sancho
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The problem now with Rafale (with Brazililian Competition being opened up again as well as delayed) is that who will pay for the future upgrades of the aircraft.
The French are themselves trying to cut cost by focusing on export of the plane but without any success. So will India have to support these upgrades? This is a big question mark right now. Inspite of being a good plane these factors can hurt Rafale's chances in the competition.
The upgrades will be paid mainly by French gov, because they are the main customer so far, but more interesting for us would be to customise our Rafale version, because that could reduce the cost as well. Integrating Kaveri - Snecma engine for example, instead of M88, makes us not dependent of French upgrades of their engines. We could upgrade the Kaveri to our needs and at lower costs as well.
Another point to reduce costs are integrating Indian weapons, like our LGB instead of US paveways, Astra instead of MICA EM for the medium range and a cost-effective addition to METEOR.
Regarding co-development is concerned the French have spent over $50 Billion on the R&D of the plane. I don't think they are going to just give us the co - development rights for $10 Billion deal. Also India just comitted $30 billion for FGFA. So I don't think MOD will have an appetite for another co-development. esp for a plane which is very expensive and we cannot inducted in very large numbers.
I think you misunderstood something here, we were talking about the AESA radar co-development for LCA Tejas MK2. MoD is searching for a co-development partner and Thales with the RBE 2 radar was one alternative, although the last unofficial report said only ELTA and EADS are left in the race.
With Gripen NG coming around 2017 and if what Sancho has said about Euro Fighter is still valid then I guess the Super Bug becomes the front runner esp. if the Yanks play their cards right ( e.g in terms of offset and giving the EPE version of the engine). And I don't see why they won't.
The problem with US fighters are not the offsets, especially not with Boeing, but the high restrictions and limited useful ToT that they offer. Besides that the F18SH seems not to offer the flight performance IAF seems to require.