There are 3 things..
1) Development only for India--> IP will be part of India just like UAE
2) Development part of Consortium --> India will get if it is part of the Proposal that EADS has submitte to MoD within the $11 billion --> No extra money
3) Future upgrades part of road map --> India if interested will pay the development.. and will get it with the same price what others will get...
Secondly are you in opinion that if you develop a product you wont charge it even for development??.... but basically every one does it.. for (e.g.) in T-50 program India will get less compared to other export price... because the vendor doesnt want to be in loss... there is probability that the export prices will be more compared to be part of the development
Number 3, as I mentioned before, the B60 upgrade for UAE was totally different, at a stage they even thought about redesigning the airframe, let alone the radar and avionics. That's a way bigger upgrade than choosing to fund an upgrade that is on the roadmap anyway.
Take the UAE requirements for Rafale as an example, where they want more power and radar modes for the RBE 2 AESA. These kinds of upgrades are planned for a later stage anyway, but the UAE is ready to fund them earlier. Same for METEOR missile, which the French will integrate to have it by 2018, because according their timeframes, MICA EM will be replaced by then only. For export customers on the other hand it could be available from 2016 onwards, but it seems that the UAE wants it even earlier (which might not be possible, because of the development of the missile itself) and they might fund some early integrations, but all this will make the UAE Rafales just more capable, or earlier upgraded then the French. The UAE won't get IP rights of RBE 2 AESA, nor ot METEOR, only because they funded the early integration, nor will they be a partner of the Rafale fighter project!
That's the big difference to the EF offer in MMRCA, because they don't just offer us to fund some integration, but to be a partner, which requires taking a share of the development costs. The partners paid that in the early development stages of the fighter, if we want to join now, we have to fund a big part of the T3B alone and some parts together with them, to get a comparable partner status.
You mean for exports right? Of course, parts of the development costs are diverted to the system cost that any export customer pays, that's how the manufacturers gets some of the fundings back. But even IF (from Brazil it was reported, that the French reduced the price, to a level that French forces normally pays) we would pay this for the Rafale, the total cost would be way less than what we would have to pay for a comparable EF, because France already funded most of the development, or weapon integrations. As I showed on the EF roadmap itself, there are only 1, or 2 features that are not already available with the Rafale, or funded to be available since 2013.
France pays around $90 millions each Rafale at the moment, the EF partners for their T3A without AESA, or all those other future enhancements around $125 millions. Both prices are flyaway costs and don't include development costs!
To get the EF at the same capability level that the Rafale F3+ offers, we would have to fund:
- AESA radar (partially)
- Storm Shadow (partially, Saudis wants it too)
- CFTs necessary for Storm Shadow, or 2000lb bombs (partially, UK has interest as well)
- Brimstone ATGM (so far, no other customer has interest, but UK might joint)
- SEAD weapon (partially, no AR missile will be developed, but JDAM might be integrated and with further ESM upgrades, EF could do SEAD in a similar way like Rafale with SPECTRA and AASM)
- HOSBO extended range bomb (fully, because no other customer has interest yet)
- RBS 15 anti ship missile (fully, because no other customer has interest yet)
- IR MAWS (fully, because no other customer has interest yet)
- Recce, or advanced targeting pods (fully, because no other customer has interest yet)
And these are only the improvments from the roadmap, not included are TVC, further upgrades to the engine, or avionics, comparable to those that the Rafale F3+ will have as well, the costs for more radar modes, because Captor E will have only A2A modes at the begining.
We will get partner status in the EF program and will be able to negotiate for upgrades beyond the MLU (EF 2020), but the only EF upgrade that would be made for our requirements, is the Sea Typhoon. Neither the partner, no another potential export customer is in sight and that why they offere us most of the ToT, or even IP rights from that versions, which on the other side means again huge development costs from us in addition to the above mentioned unit and upgrade costs!
The EF is neither a capable, nor cost-effective fighter and can only be justified by industrial and political advantages. But with LCA, N-LCA, FGFA, possibly even AMCA, there is simply no reason why we should pay such high costs for upgrading another fighter.
