IAF Mirage 2000

[Flying Dagger]

Russians barged in with MiG-29. Ruining the Mirage fleet expansion plans.

That was in 80s and it was Britishers with their Jags. It was a big mistake. We should have chosen Mirage production line.

Mig 29 were offered later and were actually a good option. But we didn't even opted that.


In 2004 around the UPA government was just afraid to go for direct purchase route. And then Gripen was also on offer so I don't think Mirage was the best option later.

 

[BON PLAN]

Maturity means jack shit. Dassault quoted a bomb to upgrade the Mirage fleet. The cost was almost equal to buying a brand new bird at that time. So IAF didn't persue it.

1) M2000 is flying, and flying intensively. Tejas .... ???
2) No one forced India to ink the deal.

 

[BON PLAN]

As I said earlier , Mirage 2000 assembly line would have stopped Tejas development

The Only Benefit would have been a Larger IAF fleet , and retiring of MiG 21 And Jaguars

Our Tejas 1A is better than the Upgraded Mirage 2000 , it only has lesser Loiter time But with Drop Tanks it can carry out BAR CAP duties

The Serial Production is about to start

MK 2 will be Ready by Aero India 2027

Tejas development was halted because of Kaveri issue.
126 M2000 on the Indian Dassault line would have been produced between 2008-2014. little hurt with a slow moving Tejas program.

 

[BON PLAN]

MK 2 will be Ready by Aero India 2027

Or not.
The track record of HAL can't give you too much confidence.

 

[Corvus Splendens]

1) M2000 is flying, and flying intensively. Tejas .... ???

Also flying extensively without any crashes, soon to become the backbone of the IAF. Mirages will be cannibalized for parts and eventually retired.

2) No one forced India to ink the deal.

Except Dassault wanted us to buy the new Rafale thingy instead since they were themselves transitioning to it.

 

[BON PLAN]

Except Dassault wanted us to buy the new Rafale thingy instead since they were themselves transitioning to it.

So why ordering a so costly (according to some Indian forumers) Mirage deal ?

 

[Corvus Splendens]

So why ordering a so costly (according to some Indian forumers) Mirage deal ?

Except we didn't agree for the upgrade deal, ordered a few more Mig 29s and waited for the Rafale to be available as per Dassault's specsheet. The then Congress gov ordered Rafales, which delved into an infamous scandal involving a lot of corruption, bribery and all round mud slinging shitshow.

 

[Corvus Splendens]

Mirage pilots didn't get HMD or what ??

In exercises they should wear HMD if they are alloted.

They are supposed to have Rafael HMDs.

 

[Flying Dagger]

1) M2000 is flying, and flying intensively. Tejas .... ???
2) No one forced India to ink the deal.

Well then not opting Mirage in 2000s was a good choice.

Tejas is replacing Sqd in front line bases with one active Sqd there and another provide training at Sulur. Third is being raised this year. Overall going good now.

 

[Flying Dagger]

Except we didn't agree for the upgrade deal, ordered a few more Mig 29s and waited for the Rafale to be available as per Dassault's specsheet. The then Congress gov ordered Rafales, which delved into an infamous scandal involving a lot of corruption, bribery and all round mud slinging shitshow.

Kyaa bol raha hain ? We took the upgrade deal for Mirage and paid a bomb for bits.

 

[Corvus Splendens]

Kyaa bol raha hain ? We took the upgrade deal for Mirage and paid a bomb for bits.

There was a deal for upgraded engines and AESA radar, new MFDs for the cockpit.

 

[Aniruddha Mulay]

There was a deal for upgraded engines and AESA radar, new MFDs for the cockpit.

Mirage 2000 was only used as a testbed for testing the Rafale's RBE-2 AESA radar.
Even as a testbed, it suffered from weight imbalance due to the radar.

would Dassault be more successful iif it kept with Mirage

Before Dassault's very modest numbers of export to India and Egypt a lot of people felt the Rafale was too expensive for most customers Would Dassault be more

www.key.aero

 

[Aniruddha Mulay]

The availability remains shit.

Any source to back this up?

 

[Wisemarko]

@BON PLAN
Mirage upgrade deal went through only because of corruption.

French company denies middleman’s claims about IAF Mirage upgrade deal- The Week

 

[AnantS]

They were given that opportunity by our own people. They fell for it looking at the lower upfront acquisition costs and then paid for it heavily with the very poor availability of the MiG-29 fleet during the years of the Soviet breakup. Took ages to fix the several deficiencies that the MiG-29 and it's engines had that were not fixed before selling to India.

Mig 29 was only carrier that fit the lifts of Vikramaditya. Simple. Today you have choice. When Vikramaditya was negotiated and bought, our defence relations with US were still in formative period. That was time when all forces were vary of buying air wing flying wares from US

 

[BON PLAN]

Mirage 2000 was only used as a testbed for testing the Rafale's RBE-2 AESA radar.
Even as a testbed, it suffered from weight imbalance due to the radar.

would Dassault be more successful iif it kept with Mirage

Before Dassault's very modest numbers of export to India and Egypt a lot of people felt the Rafale was too expensive for most customers Would Dassault be more

www.key.aero

Another lighter or stranger radar may have been installed.
RBE2 is in the same class weight than RDY. But its center of gravity is different because a "hole" had been created to host the OSF... This is why the RBE2 on Mirage is not a good solution because it affects the GofG of the bird. But an AESA radar specifically studied for M2000 was possible. It was not the priority of the french air force, putting all the money on Rafale.

 

[BON PLAN]

@BON PLAN
Mirage upgrade deal went through only because of corruption.

French company denies middleman’s claims about IAF Mirage upgrade deal- The Week

Same history for Rafale deal....

As an american, the sole acceptable deal is inked by a US company....

 

[MirageBlue]

Mig 29 was only carrier that fit the lifts of Vikramaditya. Simple. Today you have choice. When Vikramaditya was negotiated and bought, our defence relations with US were still in formative period. That was time when all forces were vary of buying air wing flying wares from US

What are you even talking about??

Did I mention MiG-29K?? I was talking about the IAF's MiG-29A Baaz that was procured in the 1980s and effectively torpedoed the Mirage-2000 license assembly plans. The MiG-29A gave the IAF severe headaches in the early 1990s with premature failures of the RD-33 engines and various spares being hard to get due to the situation after the Soviet breakup.

 

[MirageBlue]

That was in 80s and it was Britishers with their Jags. It was a big mistake. We should have chosen Mirage production line.

Mig 29 were offered later and were actually a good option. But we didn't even opted that.


In 2004 around the UPA government was just afraid to go for direct purchase route. And then Gripen was also on offer so I don't think Mirage was the best option later.

Not true. I don't think you're aware of the details.

The Jaguar was a DPSA for the IAF, a strike jet. It was acquired in the late 1970s and HAL had already started manufacturing them when the IAF bought Mirage-2000s in the mid 1980s to counter the PAF acquisition of the F-16A. The Mirage-2000 was the ONLY other FBW equipped fighter in the world apart from the F-16 (and given that the F-18 wasn't an option) and considered the most modern available to the IAF.

The original plan was to buy 40 Mirages off the shelf and then opt for license manufacture of 100 Mirage-2000s in India at HAL. That was a part of the options clause for the original contract of the Mirage-2000s itself.

But then USSR came and offered the RAM-K (later called the MiG-29) soon after the Mirage-2000s were bought. The MiG-29 had been a super secret program of theirs and had only been offered to Warsaw Pact countries. IAF officers evaluated it, loved it's incredible T/W ratio and performance and suggested to the GoI and MoD to acquire them.

Soon after, there were 2 types of air superiority fighters in the IAF, the Mirage-2000 and the MiG-29. Thanks to the MiG-29 coming into the mix, the options clause for the Mirage-2000 was never converted since there was confusion as to whether to manufacture the costlier Mirage-2000 in India or the cheaper MiG-29. Later on, in the 1990s, India's economy all but collapsed and all talk of the license manufacture dissipated. The serviceability headaches of the MiG-29 meant that the IAF didn't want any more of them beyond the 75 odd that it bought from the USSR.

Later on, the Russians offered the Su-27UB and it was evaluated by the IAF and eventually that led to the Su-30MKI program in the late 1990s to early 2000s.

 

[MirageBlue]

The availability remains shit.

Not any longer. The MiG-29UPG has much higher uptime and RD-33 Series 3 MTBO is much higher. Plus spares are stocked in India and RD-33 MRO is done in India itself which has drastically improved the availability.

It is not without any reason that the IAF was about to buy 21 stored MiG-29 airframes from Russia. That file had progressed quite far and eventually got stuck due to Covid and the Ukraine-Russian war.