Whoever thinks that the Su-30MKIs are going to be less expensive for IAF than the Rafales over their entire lifetime is in for a rude awakening.
~ Let’s start with the basics.
The fly-away cost for an HAL assembled MKI is $61 Million (Parliament figures) while that of the Rafale is $85 Million (extrapolated from French SENAT figures). So the argument that the Flankers are 2-3 times cheaper than the Rafales is no more valid.
~ Now let’s compare the operations cost per hour for each aircraft.
The MKI will cost the exchequer close to $18,000 per hour of flight. This is in consistence with the figures from Russian Flankers and other twin engine heavy fighters like the F-15.
Now the surprise is that the Rafales will cost only $9,484 per hour of flight. This is because the Rafale barely needs any maintenance after its flights. So we see that the Rafales cost only half that of the MKIs to fly per hour, which results in massive savings per year. Also, according to unconfirmed sources, the Mirage-2000s that cost $8,000/hr to fly with the French Airforce costs only $4,000/hr with the Indian Airforce. So we may see further savings for Rafales.
Another important factor is the airframe life and overhaul.
MKIs have an airframe life of 6000 hours while the Rafales have an 8000 hours rated airframe (can go upto 9000 hours). Se we can definitely see the Rafales out living the MKI by a huge margin.
Also the MKIs need airframe overhaul every 1500 hours of flight while the Rafales need one every 2500+ hours (theoretically, but the Rafales doesn’t need overhauls in the normal sense as it will be explained in the later part). We all know the availability rate of Su-30MKIs is close to 65% now (planned to be increased to 75%) by 2019. Meanwhile the Rafale has an availability rate of 97% with the French Airforce. Less downtime means more savings.
~ Let’s consider the engines now
The AL-31FP engine (87% indigenization) costs almost half that of the M-88-3 (version yet to be confirmed). But the engine life is what matters here. The AL-31FP has a measly 2500 hours of life (2000 according to some sources in IAF) that also needs periodic overhaul every 1000 hours and the nozzle every 500 hours of flying. This wastes considerable amount of resources, also the airframe requires upto 3 sets of engines over its entire lifetime.
In contrast the M-88-3 (with the recent TCO upgrade) has a total life of 8000hours! Which means that the airframes don’t need a change of engines over its entire lifetime. As for the overhaul time, it is said to require an overhaul every 2000 hours of use (the entire life of the AL-31FP engine) But this is just a theoretical necessity as in real life the engine does not undergo overhauls in the strict sense. (will be explained in the later part)
Also the M-88 requires a drop-out time of only 2 hours compared to 8-12 hours for the AL-31FP.
All these points prove that the Su-30MKI may be cheaper for acquisition. But comparing the costs over its entire life time, the Rafale cost less by a huge margin. Another example is that the Rafale needs 8 hours of maintenance per flying hour compare to 32 hours of maintenance per flying hour for a Su-30MKI. That’s a factor of 4!
I’m not even going to consider the cost of the upcoming upgrades for our Flankers. The Su-30MKI will need a huge amount of upgrades to bring in towards 4++ gen level while the Rafale doesn’t need any.
~ Now coming to the point about overhauls for Rafales (which I said I’ll explain later)
One of the biggest advantages of Rafale is that it has a fully automatic monitoring system that reduces turnaround time and minimizes the use of ground equipment. Dassault has also developed a single test bench capable of dealing with all electronic LRU that needs to be replaced. Which means that instead of an overhaul, the LRUs can be tested on the system without taking them out of the aircraft. If a problem is found, the LRUs can be replaced very easily without much time loss.
Even for the Engines which is modular, the monitoring system indicates the module that has a problem and is easily swapped for another replacement module without much downtime and the hassle, hence overhauls over a fixed period of time is unnecessary.
Rafale is also expected to be self-supporting, requiring no external test benches for flight line or rear echelon maintenance. That is why it has a very low operating cost, and low ground crew training requirements. Rafale requires no complete airframe or engine depot level inspection throughout its service life. This was one of the many reason why the IAF loved the Rafale.
~ Conclusion
So next time someone brings up the argument that buying more Su-30MKIs were better than going for Rafales, be sure to make him/her read this article. Also share this as much as you can so the people can really understand what the truth is rather than listening to what the paid media is propagating.
Whole Analysis Credit - Tejas India's MRCA Page.
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