Its very clear “India” is looking to the West for the MMRCA. So, I have to say the Mig-35 is extremely unlikely option at this point. Regardless, of the merits of the design. IMO

If this is true, then the option isn’t just extremely unlikely, it’s out of the game.

So one more less headache for our Indian enthusiast friends. You can start thinking about the rest. If this purchase is going to have a big political “colour”, most probably you can rule the Gripen out too. And it will come down between USA, France, Europeans.

excellent post Aspis.

I did ask, very recently, a serving IAF Mirage-2000 squadron leader about what he would think the best MRCA candidate should be and I fully expected him to support the Rafale (because this guy loves the Mirage-2000)..but he said, from a pilot’s POV, that for the majority of the IAF pilots, any MRCA fighter will be good enough and they’ll make the best use of it. 🙂

That’s exactly the job of the pilot. To fly the best he can, with what they give him. And all the candidates, are fine aircrafts. Simply, there is the pilot, who does his job, which is to fly and there there is the higher ranking IAF authorities, that will take the input and reports from the pilot opinions and according to their planning, boost the best choices for IAF’s needs.

Whatever you buy now, isn’t a “standalone” decision. You already have various aircrafts and future projects. So each selection, is made with also that in mind. So, if you don’t get the no.1 interceptor now, that’s probably because you don’t really need now (because of Su and PAK FA). If you get something “lighter”, is because IAF’s plans think that the more “heavyweight” class will be covered otherwise and so on.

In HAF, if you ask pilots, each of them has a preference. But, those that actually determine which criteria will be more boosted, are those in the higher ranks, behind the desks. This may look less romantic, but those behind the desks, are actually those who have the job of planning, not flying. So, unlike pilots, the “desk men” must plan number of aircrafts, do a bit of math with the predicted budgets to see the type of aircraft that in the near future will require increased number, which older aircrafts and when must be retired and so this must also be taken in consideration, how much the weapons will cost and then put it all together for the importance factors of the criteria list, which as i said, WILL boost those that the airforce thinks as more adeguate.

Because, if you ask a 25 year old pilot “which aircraft in absolute would you wish for?”, he most likely would tell you “I want us to buy F22!”. But, an airforce of 300 aircrafts, can’t have 300 F22s… This is where’s the job of the “desk men” comes into play. They have to take pilots secret wish and see how it complies with the more “material” needs of the airforce.

And at the end, the pilots will love the aircraft you will give them, because at the end, they also know, that an airforce can’t make everyone happy and that each aircrafts has a role in a wider design.

You don’t know what IAF’s high rank staff is planning. But THEY know and they WILL boost the candidates that THEY prefer for IAF’s needs as a WHOLE and according to the forseable PLANS. 😀 Once you KNOW what your preferences are, there is really no reason not to take in the competition even the F4E “resurrection” if this makes the competition harder and the prices go down and your goverment happy… Same goes for your goverment. Your goverment probably has 2 “top dogs”. The fact that others can enter the competition, who your goverment isn’t willing to give the contract, isn’t a problem, because THEY WON’T WIN. They are simply there to increase the competition and give India better bang for buck.

The americans will probably say no. When all is said and done is another matter entirely. I doubt you can trust them on that one.

Nic

I know. The Americans have interest to say “sorry, only if you buy american”. If they lose the tender, then maybe they will think “Mmmmh, oh well, selling the HARMs and letting them integrate it is better than nothing”.

But, get into the shoes of the Indians… This is a risk for them. It’s about guessing the intentions of the Americans.

If i were in the evaluation team of the Indians, i would give a higher score in the “antiradiation missile” criteria of the list for the US aircrafts than with the Rafale. Because for the Rafale it becomes a risk, that even if it is a calculated risk, you can’t say “ok, Hornet antiradiation missile score: 100, Rafale: 100”. You will put Rafale: 70.

Then get the F35 directly and don’t waste the $$$ on the viper… it’s old news.

It’s basically the same for India and us. Theoretically speaking, it’s what Ante Climax said. HAF would like something before 2014, as “gap filler” solution to get rid of the A7. To us, Dennis Plessas, the LM campaigner, said that we could START with deliveries of F35 in 2014, but of course in order to conclude them, it would take years,so LM proposes the F16 again… as “the most natural thing”. 😀

Mind you, the 2014, was said, if there is absolutely no delay in the F35 schedule. A more recent article i read (don’t remember details), was saying something about 2015 for another customer (not Greece), being available. If you add potential “youth” problems/ “bugs” that the first blocks are likely to have… at the end to have a fully operational squadron without any hickups in any system, will take more time. For example, we are getting the last F16 batch. The self protection suite isn’t the same as the older 52+ batch. It’s a new one, and there are some problems that may delay its integration and maybe the final acceptance from HAF. Similar delay there was in the acceptance of the M2000-5. The place was fine, but the EW suite was a new one, and wasn’t working “out of the box” in 100% of the theoretical contract requirements. So there was delay.

It’s not that if you get something previously untested in 2012, it is 100% guaranteed that it wil be working in 100% of the supposed brochure requirements in 2012.

As you say it’s hard to say. The Rafale being the only plane in the AdlA and MN… surely it has all the weapons they think they would need. Same with the Gripen. Typhoon is another matter as most customers are on the JSF boat so visibility of T3 is quite blurred.

I am not saying that what you say is irrational. Simply you and i don’t know what IAF’s view on the subject is.

Maybe but not necessarily true. A few years down the road I doubt they would bark at the opportunity to sell a juicy weapons package… I really doubt it.
Besides a Rafale with ALARMS would sure look good.

Nic

True, true. This is something that the Indians should look into BEFORE choosing. For example, ask the Americans, if they would be willing to allow the sale of HARMs/any other missile to IAF , so that IAF can later integrate it to whatever aircraft she wants.

I’m tired of hearing two things.

1, That the F16 would pave the way for the JSF (how ludicrous is that?). The US will be more than willing to sell the JSF to india when the time comes whether it purchases the F16/18 or not. What kind of a silly argument is that?

This is LM motto. It’s the standard campaign argument. They say the same to us. “Buy once more the F16 now and the F35 in the next order. It’s the most natural thing in the world to do”.

2, That the US fighters can use all those weapons. Realistically, how many weapons does an air force need to pursue efficiently all of its inteded roles? Okay many weapons are integrated on the 16/18, but that doesn’t mean all of them would be needed to have an efficient strike capability, nor does it mean India or some other customer would need to use all of those. There are many weapons to chose from, but many of those are redundant and it’d be counterproductive too many of them.

India doesn’t need ALL the availble US weapons. But what would like, it’s up to IAF… It depends on how many aircrafts the IAF wants to dedicate to each role in case of war, what type of targets they want to strike and how much $ they are willing to spend for payload for each type of target, according to its importance and defence. It’s very complicated to say.

Besides the weapon integration is not all that important if competitors, like for instance the Rafale consortium, are ready to give full ToT, which means the indians could integrate pretty much any weapon they wanted themselves at the fraction of the cost.

This is true, but, they still need approval of the missile vendor, don’t they? For example, if they buy Rafale and they want to integrate HARM on it, can they do it, without the consensus of USA?

It’s on the higher level magnification, yet is about the same size in the frame. Don’t want to give away all the secrets…

I have seen that too. My explanation is that the Rafale was tracking the aircraft and these were 2 shots in 2 different moments, from 2 different distances, both at about the same angle (close to 90 deg). Note that the elevation in the 2nd photo is different (the aircraft isn’t perfectly centered on the display like in the 1st).

@Aspis… I seriously doubt the laser RF functionality will be taken away.

I hope so! Since no french poster replied, i thought it was an implicit admition of it being removed.

For one, the hardware doesn’t really have much to do with the IRST/CCDs – I’d think it uses a dedicated means to detect the reflection, not blinding the OSF. In any case, it’s obviously playing a major part in the AdA’s operating procedure for Rafale, it makes no sense to remove it.

In deed, even if you remove the IRST, the laser could still do the same job with the CCD. So i ‘d keep it. Unless the new OSF NG has problem to fit in with the AESA being added too, so in order to make space, they will start removing anything they can. I hope not!

About the stadimetric thing, I wonder how much the accuracy could be increased by statistical combination thru L16…?
Spectra is said to increase it’s own accuracy by sharing data from multiple platforms (triangulation, etc), visual analysis would just add another completely passive input. And it’s not like 100% accuracy is needed to get a missile lobbed in a good-enough trajectory that it’s on-board seeker can compensate.

You said it. Triangulation. Probably if you have some Rafales flying towards the target from another angle, they could all use stadimetric ranging, then use the link 16 to share their range data and get a more accurate range (a sort of middle value between the Rafales. 1 sees 40km, another sees 43km, another sees 50km, the medium becomes 44km). Integrate that with a possible Spectra track and you get even closer to the real value.

To give a better idea of more stadimetric applications.

This is an M72 LAW (old anti tank) scope scheme:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PVS-4-reticle-m72.jpg

1,2,3, mark 100,200,300 in meters. Since the distance of the enemy tank couldn’t be that far to worry about huge calculation error, the 2 vertical lines in left and right, were made according the medium dimensions of the soviet tanks. Meaning, when the 2 edges of the enemy tank were touching the 2 lateral lines of the scope, you could read (more or less accurately), the distance.

So, if the enemy tank, was touching the 2 lateral lines at the level of 1, it was at 100 m. If its shillouette was touching the lines between 2 and 3, it was at 250 m.

Yes, it wasn’t perfectly accurate for ANY enemy tank or APC (since it was based on an averaged size soviet tank and not for EVERY tank) , but since the engaging distance wasn’t that much, the error wasn’t important.

But I just can’t figure out how comes you can’t tell the range from the size of the 3D shape of the opponent. If you can identify it you know how big it is, so judging how big the image is on your osf at given magnification should give you its size. Devising an algorithm to calculate it should be hard. Isn’t it the ways submarines get the range of the ships in periscope view?

Nic

About periscopes. Nowdays, it’s done all by sonar, you hardy use the periscope. But yes, in WWII when you were relying on the periscope to attack, the periscope was using stadimeter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadimeter

Basically, you needed to identify the type of ship and feed it to the “computer”. Then you had to measure from within the periscope, the distance between the waterline and the highest part of the ship. Since each type of ship had known height, the computer could calculate the distance and use it for the firing solution , together with angle on bow and target speed.

Probably it can be done theoretically, if you develop an algorithm to do that. If you have fed on the computer database the 3d model of the aircraft, maybe it could be done. The problem is i suppose that having high speed, the enemy could reduce the distance very fast and make you miscalculate. Because the ships, were usually slow and attacked by submarines while unaware of their presence.

Even if you do make such an algorithm, the problem remains, that you can shoot , but the missile’s seeker still can’t track the target yet by its own. So, you ‘d have to do something like this to correct course:

– Get an approximative distance (+- 10 km accuracy for head-on shouldn’t change much, even if he accelerates or decellerates) with a stadimeter-like way from the IRST or camera. If you are SURE that he is well inside the envelope of your missile (to compensate for the possible range miscalculation), use that distance and fire. As you get closer, switch on the radar and sweep the targer, update tracking data to your missile which is still in flight, wait and let the missile do its job.

A bit complicated, but probably doable.

The case becomes much more complicated, if you are approaching the enemy from the side. If he changes his speed much and you have done a bit range error, the missile will be flying way off course. Putting it back to course may be too difficult later.