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A plane that doesnt even exist on paper and won't be operational for atleast two decades against PAKFA which will be fully operational in the next 5-8 years. I don't see how is that going to happen. Hell, AMCA is in a more advanced position.

1. LCA MK1A costs nearly $100 million each but offers a fraction of capabilities and survivability. No orders for MK2 as it doesn't exists. 2. Gripen NG is not in service. F-22 has higher availability rates than Rafale and Eurofighter. 3. Speculation on your part. There is no first hand...

1. Not necessarily. Royal Navy's F-35 costs the same as IAFs Rafales. Eurofighter is the most expensive fighter in production. 2. Plethora of examples that suggest otherwise. 3. Can't comment. Information is scarce. 4. Depends on the adversary. 5. Nobody is stopping you from strapping bombs on...

Doesn't matter. Except F-35, every single "5th gen" is designed to outclass legacy fighters in every field be it aerodynamics, engines, avionics, fuel or armaments. Stealth is not be all end all regardless whatever LM claims. How about 20? After 10 years production run starting 2027 means that...

I think it was mentioned by Air Commodore Mao in his interview. I'll look it up.

ADA & HAL will kill Mk2 not Muricans. The dramatic increase in performance that was promised in Mk2 gets less dramatic if Mk1A does it's job. The first flight of Mk2 went from 2018 during Aero India 2013 to 2022. Atleast 5 years of flight testing before induction (No, I don't share the...

Agreed. Nobody made us do any thing as it insinuates that we got arm twisted. We need to own up to our faults and Russia needs to own up to its. One sided diatribe is helping no one. Yes, but to what extent? What is the criteria? It's a bag of whole lot of subjective arguments mixed with...

Contract guarantees 75% because Rafale is well capable of 75%. This doesn't take away the fact that French Rafales have a 48.5% serviceability rate. If you have evidence to the contrary, I am open to correction. Had Typhoon won the bid, Eurofighter too would have offered something similar...

@IndianHawk Had there been a service contract for Mig-29K someone would have screamed at the top of their lungs. Rest is speculation on your part and mine. CAG didn't whipped Russians, it whipped Navy for inducting Mig-29K without due process. In a country where former PM had to resign because...

@IndianHawk As for Gorshkov, here is a quote from the then Navy chief Adm. Mehta, "I can't comment on the CAG. But you all are defence analysts; can you get me an aircraft carrier for less than $ 2 billion? If you can, I am going to sign a cheque right now,". Arjun is indeed a superior machine...

@IndianHawk Again, you should put all of the things you mentioned in context. CAG don't care about context which is mostly a good thing but an individual should be able to interpret data. Peacetime availability rate of different aircrafts are as follows: Su-30 MKI - India (non OEM) - 55-75%...

Agreed but by how much and how does that concern India? India is not facing US as an adversary, that is Russia and China's problem, not ours. F-22 is single handedly the best thing that flies and will remain so for the foreseeable future but that has no bearing on India's threat perception...

@Armand2REP No they don't and that is exactly the point. Ajay Shukla wrote some BS and that exact same BS is repeated ad nauseum by numerous other sources, taking it as a gospel. I repeat, PAKFA in its current configuration has a RCS of 0.5sqm in the same way that F-22 has a RCS of 0.1sqm...

No he didn't pull the number out of his ass but he conveniently forgot to put it into the context that Russians measure RCS differently than West. But now that I have offered the context will you or anybody else stick to his/her conviction that Rafale can infact replace PAKFA as a future air...

Different methods of RCS calculation. When Russians say PAKFA's RCS is 0.5sqm they also say that F-22's RCS is 0.1sqm. Ajay Shukla is a political jackass. Nothing he says or does hold much water.

In short IAF wants to have the cake and eat it too. "We don't want PAKFA as it is too expensive, let us have more Rafales instead." Few years down the lane, "AMCA doesn't fulfill our requirements so we want a few squadrons of PAKFA till ADA can improve AMCA on the basis of 96 modifications we...

Paper tiger or not, IAF will & should not wait to find it out. Rafale according to IAF is a "medium weight, strike optimized" platform to tackle Chinese infrastructure on LAC.

Whether you like it or not, India will have to buy a few squadrons of PAK FA for China border. There are no other options. But this doesn't mean India has to play Russian game of chicken. Leave the joint development program if logjam persists. Buy them as off the shelf purchases till AMCA comes...