Indian Air Force: News & Discussions

Super Flanker

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??? Which indigenous UAVs planned in the next 10 years can compare with Predator-B ?
What is Predator-B used for? Is it used for Combat or only for Surveillance?

If these Predator B Drones which are supposed to bought by us and have been put on hold than I guess we can say Rustom-2 is the Indigenous Alternative for it.
 

India Super Power

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??? Which indigenous UAVs planned in the next 10 years can compare with Predator-B ?
I feel united nation armed forces can't think what to import or what not to
Jo hamare pas hai woh import keliye mare ja rahe hai
Aur jo chahiye aur humare pas nahi hai use cancel kar rahe hai
@THESIS THORON is also having same thoughts
 

THESIS THORON

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I feel united nation armed forces can't think what to import or what not to
Jo hamare pas hai woh import keliye mare ja rahe hai
Aur jo chahiye aur humare pas nahi hai use cancel kar rahe hai
@THESIS THORON is also having same thoughts
whatever, navy should go with its procurement of this drone, but babus,goi are doing their ususal shiet
 

Aniruddha Mulay

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For porkistan our current AF is enough but for China, I am not even joking when I say that by 2025 they can actually enforce a partial no fly zone over large parts of the country. Their j20 production rate is allegedly around 50, so by 2025 they will have more J-20s than we have 4th gen aircrafts. Meanwhile the Tejas MK2 keeps getting delayed
Tejas Mk2 isn't delayed
 

SwordOfDarkness

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Correct me if Im wrong, but isnt Heron TP a better drone than Predator for ground attack? More payload, more endurance, etc.... And we were converting our existing Heron TP to armed variant. Maybe we could be ordering those instead of predator, due to lack of ToT of predator.
 

Dark Sorrow

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Correct me if Im wrong, but isnt Heron TP a better drone than Predator for ground attack? More payload, more endurance, etc.... And we were converting our existing Heron TP to armed variant. Maybe we could be ordering those instead of predator, due to lack of ToT of predator.
Sensor suite especially the SAR in Predator is much advanced. Being so Heron TP fulfills our requirement.
Predator unlike Heron TP is designed from ground up for combat and its autonomous capability are second to none.
Both are exceptional in their respective role.
 

johnj

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Which European option is cheaper than F-18? Current flyaway cost of F-18 block 3 is less than $80 million. All US weapons and sensors enjoy economies of scale and remain considerably cheaper than others.
Absolutely not true. No other country allows more international integration than US. Just look at Rafale weapon options and compare them with any F series.
Fly away cost is less, but f18sh is a new addition and iaf need to train human resources, need spares and ammunitions etc its overall cost will be similar to ef or grater than rafale.
Russia is better than usa, look mig series also look for mirage 2000 with israel weapons. USA yet to approve aesa tech of sh to india and its about india not about nato or pakistan.
 

johnj

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I don't know the price details of F-15EX offer to Indonesia. However, here is the USN acquisition costs for F-18 E/F:
"14 F-18 in 2018 for $1.25 billion , 23 in 2019 for $1.95 billion, 14 in 2020 for $1.35 billion and 14 in 2021 for $1.27 billion and 15 in 2022 for $1.28 billion." USN is paying $80-$85 million per new Hornet.

As you can see these costs do not include facilities, training, weapons or sustainment costs. No fighter jet can be assessed with only a sticker price without factoring in other costs. The other costs could be one time (training, infrastructure, modifications) or per flight hour costs that is total operating & support costs divided by total flight hours.

To get most realistic projection, Acquisition costs plus Cost per flying hour (CPFH) should be added. Note that cost of Gripen-NG variants is significantly higher.

View attachment 138643
As you can see the acquisition and operating costs of F-18 are excellent. Now let's move to weapons package.

All US weapons are NATO compatible that means, any NATO aircraft can (after integration and qualification testing) use these weapons. Due to its widespread use in Europe, all F series fighters have been integrated with European weapons however, same cannot be said about Euro-Canards. (For example, F-35 is undergoing integration with Meteor and NSM right now) but Rafale/Mirage cannot use JDAM.

Except Gripen and now Eurofighter, few spend R&D money to use US made arsenal. French aircraft are probably the least integrated of all. The result is exorbitant costs for buying nation in form of expensive French weapons or paying extra for integration of incompatible weapons. That was one of the reason for India to ask Dassault to integrate Litening/Spice with Rafale because Sagem AASM costs $300,000 per unit compared to around $30,000 per JDAM/ Spice.
From purely cost point of view, buying US weapons is always cheaper than any comparable European option. Economies of scale is a real thing! That's why allied nations continue to reap benefits of US investments.
Cheers.View attachment 138644
unfortunately India not in nato or allay like pakistan to usa and india buys large share of war fighting weapons from russia and israel.
 

johnj

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whatever but pakis are upgrading their naval, infantry, airforce at very rapid pace.

they are acquiring so much in puny budget that seems fishy, Most probably they are getting fundz from chinks.

and here we are crying for induction of atags or bharat 52 and the lhd are stuck from more than 1 decade, mmrca is also stuck.

imo there is dire need of reforms in our induction procedure :fyeah:
Pakistan/Gov - very poor and Pakistan Military/Army - rich.
Stuck becz less local content. Atags/bharat 52 take 1 decade is acceptable becz it take time to fine tune and to check reliability [1.5dec not a issue since it is our first step] and now time lsp.
 

DEV1729

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@Rupprecht_A (@RupprechtDeino) Tweeted:
The Dragons 🐉 have landed ... according to @ForumStrategic the first batch of six J-10C for the #PAF has landed in Pakistan at Kamra. Seen here is serial number 22-103 but altogether the numbers 101 to 106 are expected within that first batch. https://t.co/HW1vcKuHag
 

Super Flanker

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@Rupprecht_A (@RupprechtDeino) Tweeted:
The Dragons 🐉 have landed ... according to @ForumStrategic the first batch of six J-10C for the #PAF has landed in Pakistan at Kamra. Seen here is serial number 22-103 but altogether the numbers 101 to 106 are expected within that first batch. https://t.co/HW1vcKuHag
I am very curious to see how these J-10C will Look in the Pakistan Day Parade's Flypast which is touted to happen on 23rd March. Pakistan was Negotiating for J-10 as far back as 2006 around during the Musharraf era.

I always wonder though to myself :- "How the Heck did Pakistan manage to afford that many J-10? Where is the money coming from?"
 

Super Flanker

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Pakistan/Gov - very poor and Pakistan Military/Army - rich.
Stuck becz less local content. Atags/bharat 52 take 1 decade is acceptable becz it take time to fine tune and to check reliability [1.5dec not a issue since it is our first step] and now time lsp.
Technically Speaking, Pakistan doesn't really have a government. All the elements of society (be it Politics, National Interest etc) are under the control of the Pakistan Military. If their Military establishment wants to buy something new (be it ships, helicopters, Fighter Jets) than they will do so, the Pakistan Government won't be able to say anything to the Military.

Let me put it simple in these words:-

"Countries of the world have a Military but Pakistan Military has a Country".

Also this is also how Pakistan is able to hide Military Casualties in it's Country.
 

couchPotato

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I've never heard of it being used in any of the recent operations. Not even in Kargil. It's almost always the Mig 21, Mirages and Su 30s
 

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