payments. If approved, this would leave an outstanding balance of $398 million for the upgrade kits.

ISLAMABAD 00000177 003 OF 004

PATTERSON

Bsf have made official complaint about how they feel the alh is “useless” and imposes too many restrictions. Claims of poor readiness and serviceability have also been made.

Oh puhleez give me a break.
The claims made by BSF are ridiculuos to say the least.The claims made by some “BSF sources” are :

are not helpful in our operations like casualty evacuation and troop reinforcements.

No words are necessary to point out how stupid those statements are.And I guess the Army and the Air force are chumps to use the same helo in those two very roles.

there are issues about its capabilities to fly beyond a certain height

ROFL…the only helicopter which can fly at Siachen heights with considerable load is the Dhruv.The BSF must be operating at the height of the moon perhaps.

Most of the times these helicopters are under servicing

There are two factors here.
Number one , there was a spares shortage from HAL -someone tells me that HAL’s support system for the dhruv is stretched – the IAF and the army aviation corps recieved priority from the HAL and the BSF were neglected.Also the Telegraph reported that the chopper lent by BSF to CRPF suffered from spares because a consignment of spares were held up by Air India pilot strike.
And the most important point is that the BSF are morons when it comes to maintainance. Previously they have had problems with Chetaks Mi 17s and their Avros are grounded too.
Unless they improve the maint. of their assets there will always be some problem or the other with whatever aircraft they have not only Dhruv.

What is puzzling me is that we keep getting “rumors” about the 2 aircraft (Typhoon-Rafale) having performed more or less equally (?) during the technical eval …

My question is what could make the Indians think that the Typhoon is as good as the Rafale for the foreseable futur ?? :confused:
Presently , the Rafale is fully “omnirole” with an alreary founded futur way beyond the RBE2-AA capability while the Typhoon is at least 5 years behind in overall capabilities in every Ops you can think of , including the AtoA warfare .

So , why India is apparently thinking that the Typhoon is a potential buy ? :confused:

The IAF didnt “think” that Typhoon is as good as the Rafale.
The IAF evaluated the two aircraft based on more than 600 parameters and point system where the two birds must have had scores very close to each other.
This was not a subjective comparison , it was a very objective one.
So I think your rant is not understandable.