India in talks with France to purchase second-hand Mirage jets

[EnlightenedMonk]

Instead of buying India might negotiate for leasing a squadron or so Mirages from France. As France has already started replacing it's Mirage fleet with Rafales, it might agree too. But buying an old airframe in such a high price is not feasible IMO. MoD did right by restricting the price at $36 million.

Yes, that can be an avenue worth exploring further...

 

[John]

230 order is still ok and nothing new. i mean we need to order another 30 or 40 more, they can be completely home made and have all the mk-4 avionics we are busy developing right now.

 

[luckyy]

no need to buy old and second hand mirag2000 ,.

country like qater , UAE didn't fly their aircraft much , they only buy these expensive machines just to show them to deligates..

 

[EnlightenedMonk]

We can easily order, but we have to look at the utility of the aircraft first... the Su-30 is a heavy fighter jet and we are currently looking for more medium fighters... The Su-30 can possibly do most of the things the MRCA can do, but I suspect the operating costs are much higher in case of a heavy fighter... so, the orders are being capped at 230...

Think of it as the difference between a Honda Civic and a Mercedes... A Mercedes possibly has all the features that a Honda Civic does and possibly much more, but that doesn't mean that a Mercedes can be used in place of a Civic because its servicing and operating costs are much more, as also the cost of spares...

I hope I drew a right analogy...

 

[A.V.]

the quatar plan was dropped because a diplomatic tug of war started between india and pakistan for those mirage quatar did not want to be on the wrong side of any of these countries and took a avoiding stance
same will be the case here if the UAE is going for the rafale the old mirages will be returned back to france and a tug of war between india and pakistan will again start both parties have shown great interest in the mirage fighters and france seems to have the ace if the mrca goes to the rafale india can think of getting these jets which shold be a great addition and help to increase the sqdrn strength quickly

 

[luckyy]

no need to buy old and second hand mirag2000 ,it is a good fighter but we have already mmrca and fgfa.

IAF still has a special respect for Mirage even over their latest SU-30MKI..

Mirage 2000 - Air Marshal  Ajit Bhavnani (www.bharat-rakshak.com)

 

[pppppppp]

I feel it is better to order more readily built MMRCA than going in for these. Mirages are to be phased out. Its better either to get rafale as a MMRCA instread or forget Dassault altogether

 

[SATISH]

The mirage is a safe aircraft. That is why the pilots like it. There was an article in vayusena magazine in which the Mirage was defeated consistently by the MiG 29. Each pilot loves the aircraft he flies.

 

[Energon]

the quatar plan was dropped because a diplomatic tug of war started between india and pakistan for those mirage quatar did not want to be on the wrong side of any of these countries and took a avoiding stance
same will be the case here if the UAE is going for the rafale the old mirages will be returned back to france and a tug of war between india and pakistan will again start both parties have shown great interest in the mirage fighters and france seems to have the ace if the mrca goes to the rafale india can think of getting these jets which shold be a great addition and help to increase the sqdrn strength quickly

This was my understanding of the issue as well.

 

[luckyy]

The mirage is a safe aircraft. That is why the pilots like it. There was an article in vayusena magazine in which the Mirage was defeated consistently by the MiG 29. Each pilot loves the aircraft he flies.

Mig-29 is airsupirioty aircraft , but taking the lessons from kargil war IAF also need to have aircrafts with equal ground strick capabilities , a MMRCA ..

 

[slug55]

If India is truly serious about retiring 150 Mig-21's in 2 years than second-hand Mirages would come in handy. But you have to realize India wouldn't be able to purchase UAE's 60 Mirages till they have 60 Rafales which would be around 2013-14

This is probably a dumb idea but since India loves everything Israeli, why not ask for a squadron of Sufa? Israel is planning on replacing them with their F-35's and their first squadron of F-35 is set to arrive in 2010. If Lockheed was smart enough they might offer this as a way to gain an upper hand in the MRCA. But then again, Lockheed Martin isn't the brightest company in the world. :dozey: