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

[Immanuel]

I disagree with (b) the Typhoon will not move mud as efficiently as the Rafale. Considering SAR works on the principle of Doppler return from the target I fail to see how a re positionable antenna is better?

well EF can certainly move mud better than raffy, the EF has more energy in the supersonic regime and flies higher than the raffy, it will not only be able to exploit max effective ranges of the many A2G weapons that will be integrated, it will also be able to deliver those weapons at higher speeds thus resulting in absolutely devastating results on the ground. Captor-E will be a much bigger radar and should allow for better images. Raffy AESA is very basic and hardly matches even the APG-80 on the block 60.

 

[weg]

[/FONT][/COLOR]
It gets even better with LMs more recent publicly revealed study. It supposedly costs $65million now. Then Pentagon had to point out the $65million is for an aircraft without the engine and associated parts. Congress was flustered.

Current price is well over $200million, who knows what the eventual overall cost per aircraft.

http://comptroller.defense.gov/defbudget/fy2012/FY2012_Weapons.pdf

 

[vanadium]

[/FONT][/COLOR]
It gets even better with LMs more recent publicly revealed study. It supposedly costs $65million now. Then Pentagon had to point out the $65million is for an aircraft without the engine and associated parts. Congress was flustered.



Only larger economies can afford this. European economies are relatively at their peak, so the countries will have to collaborate as growth cannot sustain such a project. Larger economies like US, Japan and China or going to be large economies like Russia and India can go it alone. China already plans 3 fifth gen aircraft. Russia has plans for a second, but they haven't decided yet. India will also be starting a second 5th gen fighter project soon, depending on what the preliminary study shows. As for 6th gen, all 4 countries have plans for them and US leads the pack. India has already started project definition of a nEURON equivalent program.

The French want to go it alone on their 2050 UCAV, me thinks. It's their choice. The Swedes may join EADS, it is a given, unless they find some small but rich country to fund their own 5th or 6th gen project.

Personally I don't think any European country will go for a 5th gen platform beyond buying the F-35.

I have information on LM paper that the $65m includes the engine and is at EC FY2010. It says Average Unit Recurring Flyaway Price, so I assume it is averaged on the US DoD and UK MoD total planned procurement. A rather theoretical price indicating you will pay well above $100 if you buy now and, hopefully, below $65m at the end of the line. If everything stay as it is today, which looks unlikely.

You are right, big continental or sub-continental countries will mainly go alone and dabble in some JV stuff. I not so sure about Japan. China will go rigorously alone.

Korea, Brazil and maybe Turkey have ambition to develop indigenous capabilities. Current F-X procurement plans will feed know-how into that, but will need to buy a lot more foreign technology to go "solo".

Europe will develop its own 6th Gen Fighter jointly (including previous autarchic players such as France and Sweden). Germany, France, Sweden and Spain (apart from 20 F-35B for the Navy) will not buy JSF. UCAVs will take up their deep strike "first day of war" capabilities, smartly jumping the JSF stepping stone, and complement their manned multirole assets, i.e. Typhoon, Rafale and Gripen. Those fighters will see them off until the 6th Gen comes on line post 2030.
There is no reason for India not to join in. One has to look at where the ball is gonna be in few years time and not where it is now. It might seem far fetched now, but things are moving very fast these days...

 

[Immanuel]

@ Arundo, dude i think its going too far when you say bribes have changed hands just because there is an indication Raffy could be loosing this deal. This is so far the cleanest deal ever in MOD's history. IAF has a done a professional job and St. Anthony will cancel the whole thing the hint of corruption. So please stop with the bs.

There is no valid source to confirm whether IAF prefers EF or Raffy. Stop posting unwarranted claims about Raffy being on top of IAF's view. Both aircraft have performed well enough to be short listed. Which one scored over the other is any body's guess.

My guess is EF would have scored higher on top speed, turn rates, climb rates both clean and loaded, higher super cruise speeds, higher top speed, higher service ceiling, faster acceleration to supersonic speeds, super cruise with A2A and possibly A2G loads, retractable refueling probe, better take off performance at Leh, Bangalore and even Jaisalmer, faster take offs?

Rafale would have scored higher on AESA available, more weapons integrated currently, may be better performance at lower altitudes, higher range, higher max payload,

It is easy to play guessing games, IAF never directly indicated which one performed better and until IAF makes a statement, it is better we all just keep quiet for just a few more days. What happened in Singapore, Swiss, UAE, Saudi is of little concern for IAF (the people who matter and who will use the winning aircraft). which aircraft performed better during one particular exercise doesn't prove jack about the aircraft without properly knowing the ROE. French claims are known to be tall, those claims have never been backed up by anyone else. I wouldn't read into tall claims of victories in exercises. MKI AFAIK never used BARS outside India, without BARS, MKI isn't such a hard thing to kill. Close in there is no way Raffy or EF could kill an MKI.

 

[Galaxy]

 

[Galaxy]

 

[vanadium]

@ Arundo, dude i think its going too far when you say bribes have changed hands just because there is an indication Raffy could be loosing this deal. This is so far the cleanest deal ever in MOD's history. IAF has a done a professional job and St. Anthony will cancel the whole thing the hint of corruption. So please stop with the bs.

There is no valid source to confirm whether IAF prefers EF or Raffy. Stop posting unwarranted claims about Raffy being on top of IAF's view. Both aircraft have performed well enough to be short listed. Which one scored over the other is any body's guess.

My guess is EF would have scored higher on top speed, turn rates, climb rates both clean and loaded, higher super cruise speeds, higher top speed, higher service ceiling, faster acceleration to supersonic speeds, super cruise with A2A and possibly A2G loads, retractable refueling probe, better take off performance at Leh, Bangalore and even Jaisalmer, faster take offs?

Rafale would have scored higher on AESA available, more weapons integrated currently, may be better performance at lower altitudes, higher range, higher max payload,

It is easy to play guessing games, IAF never directly indicated which one performed better and until IAF makes a statement, it is better we all just keep quiet for just a few more days. What happened in Singapore, Swiss, UAE, Saudi is of little concern for IAF (the people who matter and who will use the winning aircraft). which aircraft performed better during one particular exercise doesn't prove jack about the aircraft without properly knowing the ROE. French claims are known to be tall, those claims have never been backed up by anyone else. I wouldn't read into tall claims of victories in exercises. MKI AFAIK never used BARS outside India, without BARS, MKI isn't such a hard thing to kill. Close in there is no way Raffy or EF could kill an MKI.

One thing is raising a barrage of India context irrelevant facts about Typhoon development history (delays, cost overruns and so on). It is just irrelevant noise, who cares? It is part of a mud throwing exercise that kicks in when one runs out of convincing arguments or is unable to formulate a coherent technical-operational judgment.

Another thing is to raise irresponsible claims of bribery!!!

Is there a moderator in this public forum?

Unless you know all the details of an exercise event (which you will never know unless there is crass violation of military secret) and the RoE, using those results is a rather cheap and crude shot of propaganda. The variables are huge and therefore the outcome variance is also huge.

You are right, the Su-30MKI never used its full radar and other avionics capabilities abroad, as probably there were zillions of assets around them ready to suck in electrons. This is just one example of those variables, and you can understand how it can influence the outcome of any combat. Boasting about superiority without full knowledge is neither serious nor scientific.

 

[sukhish]

I have information on LM paper that the $65m includes the engine and is at EC FY2010. It says Average Unit Recurring Flyaway Price, so I assume it is averaged on the US DoD and UK MoD total planned procurement. A rather theoretical price indicating you will pay well above $100 if you buy now and, hopefully, below $65m at the end of the line. If everything stay as it is today, which looks unlikely.

You are right, big continental or sub-continental countries will mainly go alone and dabble in some JV stuff. I not so sure about Japan. China will go rigorously alone.

Korea, Brazil and maybe Turkey have ambition to develop indigenous capabilities. Current F-X procurement plans will feed know-how into that, but will need to buy a lot more foreign technology to go "solo".

Europe will develop its own 6th Gen Fighter jointly (including previous autarchic players such as France and Sweden). Germany, France, Sweden and Spain (apart from 20 F-35B for the Navy) will not buy JSF. UCAVs will take up their deep strike "first day of war" capabilities, smartly jumping the JSF stepping stone, and complement their manned multirole assets, i.e. Typhoon, Rafale and Gripen. Those fighters will see them off until the 6th Gen comes on line post 2030.
There is no reason for India not to join in. One has to look at where the ball is gonna be in few years time and not where it is now. It might seem far fetched now, but things are moving very fast these days...

India is very found of multilatrism. the reason is that for big countries it's always there ego which makes them go alone. for India that's not so much of a problem. india is very good at eschewing the retoric. India knows for a fact that all these things evetually become white elephants, so a distributed work load and price is benificial in long turn. India might also go alone some day. but it will be very different than go alone mentality of U.S, china or anybody else. even in space sectore India is looking for collaboration.

 

[sukhish]

One thing is raising a barrage of India context irrelevant facts about Typhoon development history (delays, cost overruns and so on). It is just irrelevant noise, who cares? It is part of a mud throwing exercise that kicks in when one runs out of convincing arguments or is unable to formulate a coherent technical-operational judgment.

Another thing is to raise irresponsible claims of bribery!!!

Is there a moderator in this public forum?

Unless you know all the details of an exercise event (which you will never know unless there is crass violation of military secret) and the RoE, using those results is a rather cheap and crude shot of propaganda. The variables are huge and therefore the outcome variance is also huge.

You are right, the Su-30MKI never used its full radar and other avionics capabilities abroad, as probably there were zillions of assets around them ready to suck in electrons. This is just one example of those variables, and you can understand how it can influence the outcome of any combat. Boasting about superiority without full knowledge is neither serious nor scientific.

vanadium,
once a DFI member makes up his/her mind, it next to impossible to change it. no amount of reasoning prevails. rafale is like
god to some of them. some time the reason given is french are independent, or how british are stooge of uncle sam etc etc.
actually in realty the indian defense forum is not much different from the pakistani defense forum. both have good amount of radical views.

 

[sukhish]

One thing is raising a barrage of India context irrelevant facts about Typhoon development history (delays, cost overruns and so on). It is just irrelevant noise, who cares? It is part of a mud throwing exercise that kicks in when one runs out of convincing arguments or is unable to formulate a coherent technical-operational judgment.

Another thing is to raise irresponsible claims of bribery!!!

Is there a moderator in this public forum?

Unless you know all the details of an exercise event (which you will never know unless there is crass violation of military secret) and the RoE, using those results is a rather cheap and crude shot of propaganda. The variables are huge and therefore the outcome variance is also huge.

You are right, the Su-30MKI never used its full radar and other avionics capabilities abroad, as probably there were zillions of assets around them ready to suck in electrons. This is just one example of those variables, and you can understand how it can influence the outcome of any combat. Boasting about superiority without full knowledge is neither serious nor scientific.

convincing an arumentative indian is no easy task. he/she suspect every thing, which is not such a bad thing. why do you think
the MMRCA took so long. it's equally or even more hard so to convince GoI.

 

[sukhish]

One thing is raising a barrage of India context irrelevant facts about Typhoon development history (delays, cost overruns and so on). It is just irrelevant noise, who cares? It is part of a mud throwing exercise that kicks in when one runs out of convincing arguments or is unable to formulate a coherent technical-operational judgment.

Another thing is to raise irresponsible claims of bribery!!!

Is there a moderator in this public forum?

Unless you know all the details of an exercise event (which you will never know unless there is crass violation of military secret) and the RoE, using those results is a rather cheap and crude shot of propaganda. The variables are huge and therefore the outcome variance is also huge.

You are right, the Su-30MKI never used its full radar and other avionics capabilities abroad, as probably there were zillions of assets around them ready to suck in electrons. This is just one example of those variables, and you can understand how it can influence the outcome of any combat. Boasting about superiority without full knowledge is neither serious nor scientific.

you are the first member to give such convincing replys for the EU fighter. I always liked it, I knew for a fact that it was much superior
to the rafale garbage, but this forum is all french. still you are doing pretty well.

 

[Cola]

What a killer argument. Yes, the trouble is just that obviously none of the five airforces did understand what performance is. We just have facts on the table vs. claims from people whose background I do not know. This is becoming a real flame war and I will not participate.

Arundo, term performance in aeronautic encompasses certain set of plane's capabilities like speed, climb, acceleration, range, etc...
However, performances aren't necessary decisive in some evaluations, since it's not every AF that seeks a high performance interceptor in every tender.
The problem begins when you start to issue categorical claims about "superiority" and "performance" incorrectly, which then produces confusion and your thoughts become impossible to interpret in any other way, then as a nonsense.

 

[sukhish]

Arundo, term performance in aeronautic encompasses certain set of plane's capabilities like speed, climb, acceleration, range, etc...
However, performances aren't necessary decisive in some evaluations, since it's not every AF that seeks a high performance interceptor in every tender.
The problem begins when you start to issue categorical claims about "superiority" and "performance" incorrectly, which then produces confusion and your thoughts become impossible to interpret in any other way, then as a nonsense.

on what parameters does rafale do better than EU fighter. speed ( cruise ), engine power, climb rate, technology.
In all technical parameters it is an inferior plane. it's no where close to EU fighter. the fabrication technology of EU fighter is just
unbeatable.

 

[Immanuel]

The fact is EF would have been rated higher in the trails because trials tested the aircraft's performance, things like availability of AESA didn't stop IAF from kicking out SH. Even the air chief in the article claims US was way ahead in weapons, combat avionics and radars yet they quite clearly showed US the door way since performance didn't match, SH and F-16 clearly have slower turn rates, climb rates, ceiling etc. IAF would have clearly rated them using aerial performance with different stores and EF is clearly the performer with a heavy load. It would have technically been superior in a lot more areas. There are a lot more areas where EF would have performed better and thus could have been the better contender performance wise.

..:: India Strategic ::.. India set to decide big military aircraft deals

 

[p2prada]

well EF can certainly move mud better than raffy, the EF has more energy in the supersonic regime and flies higher than the raffy, it will not only be able to exploit max effective ranges of the many A2G weapons that will be integrated, it will also be able to deliver those weapons at higher speeds thus resulting in absolutely devastating results on the ground. Captor-E will be a much bigger radar and should allow for better images. Raffy AESA is very basic and hardly matches even the APG-80 on the block 60.

Lol. This has nothing to do with strike. both aircraft are optimized for subsonic release of weapons. AFAIK, only PAKFA is being optimized for supersonic release of weapons.

 

[p2prada]

The reasons a lot of people support Rafale has nothing to do with A2A capability. IMO the A2A capability on Rafale is probably adequate but the strike punch the Rafale can provide is way better than EF's. Unlike the EF, the Rafale does very well in the subsonic regime at low altitudes. It has an additional 2 wet points and carries quite a bit to very long distances.

The MKI is the jack of all trades, like the Rafale. The EF will beat both in the sky. The IAF wants to replace their Jags and Mig-27s with the MRCA. So, it is clear the IAF prefers the Rafale and this was mentioned twice by the IAF as far as I can remember. Let's not forget IAF rejected the Mi-28 and only Apache was shortlisted for contract negotiation in their attack helicopter tender. IAF could have done the same and just selected Rafale in the beginning. However, considering EF was shortlisted, we know IAF wouldn't mind their second best option as well.

Rafale was built as a ground attack aircraft like the F-35. EF was built with air superiority in mind. No matter which aircraft wins, the primary goal for IAF is to find replacements for their own ground attack aircraft. Now we can say, Rafale will win and things will go as planned. If EF wins, then it is possible some MKI squadrons will become the mud movers while EF will replace the MKIs role. It's all a big maybe because we don't have official IAF views on what either aircraft are meant to do when selected.

 

[Vishwarupa]

Cant wait any longer...Please announce the winner!!!

 

[p2prada]

cant wait any longer...please announce the winner!!!

iaf

.............................

 

[arundo]

@ Vanadium
As I explained, I didn't raise claims of bribery. Nothing could be further from my intentions, but perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I only wrote that if Cola expects irregularities to be uncovered in CH, it would be no surprise to read the same allegations here (since IAF prefers Rafale).

 

[arundo]

Arundo, term performance in aeronautic encompasses certain set of plane's capabilities like speed, climb, acceleration, range, etc...
However, performances aren't necessary decisive in some evaluations, since it's not every AF that seeks a high performance interceptor in every tender.
The problem begins when you start to issue categorical claims about "superiority" and "performance" incorrectly, which then produces confusion and your thoughts become impossible to interpret in any other way, then as a nonsense.

Which claims about superiority and performance? I think you were the first one claiming a better performance for EF, but we do not know what IAF needs or wants exactly, alright? So how can you say that performance will be the key criterion here? Both aircrafts were selected and obviously met IAF requirements. This is a cost-related, political, economic, industrial and strategic decision now.