Know Your 'Rafale'

A.V.

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As President Nicolas Sarkozy began talks with Indian leaders to boost Indo-French ties, a French company Friday offered to sell 40 of its new generation Rafale fighters to New Delhi on a fast track basis to help IAF maintain its combat edge.

The offer was made by Charles Edelstennie, scion of the Dassult family, the makers of the Rafale and Mirage fighters. "We know the Indian Air Force, with which we have a decade-long close association, is facing force depletion. So we are ready to supply 40 Rafales, the world's first omni-role fighters to India, in a short span of time", the chairman and chief executive of Dassult, a multi-billion French military and civil aerospace company, told PTI.

Edelastennie said Rafale fighters could be an interim sale to India as New Delhi finalises preparations to acquire 126 Multi Role Combat Aircraft at an estimated cost of $10 billion (about Rs 40,000 crore).

"We estimate delays in procurements of these 126 fighters. So we are offering the Rafale fighters as interim arrangement", he said.

The government has already cleared a contract for purchase of 40 additional SU-30MKI to maintain an effective air combat strength.

Terming the Rafale fighter supply as a "friendly gesture to help close friend India," Edelstennie said his company was a strong bidder for India's MCRA contract.

Rubbishing notions that Rafale came with a heavy price tag, the Dassult CEO said "the fighters' cost to efficiency was not high. New Delhi would get a cheaper price tag as the fighters' assembly in India under technology transfer would not be high".

"Rafale is very close to life cycle cost of Mirage 2000," the French CEO, who is part of the 60-strong captains of French Industry accompanying President Sarkozy, said.

Describing Rafale as a truly multi-role aircraft, Edelstennie said the fighter had air to air, air to ground as well as air to sea capability, which would allow IAF the liberty of using fewer aircraft for multi-tasking. He said France [Images] had always been a "friend in need for India.

We have been transferring weapon platforms and systems to you even in adverse international conditions," the Dassult CEO said.

He claimed all the French military supplies to India were coming without "any strings attached" unlike sales from US and Russia [Images].

On Rafale sales offer to India, Edelstennie said this was not the only gesture made by the French. "A couple of years ago we thrice made an offer to India to transfer the entire Mirage-2000 assembly lines and also the entire export rights of the fighters," he said. "We see and feel the regret now. It was a golden opportunity which your then government did not utilize," the French CEO claimed.

Edelastennie asserted that unlike the US fighters in contention for the Indian contract, Rafale was a generation ahead. "It is fulfilling the needs and tasks of the French air force and navy globally."

On installation of a AESA radar on the Rafale fighters as stated by the Indian fighter tender, he said a French version of the radar had been developed by the Thales company and would be in full production in the aircraft by 2012.

On the Mirage-2000 upgrade, the French executive said his company had made a proposal to India and currently negotiations were on. Asked if the estimated price tag of 1.5 billion euro for the upgrade was not too high, Edelstennie said "We have come to negotiations and let us see how the final picture would emerge".

On booming sales of his Falcon 7x900DX and 2000lx business jets sales in India, he said "the sales have been on the upward swing and we hope that they get more bigger soon".

France offers to supply 40 Rafale fighters to IAF

this is a report about 2 months back check out the mention of the mirage 2000 fighters why did the iaf or govt refuse the mirage deal i guess
 

Yusuf

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Too expensive even if the French try to put another spin on it.
MMRCA is a bridge between now and the arrival of the 5th gen fighter.
 

EnlightenedMonk

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Not only a bridge... it can also help us in our immediate neighbourhood as a credible fighting machine since neither China nor Pakistan has a 5th generation fighter and the chances of them getting their 5th generation ready before ours is remote (since the Russians are working on it feverishly)

So, I don't see anything wrong in spending for the Rafael which is a good fighter or even for the Eurofighter Typhoon (the most expensive of the lot...)
 

thakur_ritesh

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avi this offer was made way back in 2008 when the french pres presided over the republic day as the chief guest which was a subsequently rejected by the iaf. their intent was to make a back door entry and once they had gone ahead with this order they could have easily gone for the mmrca. a trick well thought of but the babus around are much smarter and this was the reason why this deal was rejected. a lot of water has flown by since and post the rejection of this offer they made the offer of providing the source code for the radar.
 

EnlightenedMonk

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avi this offer was made way back in 2008 when the french pres presided over the republic day as the chief guest which was a subsequently rejected by the iaf. their intent was to make a back door entry and once they had gone ahead with this order they could have easily gone for the mmrca. a trick well thought of but the babus around are much smarter and this was the reason why this deal was rejected. a lot of water has flown by since and post the rejection of this offer they made the offer of providing the source code for the radar.
We ought to buy a jet which provides the radar source code... any company which refuses ought to be disqualified... which of the companies are currently offering the radar source code ???
 

thakur_ritesh

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i think it is rafale and mig35.

gripen would possibily but only when they have their own radar till then its a no no and for eurofighter till now there has been no such talk, as for the americans its one of the toughest things to come by and least we expect such an offer.
 

EnlightenedMonk

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i think it is rafale and mig35.

gripen would possibily but only when they have their own radar till then its a no no and for eurofighter till now there has been no such talk, as for the americans its one of the toughest things to come by and least we expect such an offer.
Somehow, I think that due to the size of the order, we might be able to squeeze the source code out of all the suppliers except the American ones... they will end up being tough nuts to crack...
 

shiv

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how can we do so MOnk with only the american and the french radars being ready.........
 

jackprince

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I hope we pick the Rafaele.

Me too.

Too expensive even if the French try to put another spin on it.
MMRCA is a bridge between now and the arrival of the 5th gen fighter.
It is not too expensive considering all facts. Even though I don't have the offer price of these a/cs of the MMRCA (does anyone have?), what I read in wikipedia, rafale has price as $67 mil where as Eurofighter has $122.5 mil!

This french offer of 2 sqdrns. is a very good one, which any other a/c can't give. Heck Mig-35 doesn't even have a production line set up. The MMRCA a/c will not be selected for another 8 months or so minimum, then it will take much more time to get the a/cs. These planes could very well act as stop-gap until the new one gets here.
 

VayuSena1

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Me too.



It is not too expensive considering all facts. Even though I don't have the offer price of these a/cs of the MMRCA (does anyone have?), what I read in wikipedia, rafale has price as $67 mil where as Eurofighter has $122.5 mil!

This french offer of 2 sqdrns. is a very good one, which any other a/c can't give. Heck Mig-35 doesn't even have a production line set up. The MMRCA a/c will not be selected for another 8 months or so minimum, then it will take much more time to get the a/cs. These planes could very well act as stop-gap until the new one gets here.
I second you on that. If the Russians did not have the issues of escalating costs and delaying supplies constantly and repeatedly in the recent years (this was not so in the Soviet era as much as it is today), MiG-35 could have completely won the contract. However, as I stated on another discussion forum, the contract must be split to maybe70-30 proportion where Rafale gets the larger share and MiG the smaller share. This would keep both of them satisfied.
 

K Factor

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Plus the fact that the Rafale is also available in a navalised version, for carrier based operation. This would be great for India, as we would have ToT, and can manufacture more if needed, for future IACs.
 

jackprince

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Plus the fact that the Rafale is also available in a navalised version, for carrier based operation. This would be great for India, as we would have ToT, and can manufacture more if needed, for future IACs.
Yes. By the time the third IAC is commissioned we'd learn whether MiG-29Ks and Naval LCAs are satisfactory or not. The way France is helpful, they might even loan a few for a period to see for ourselves! ;)
 

VayuSena1

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All this would be if and only if we choose the Rafale(which I hope they do instead of going ga-ga over American offer). This time during Aero India 2009, Rafale was missing for a demonstration though France said that those who were seriously were interested in a demonstration could just tell the authorities to call one from Afghanistan, where the aircraft is seeing combat action. I am of the opinion that the aircraft should be considered as the winner of MMRCA already, unlike the "American" frontlinership that the Indian media keeps harping about, in just about every MMRCA related article irrespective of which Indian newspaper one reads. I wonder what is this sudden fancy of everything American in the Indian media.

I am sure that MiG-29 KUBs and HAL Tejas will be upto their mark and satisfactory, this being the last chance for MiG to prove its effectiveness and for Tejas to represent India as a near-self-reliant country in terms of crucial weaponry. Apart from the other causes, it is the requirement swings of the armed forces that are one of the main causes of delay and I will not deny that. While one senior official asks for some specific quality, others disagree with him and prefer something else. This does not enable the service to come to a consensus quickly and therefore hampers in the day to day operations of the military.

There is a big difference between the Naval variant of Rafale and the other air force versions. I suppose people should drop their "interpolability expectations" of the 2 different classes of aircraft as Navy and Air Force have completely different ASRs and therefore would never come or settle for the same line of aircraft. Carrier operations despite apprearing similar to Air Force operations, are completely a different matter when seen closely and therefore considering Rafale M as a possible carrier bird for the Navy would be a totally separate issue that has to be raised by naval Aviation department.

MMRCA is focused on ONLY ASRs and has nothing to do with Naval aviation. If there was even slightest commonality between the two departments, then MiG-35 would have already been declared a winner by now, considering that the Navy shall be operating a closer cousin to MiG-35 on its aircraft carriers. But this is not so.
 

pyromaniac

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The one thing that people don't talk about much when they talk about the Rafale is that the French have said that they will provide the software codes for the Radar and this will allow the IAF to reprogram it as the mission dictates. A very good thing because then we would be completely "self reliant" i.e. absolutely no foreign involvement.
 

A.V.

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how can we do so MOnk with only the american and the french radars being ready.........


not only that the russian ZHUK AESA is also ready and its installed on the su35 BM already for testing purposes, for more detailed specs and pic of this radar visit the pakfa thread on the strategic alliance section.
 

K Factor

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not only that the russian ZHUK AESA is also ready and its installed on the su35 BM already for testing purposes, for more detailed specs and pic of this radar visit the pakfa thread on the strategic alliance section.
I thought that the Irbis-E was more advanced than the Zhuk Aesa.
 

Singh

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I thought that the Irbis-E was more advanced than the Zhuk Aesa.
I believe Irbis-E PESA is more powerful than Zhuk AESA.
AESA radar by definition ought to be more advanced than PESA
 

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