India opens bids in $10.4-bn combat plane tender.

[vanadium]

In another forums there are people who have begun calling RAFALE as the winner

They are saying that there is a buzz in IAF circles that Rafale has won

And high priced MICA missiles and Mirage upgrade are all going to be amortised through
Rafale deal

Sounds like a rather perverse and masochistic logic as you will have to buy considerably more of those very expensive rounds. Amortising what? A missile stay in its crate for years until you go to war.

 

[Minh]

Hello, this is my opinion only..I think India Sukoi MKI is one of the best already.If India have money you should invest in PAK-FA or F-35 that US has offer to India. I know that their is many opinions on F-35, but it is one of the best jet fighters in the world but damn expensive.Euro Typhoon,Saab Gripes are nice but India have those in Sukoi MKI.

 

[pankaj nema]

First of all I am only reporting what I read else where .I think everybody shares whatever
he learns on this hugely interesting subect ; whatever the source might me

As the D day comes near speculation is bound to go up

Secondly my understanding is that we can Amortise the huge expenses for the facilities that
we will create in HAL for upgrading the 49 Mirage 2000

Similarly once we have a stock of ready to use missiles and Air to Ground Munitions
which we have just ordered then it will create a coomon pool of Armaments
for Both Mirage 2000 and Rafale

 

[arundo]

Get the Euro Typhoon India, it look nice and mean.

An aircraft that "looks nice" (for some), but will have poor A2G capabilities at least until 2018..

 

[pankaj nema]

it is being reported that the Mirage upgrade will create the BEST Mirage 2000 Ever
even better than Mirage 2000-9

It will be a Mirage body with Rafale like avionics
RDY 3 radar and ICMS ( integrated counter measures system ) Mk 4 EW suite
are things never before seen by IAF

Secondly 49 out of 51 Mirages will be upgraded here

And BOTH Mirage upgradation and MICA missile deals are having off -set gains and advantages
for India

So this speculation that " Rafale is winning " is NOT baseless

 

[arundo]

I am not aware of similar horror figures in France

Sounds like a rather perverse and masochistic logic as you will have to buy considerably more of those very expensive rounds. Amortising what? A missile stay in its crate for years until you go to war.

The key question is which total costs you will have at the end of the day and I am pretty sure, that Indians are best placed to assess that for each EF and Rafale.
Should I remind, that in Germany one EF flight hour costs more than 70.000 € (more than 90.000 $) ? I am not aware of similar horror figures in France.

 

[Immanuel]

Firstly, Picking up a Raptor on IR sensor isn't hard, its kinda pathetic to make it look like an achievement since, the Raptor already saw the Raffy from hundreds of km away. No aircraft has ever had a gun kill or a well time aim shot on the raptor save the SH.
Even the MKI can pick up the Raptor on OLS within range, raptor is meant to destroy them from long ranges. Neither the EF or Raffy can supercruise with full A2A load, so suddenly SH doesn't have the need to do so. The new engine will address the turn rates and acceleration issues and USN will do since MLU isn't far away. MKi can handle J-20, to think J-20 will be actually stealthy enough to be detected late by the new big Irbis radar going on board the Super MKI or the fact that the OLS can spot the J-20 from many miles away too in order to have a long range shot. IF J-20 is indeed that stealthy, neither the Ef or raffy will spot it far away enough to take a long shot. It will always be a close in fight. Close in SH too is deadly aircraft and in its current and future configs it still out does the Ef or raffy. Furthermore, SH MLU is bound to have new stealth coatings, stealth pods to further lower its rcs. MKI sure cant have US weapons but can deploy a host of deadly weapons. SH is ideal for MRCA since it performs all roles needed from a fighter and comes with a far deadlier arsenal without the need of new integrations. JDAM, LJDAM, JDAM-ER, Paveway family, AAGRM, Aim-120D, SDB, CBU-97/105SFW, JSOW/ER, SLAM/ER, etc are all readily available on the aircraft.

Neither the Ef or Raffy can simply match the reliability or robustness of the SH which takes a lot more punishment in a day than both aircraft see in a year of usage.



Growler remains the deadliest EW aircraft there, it may have become a bit old in terms of new gen radar systems but Next gen jammer is being developed and will first go on board the SH.

 

[asianobserve]

@ Immanuel

Boeing should have hired you as Indian promoter of SH. You're not only passionate but convincing as well... :thumb:

 

[vanadium]

I am not aware of similar horror figures in France
The key question is which total costs you will have at the end of the day and I am pretty sure, that Indians are best placed to assess that for each EF and Rafale.
Should I remind, that in Germany one EF flight hour costs more than 70.000 € (more than 90.000 $) ? I am not aware of similar horror figures in France.

It is just a matter of a couple of weeks and the IAF will tell us which of the the offers is the most appealing. So a bit of patience guys...

Those are accounting figures throwing in everything even remotely connected with Typhoon (or indeed with any a/c flying in the Luftwaffe: they all look pretty scary, especially in the first years of ops!) and an awful lot of infrastructure to depreciate. If you put Rafale through the same accounting procedure--comparing apples with apples as you would do if you were an honest practitioner--you would come very close to the same figures, unless we have discovered some magical formulas or Dassault owns the "philosopher stone". Aircraft in the same class, if costed with the same metrics (which is rarely done) tend to cost more or less the same to operate. Do not expect big variances, unless one of the aircraft type is a true lemon (not our case in India) or you want to believe some cheap propaganda.

The idea behind those horrendous figures is to scare the taxpayer and is politically motivated. If you had to add to your cost per km of your car all the road infrastructure (autobahn, bridges, tunnels, traffic lights, urban roads and their upkeep, the traffic police, the bureaucrats in the Ministry of Transport) and all the other items related to your car usage, you would also end up with a scary figure. In reality you take into account your direct operating costs and your asset depreciation over the years.

 

[Yawn]

Firstly, Picking up a Raptor on IR sensor isn't hard, its kinda pathetic to make it look like an achievement since, the Raptor already saw the Raffy from hundreds of km away. No aircraft has ever had a gun kill or a well time aim shot on the raptor save the SH.
Even the MKI can pick up the Raptor on OLS within range, raptor is meant to destroy them from long ranges. Neither the EF or Raffy can supercruise with full A2A load, so suddenly SH doesn't have the need to do so. The new engine will address the turn rates and acceleration issues and USN will do since MLU isn't far away. MKi can handle J-20, to think J-20 will be actually stealthy enough to be detected late by the new big Irbis radar going on board the Super MKI or the fact that the OLS can spot the J-20 from many miles away too in order to have a long range shot. IF J-20 is indeed that stealthy, neither the Ef or raffy will spot it far away enough to take a long shot. It will always be a close in fight. Close in SH too is deadly aircraft and in its current and future configs it still out does the Ef or raffy. Furthermore, SH MLU is bound to have new stealth coatings, stealth pods to further lower its rcs. MKI sure cant have US weapons but can deploy a host of deadly weapons. SH is ideal for MRCA since it performs all roles needed from a fighter and comes with a far deadlier arsenal without the need of new integrations. JDAM, LJDAM, JDAM-ER, Paveway family, AAGRM, Aim-120D, SDB, CBU-97/105SFW, JSOW/ER, SLAM/ER, etc are all readily available on the aircraft.

Neither the Ef or Raffy can simply match the reliability or robustness of the SH which takes a lot more punishment in a day than both aircraft see in a year of usage.



Growler remains the deadliest EW aircraft there, it may have become a bit old in terms of new gen radar systems but Next gen jammer is being developed and will first go on board the SH.

Immanuel, either the F-414 has changed the rules of aerodynamics or you are plain wrong-there is no way an engine change can drastically improve the transonic and supersonic agility of an aircraft. If engine changes were all that were required the Mig-21 and F-4 would still have been in production. EADS claims the Typhoon can supercruise with a load of up to 8 AAMs and full internal fuel while Dassault puts it at 4 AAMs for the Rafale; that is still far better than the Super hornet.

You keep bringing up the MKI's super radar-will it negate the fact that the MKI itself is huge?

Your post sounds more like a cutaway from a Boeing ad than anything else. I'd trust the IAF and the USN which have had enough worries about the Super hornet's kinematics.

 

[vanadium]

@ Immanuel

Boeing should have hired you as Indian promoter of SH. You're not only passionate but convincing as well... :thumb:

Boeing finds it already pretty hard to sell the Super... such a suggestion might prove to be the kiss of death!

 

[vanadium]

Immanuel, either the F-414 has changed the rules of aerodynamics or you are plain wrong-there is no way an engine change can improve the transonic and supersonic agility of an aircraft. If engine changes were all that were required the Mig-21 and F-4 would still have been in production. EADS claims the Typhoon can supercruise with a load of up to 8 AAMs and full internal fuel while Dassault puts it at 4 AAMs for the Rafale; that is still far better than the Super hornet.

You keep bringing up the MKI's super radar-will it negate the fact that the MKI itself is huge?

Your post sounds more like a cutaway from a Boeing ad than anything else. I'd trust the IAF and the USN which have had enough worries about the Super hornet's kinematics.

Please have another serious look at performance numbers rather than filling the air spectrum with words.
No wonder even the US Marine Corps Aviation declined the offer to replace their Hornets with the Super!!!

 

[ace009]

OK - what are we comparing here? F-16C and MiG-29 were designed as interceptors and close-in fighters. They will most likely have better acceleration than F/A-18 SH or F-5Es, which were designed as fighter bombers - just as F-35 was. At any time, fighter interceptors have better acceleration than the air-superiority fighters which are better than the fighter-bombers. The F-18 hornet was designed as a naval fighter, when the fighter-bomber role was covered by the F-14 Tomcats. the Superhornet was designed to replace the hornet AND the Tomcats. No wonder the hornet has a better acceleration than the SH.
the F-22 is unique in being a air-superiority fighter yet having such excellent acceleration.

 

[vanadium]

OK - what are we comparing here? F-16C and MiG-29 were designed as interceptors and close-in fighters. They will most likely have better acceleration than F/A-18 SH or F-5Es, which were designed as fighter bombers - just as F-35 was. At any time, fighter interceptors have better acceleration than the air-superiority fighters which are better than the fighter-bombers. The F-18 hornet was designed as a naval fighter, when the fighter-bomber role was covered by the F-14 Tomcats. the Superhornet was designed to replace the hornet AND the Tomcats. No wonder the hornet has a better acceleration than the SH.
the F-22 is unique in being a air-superiority fighter yet having such excellent acceleration.

The F-16A and the F-18A both entered the USAF Light Weight Fighter contest in the early 1970s. The competition was won by the F-16, which from its beginning as an almost pure daylight fighter developed into a competent multirole machine (F-16C Blk 52, see curve in green), demonstrating that a you can turn a fighter into a fighter-bomber but not vice-versa. The F-15 design followed the same route and so is doing nowadays Typhoon. This is the preferred path to design a long-lasting great multirole fighter: have it shaped by the most stressing design requirements of air superiority (rather then strike) and you will perform well also in air-to-surface roles. This is the basic design philosophy of Typhoon. As you know Rafale´s emphasis is different!


What these curves are telling you is that you should beware of the claims that many manufacturers are making about multirole capabilities. There is multirole and multirole! The JSF claims to be multirole but it is quite obvious that its kinematic performance is well below what is expected from a fighter capable of achieving supremacy in the air. The same goes for the Super Hornet. They have A-A capabilities, but they are not up to the best. Coming second in air combat is a poor option. Deficiencies in aero performance will not be compensated by strengths in avionics and weapons. So let´s call a spade a spade!


The F-22 is not unique in having such excellent acceleration, as Typhoon and Super Flanker (and PAK-FA) are in the same class of performance. Put a few A-G munitions and some A-G modes in its radar and the Raptor will become an excellent fighter bomber, but a Super Hornet or a JSF will never be able to perform air superiority at the level of a Raptor or a Typhoon.

 

[ace009]

So, if that is what you want to point out, can you update the information in that graph with Rafale, EF and the flanker, and show how it would look like?

 

[p2prada]

Prada, here's the information on the trade-off between fuel and payload from the same site you quoted-
However, on each wing, the "heavy / wet" station was at the same buttline (distance from the center of the Fuselage) as two of the wing weapon stations. This means that you could use either the one " heavy / wet" or two weapon stations but not both at the same time.

Furthermore, if the "heavy / wet" station was used for an external fuel, the tank physically blocked one more wing station This meant that with external fuel tanks, the maximum number of weapons on the wings was 10. Two weapons could also be carried on a centerline adaptor. If no underwing fuel tanks were used, the maximum number of 500 lb class weapons was increased to 16. Although the XL could carry the centerline 300 tank, it was not really an operational loadout since mission range would actually be decreased unless the CL-300 could be dropped when empty.
http://www.f-16.net/f-16_versions_article1.html

You can draw your own inferences-but I'd rather believe the nearly half a dozen customers who decided to pitch for the Strike Eagle.

The F-15Es load out is the same.

The F-16XL carries more fuel internally than the F-15E does. It also has only one engine which allows greater range.

The payload on the F-16XL was much better even though it carried less. The subsonic performance on the XL was superior to the F-16Block 30 and way superior to the F-15. With drop tanks, even F-15s payload capacity falls to similar levels. Even with 3 drop tanks the XL had more usable hardpoints.

As the XL would have developed further the center line hard point could even have carried the 5000 pounder. The current F-15C cannot carry the GBU-28, only E can. It's centerline was strengthened during the final development phase.

Both aircraft conformed with requirements, USAF went for the more expensive F-15 to keep it's production going.

Nobody can opt for the XL for the same reason as why nobody can opt for YF-32 or YF-23. Their time is passe. Had the XL won, there would be F-16Es and Fs in the world market instead of the Strike Eagle.

Anyway we can agree to disagree and leave it at that.

 

[Immanuel]

The new EPE engine does offer upto 20% increase in thrust for the SH and with lighter materials should have a lower overall weight thus allowing for faster acceleration particularly in the transonic and super sonic regimes. It remains cheaper to operate during a life time and has a very well defined upgrade path.

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&plckPostId=Blog:27ec4a53-dcc8-
42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post:98ca66c5-16cc-44a7-bfa3-45d1436e826f

The SH is gr8 overall aircraft, it can perform all the roles required from an aircraft really well. The flexibility of operations give us advantages that no other aircraft can give. EF and Raffy though good are more like hanger queens that will end up being extremely expensive to operate over time. with the MKI and it super 30 upgrade coming and PAKFA, LCA mk1/2, we will have enough fighters to perform air defense and air superiority missions. What we need in the MRCA is a pure reliable and truly multirole fighter. SH is the most multirole aircraft there is. With its vast array of reasonable priced weapons to off the shelf tech and fresh tech being injected into the aircraft all the time, it will remain a potent aircraft for quite sometime.

That said, Raffy doesn't seem as reliable, the many emergency landings in libya and a bigger crash history suggest something is wrong with the aircraft. EF is a better and safer option.

 

[Immanuel]

Please have another serious look at performance numbers rather than filling the air spectrum with words.
No wonder even the US Marine Corps Aviation declined the offer to replace their Hornets with the Super!!!

LM source is just like french source claiming that Raffy was on top of IAF list, not credible enough.

 

[Immanuel]

Marines have no need of a full spec SH. Hornets are more than enough to handle the kind of work they need done. Furthermore, Marine budgets need them to invest in all 3 types of platforms, air, land and sea. Furthermore, the main reason why they didn't go for SH is because they are getting the F-35 STOVL, ordering the SH would inevitably result in F-35B orders being chopped which they are trying hard to avoid. delays in the F-35 thus resulted in marine orders being chopped first, shows that they have many needs and very tight budgets.

 

[Yawn]

The F-15Es load out is the same.

The F-16XL carries more fuel internally than the F-15E does. It also has only one engine which allows greater range.

The payload on the F-16XL was much better even though it carried less. The subsonic performance on the XL was superior to the F-16Block 30 and way superior to the F-15. With drop tanks, even F-15s payload capacity falls to similar levels. Even with 3 drop tanks the XL had more usable hardpoints.

As the XL would have developed further the center line hard point could even have carried the 5000 pounder. The current F-15C cannot carry the GBU-28, only E can. It's centerline was strengthened during the final development phase.

Both aircraft conformed with requirements, USAF went for the more expensive F-15 to keep it's production going.

Nobody can opt for the XL for the same reason as why nobody can opt for YF-32 or YF-23. Their time is passe. Had the XL won, there would be F-16Es and Fs in the world market instead of the Strike Eagle.

Anyway we can agree to disagree and leave it at that.

I believe the E uses the biggest CFTs (about 800 gallons each) for precisely that scenario. The XL would never have been able to fit such CFTS given its basic design configuration.