This is coming from very high up in the BJP
Whatever the reasons or whatever be the merits of the logic, if a senior BJP leader is looking to block this, it is very bad news for the French. It isn't like Yashwant Sinha to simply be obstructionist on matters like this. If they are, it simply means they have some serious doubts about the deal.
Only because he is high in the party, doesn't give him any insights into the procurement of the fighter, nor give him any knowledge about the fighter itself. But yes it is far from being over for Rafale, that's what I always say to our French friends and why I always said it was stupid from Dassault to delay things instead of simply easing up everything to seal the deal as fast as possible.
IF BJP comes to power is not important now, they will already face political and industrial pressure to change the decision and the EF consortium / partner countries surely have some power to influence. That alone gives more than enough reasons for certain people to make baseless complains, but for doubts you need at least some evidence and so far all claims made by the BJP on the issues that I mentioned were only showing their lack of knowledge of the competition.
Why not? I can certainly calculate.
Because there is not even a single MK2 prototypes available, which would have all changes done and therefor could offer a propper figure for the weight changes. You are purely speculating based on basically nothing reliable and even ignoring plain facts!
- heavier engine => adds weight
- extended airframe in lenght and depth => adds weight
- additional fuel tanks => adds weight
- additional avionics => adds weight
- IF it will have AESA, it will be heavier too => adds weight
- IRST is on the list => adds weight
- wing strenghtenings to increase hardpoint limits and payload => adds weight
Lets not forget that the current 6.5t empty are without the refuelling system either, that will be added during the FOC only, so even that => adds weight
There are in fact far more reasons why the weight will be higher, than there are to be lower! They surely will try to reduce the weight of certain parts, to not make the weight increase too high, but in general it will weigh more than the MK1 and as long as you don't know the weight addition of these changes, nor what the final empty weight of the MK2 is, you CAN'T calculate the TWR!
Truth is pakfa+rafale at approx same time was height of stupidity,whether anyone agrees or not.
It wasn't but to understand that, you need to look beyond the technical or operational capabilities and look at what the M-MRCA competition is aimed at, which is not the addition of just a fighter. If we just wanted a fighter, we would had a Mirage 2000 production line by now.
