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Well , look price is not gonna be issue , whatever info i have from the insiders even though this whole Testing has been very secret and apart from core team no one has clue about it.
What IAF is banking is, that handing over list of three Top performing Jets only , Now if they select Rafale , Eurofighter , F18 as top performing jets which wont be a surprise considering they are best of the lot.
It dosen't leave MoD much of the choice to decide by their "Cheap is best theory" so this price theory is out . IAF will pick only three fighters of six which meet or exceed their req.
Regarding Engine - Dassault have promoted Rafale having speed more than 1 Mach without afterburner , now with meaningful load i doubt 75KN*2 is enough to give that . Clean config is diff isuue .
When you talk of advantage this Supercruise + short take off + hot refueling + Fast Data links +Low operational cost are some of the things that might just give advantage to a jet , and IAF would definately have a good look at that.
This brings me to an important issue - Operational cost of Rafale , this has been a secret considring no other force in world operates them . But some French and Brazil blogs are quick to point high costs of Rafale .
Regarding the Meteor and Gripen you are mistaken. The Meteor missile is a joint project and theintegration is to be done in phases yes, but not like you think. The first flight test with Meteor on EF and Rafale has been done from 2003 on. The EF tested it from land bases, the Rafale even from the French CdG carrier (I posted pics here before). Gripen was only the first to fire it, but as soon as the missile is operational, it will be available for all 3 fighters at the same time. Also don't forget that MBDA is main company behind it and Swe is not part of it, they only joint the development to get the missile for the Gripen too. The key players behind it are France, UK, Germany and Italy.
As far as Meteor is concerned when IAF visited Sweden , Gripen team showed them Live Meteor firing as was reported by Vishnu som .
Not sure abt Rafale doing that same ,
Might wanna look at some recent Janes's article report - available on blog
http://www.gripenindia.com/2010/04/meteor-on-gripen-now-has-go-to-war.html
Imp Extracts-
"
Saab became involved in the Meteor programme as early as 2003, when Saab Bofors Dynamics was awarded a contract to develop and produce the prototype of the missile. The same year, Saab Aerosystems was awarded a contract for the integration of Meteor on the Gripen. Saab therefore plays a key and prominent role within the Meteor programme.
Gripen is the first and so far only fighter aircraft which has air-launched the Meteor missile. The first Air Launched Demonstration firing took place in 2006.
While the UK is leading the Meteor development programme, all airborne test work to date has used Swedish assets because of a series of delays with other intended test platforms, chiefly the Eurofighter Typhoon. The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has now acknowledged a previously unreported Meteor firing that took place in 2009. An MoD statement to Jane's said the test "was was conducted on 3 June 2009 from a Gripen aircraft against a Mirach subscale target at the Hebrides range. This firing successfully tested the ability of the missile to acquire and track a target at low altitude with a sea clutter background. This was the first trial using the pre-production standard of hardware".
To date six Meteor firings have been acknowledged since May 2006 - all undertaken by Saab Gripens.
This also brings about BVR missile into question . All others have either Aim120 or R77 as BVR but Mica is still short legged on rafale when our adversary are firing AIM120 / PL12- SD10 / SD13 / R77
And on to choice of MRCA - I think MRCA wiil also give an indication of role of su30 in IAF , if a jet like F18 or rafale is chosen ,i thnk it will retain its status of out and out air-superiority fighter.
But my guess is seeing integration of Brahmos+Nirbhay on MKI we could very well see a multi-role jet with more of air-sup asset and superior flight performance giving escort to mki in war .
Something like Eurofighter ,Mig35 , Gripen fit that role perfectly.
For me personally , all are good jets best in the arsenal of each country , anyone selected can beat each-other there is no clear winner .
I would though love to see Gripen in IAF colours.
And Sancho regarding that Rafale vs F22 , i dont really look at
DACT exercise as a Jet vs Jet (
who has better toy thing) .
DACT exercise are more about Tactics and operational workout + collaboration among friendly forces .
I dont know how
2 Eurofighter smashed 15F-15 , or how
Rafale beat F22 6 times or more recently 1 gripen beat 10 su35 . Frankly it all looks like self-boasting thing.
And yes one thing i missed in last post which surprised me most -
Talking to that officer i came to know whom IAF sees as the top of the pack air-force . Its the
French - guess what i always thought it would be either Israel or USAF but French never crossed my thought.
really surprising considering they are not that experienced
