Are they going to announce a winner 4th November? Is it as simple as opening both bids, going to the last page, announcing the grand total cost from each contender, then shaking hands with either the man from Dassault or the man from Eurofighter? If the bids are sealed who (apart from the respective OEM’s) knows exactly what they cover? Or did each manufacturer release the exact text of the bids to the buyer in advance, witholding only the price?

they have to redo all calculations to check what contenders claim in thei rproposals, so the winner will be announced in some time from now

soldiers analogy was for your asertion that IAF can’t face PLAAF based on numbers…

numbers alone mean little, as they won’t all be in the same place at the same moment, tactics and strategy come into play in “how these numbers will be used”. You can just loook at chinese bases, where would you position those fighters to start with? you simply can’t bring them close enough to India, unless you want your pilots to go and fight after some 6-7 hours of flight ONE WAY…

what’s more, theres that tiny little thingy called Tibet and the Himalayas that are in the way between the two countries… either the chinese go over them, and are basically low on fuel before the first egnagement, or they go around… but around, you have enromous distances over the jungle in Burma and Bangladesh.. In any case, that war, if it ever takes place, will be over great distances and even cruise missiles may experience problems reaching any significant target, as for ballistic missiles, both being nuclear powers, it’s a game none will probably play anyway

Basically IAF doesn’t need to match PLAAF plane per plane, but just needs to be strong enough to make sure it’s not an easy game for the chinese, and they let india in peace, and vice versa.

Pakistan is another matter, but IAF is quite well tailored to deal with it already, and will be seriously boosted with the introduction of the MMRCA, regardless of which one they choose

seems that not only some on this board doubt the wisdom of deploying in units an aircraft which hasn’t been entirely tested:

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/article-view/release/130040/usaf-warned-to-delay-f_35-flight-training-or-face-%E2%80%98serious-mishap%E2%80%99.html

don’t know if that’s been published here yet, but, in case some are interested…

You mean people working in India will all of a sudden cost as much as the ones in the USA or in Europe?

no way.

Aircraft built in India will necessarily cost much less in workers’/engineers’/specialists’ salaries, than in western countries

it had probably to do with the higher AoA operations (extended upper lip may allow for better airflow as the AoA increases

the modifications, as said before, had to do with the HIgh speed performance in which that upper lip had little interest

@ matt

it’s the F-35 buy that would make less and less sense with the PAK-FA introduction appoching

If it’s to counter the J-20 “over the Himalayas”, the PAK-FA will be there for that purpose.

As for the price, lets take the rafale without engines and look at the price it will have…

add to that that the F-35 would mean being dependant on the USA for maintainance and upgrades while the europeans (all of them) offer a much better deal, involving indias industries.

In the end, back to the price, the european aircfraft have a high price in dollars also because the Euro is high against the dollar. If India produces most of its aircraft, that won’t apply anymore, and India’s fighters might be significantly cheaper “in dollars”

if it’s favourable to Rafale, I doubt Dassault would mind that India does some publicity for them in UAE/Brasil/etc, etc… 😀

it is a structural issue as the goal is to prevent the rapid aging of the airframe (structureof the aircraft). in real war, you don’t care about the aging as much as you care about survival of your crews which is necessary if youwant to win the war…

so, in peace time you’ll use restrictions to reduce cost while in real war you’ll allow for maximum performance regardless of what it will cost you.

this is also why the US have troubles with their aircraft “aging prematurely”, like the F-15s that started breaking in flight… with all theaters of operations they’re engaged in continuously since the last 2 decades) the airframes suffer more than what was initially planned (as they were supposed to operate in peaceful conditions most of the time…