Translated from French (French aviation magazine)
13 février 2022, par Arnaud. Nos lectrices et lecteurs les plus assidus le savent : depuis juin dernier le Bangladesh a officiellement lancé le plan Force Goal 2030 visant à acquérir
www.avionslegendaires.net
THE AIRBUS DS TYPHOON COULD DELIGHT BANGLADESH FROM DASSAULT AVIATION RAFALE.
Our most frequent readers know that since last June Bangladesh
officially launched the Force Goal 2030 plan to acquire a new model of multi-role fighter aircraft.
After having launched negotiations with France almost two years ago around the Dassault Aviation Rafale F4, this country now seems to want to make an about-face in favor of the Airbus DS Typhoon Tranche 4.
The bad diplomatic relations between Bangladeshis and Indians are probably not unrelated. However, the American aircraft manufacturer Lockheed-Martin and its Swedish competitor Saab are present in ambushes.
For the record
, Force Goal 2030 is a vast program to modernize the Bangladeshi armies with an entire chapter on combat aviation. It provides for the withdrawal over the period 2025-2030 of
the Chengdu F-7 Fishcan fighters of Chinese origin and
Mikoyan MiG-29 Fulcrum of Russian origin in favor of a single multi-role aircraft.
Force Goal 2030 is now driving the nail in the coffin by insisting that the future aircraft must be produced in North America or Western Europe. Chinese and Russian aircraft manufacturers are therefore directly targeted in order to guarantee their exclusion from the competition.
Two years ago, the French Minister of the Armed Forces, Florence Parly, entered into negotiations in this direction with the Bangladeshi Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina. These were articulated around about fifteen Dassault Aviation Rafale F4 omnirole combat aircraft. Despite good relations, it now seems certain that the talks have not yielded much convincing results. The Asian press is increasingly insisting that India's supplier countries are being diplomatically pressed not to arm Bangladesh. Diplomatic relations between the two neighbors are not good, against a backdrop of inter-religious tensions.
Yet the Bangladesh Air Force was clearly in favor of the Rafale.
So of course this could play into the hands of the two Western fighters reputed to be much cheaper to buy than the Rafale F4: the
American Lockheed-Martin F-16V Viper and the Swedish
Saab JAS 39E/F Gripen. And it's true. Yet these two planes currently have only an outsider role in Bangladesh.
Because now it is Airbus DS and its partner n°1 Leonardo who are focusing their efforts on Bangladesh. If the latter cannot, diplomatically and / or politically, buy the Rafale F4 he can invest in the Typhoon Tranche 4. Often presented, probably a little wrongly, as the real competitor of the French jet the European fighter is a little struggling currently. He no longer really chains export contracts and is
weighed down by the Austrian affair. Especially the aircraft is much more marked as a machine adapted to the Near and Middle Eastern market thanks in particular to its Kuwaiti, Omani, and Saudi contracts.
Bangladesh could truly open up the Asian market to it, as India did for the Rafale. We are now talking about sixteen combat aircraft, including three two-seater operational
transformation aircraft.
As French, and as Europeans, we do not have to sulk our pleasure. Because if the Rafale F4 now seems rather out of the races it is Airbus Defense & Space that leads the market. And that too can be good for our national and continental industry.
Case to follow.
Photo © Leonardo
source:
https://www.avionslegendaires.net/2...gladesh-au-dassault-aviation-rafale/#comments
BTW the author isnt some DEFSECA burner account , he is a genuine aviation journalist with some knowledge about BD
