F-16s to India

[Always Neutral]

I think it will be the F-18 Super Hornet vs the Rafale. Indians would be foolish to put the eggs in one basket with the Russians. The Swedes are politically not active in lobbying nor are they very interested. The Euro Fighter has its arms full with the Saudi Deal.

Regards

PS : F 16 days are over irrespective of any MLU available.

 

[blain2]

In my opinion, selection of MRCA depends upon who is gona provide a favouriable term in terms of complete TOT and offset policy. On the top of that Russian may have assumes that there Mig-35 would never gona shortlisted for MRCA and hence they are now fuming there anger in form of cancellation of MTA as well as several other delays as the speed at which collabration that has been taking place between Boeing and Lokheed Martin with their indian counterpart like HAL and all other private players like TATA, Mahindra etc. russia has completely convinced about their denial.

If US offers complete TOT for APG-79 then F-18 might definetly gona selected for this round thaugh. F-16 would never gona selected as IAF is looking for generation increment rather then upgradation increment.

Jeff,

The US will NOT offer complete TOT for anything related to the AESA radar. The US companies developing these technologies spend billions on a technology which would yield them multi-billions. Indian MMRCA deal may be big but it is nowhere close to the full potential of what these companies hope to make off of the next generation of radars. The only thing you get from the US is assembly and offsets in other industries.

Secondly, ToT is a much used and abused term. You have to have the ability to absorb the technology as well as the supplier must be willing to part with what is currently a "prized" technology (AESA) over which only a few have mastery and monopoly and they would like to retain these attributes.

 

[EagleEyes]

I think it will be the F-18 Super Hornet vs the Rafale. Indians would be foolish to put the eggs in one basket with the Russians. The Swedes are politically not active in lobbying nor are they very interested. The Euro Fighter has its arms full with the Saudi Deal.

Regards

PS : F 16 days are over irrespective of any MLU available.

AN,

Its equivalently or perhaps more fullish to acquire two types.

 

[Always Neutral]

AN,

Its equivalently or perhaps more fullish to acquire two types.

Did you mean foolish ? I am not sure which two types of aircrafts they wish to acquire. I meant they will choose either the F-18 or the Rafale not both.

Regards

 

[blain2]

PS : F 16 days are over irrespective of any MLU available.

Tell that to the Greek, Polish, Turkish, UAE, Pakistan, Israel, Singapore and countless other Air Forces planning on using the blk-50/52/60 for the next 40 years (yes 4 decades is the lifetime of blk-52s and 60s being inducted nowadays and in the recent 4-5 years).

 

[BATMAN]

If US offers complete TOT for APG-79 then F-18 might definetly gona selected for this round thaugh. F-16 would never gona selected as IAF is looking for generation increment rather then upgradation increment.

F-16 and F-18 both will be generation increment in Indian fleet.
India is a rich country and can afford to buy as many AESA it needs, why need TOT?
Whole concept of development collapse if eventually it has to be disclosed to competitors.
Even if US allow assembly of radars in India it is already proliferation of intellect.

 

[EagleEyes]

Did you mean foolish ? I am not sure which two types of aircrafts they wish to acquire. I meant they will choose either the F-18 or the Rafale not both.

Regards

Oops.. too much reading and writing. Time to go to bed.

 

[Always Neutral]

Tell that to the Greek, Polish, Turkish, UAE, Pakistan, Israel, Singapore and countless other Air Forces planning on using the blk-50/52/60 for the next 40 years (yes 4 decades is the lifetime of blk-52s and 60s being inducted nowadays and in the recent 4-5 years).

However there are a lot of articles showing that F 16 line desperately needs the Indian order. Why would India buy something already been in service with their arch rivals ?

They already exercising with the USAF and SAF who are using the F-16's.

Why the USAF graduate to the F 22 and F 35 if F 16 was the future ?

Regards

 

[Always Neutral]

Tell that to the Greek, Polish, Turkish, UAE, Pakistan, Israel, Singapore and countless other Air Forces planning on using the blk-50/52/60 for the next 40 years (yes 4 decades is the lifetime of blk-52s and 60s being inducted nowadays and in the recent 4-5 years).

Your quite of the mark.

The USAF has stopped ordering any new F-16 after inducting The Fighting Falcon in 1979. The last of 2,231 F-16 fighters for the US Air Force was delivered in March 2005.

Since 2002, 650 will only be upgraded. So the USAF does not feel the need for new F-16's.

Lets talk about the orders recvd in 2007.

Turkey (already a user)
Morrocco.

Hardly anything earth shattering.

Regards

 

[blain2]

However there are a lot of articles showing that F 16 line desperately needs the Indian order. Why would India buy something already been in service with their arch rivals ?

They already exercising with the USAF and SAF who are using the F-16's.

Why the USAF graduate to the F 22 and F 35 if F 16 was the future ?

Regards

Because not everyone is USAF...they tend to stay at least a generation ahead of all their adversaries and as such have the budget to match the requirement.

The only point is that PAF uses the F-16 thus IAF may not want it, however on merit and currently, the F-16 is a better MR platform than anything else in the IAF fleet including the MKI and Mirage 2000. The latter may be better in certain aspects as discussed many a times, but do not provide the robust MR capability that is currently available, certified and "operational" on the F-16.

For a "Medium Multi Role" Combat Aircraft requirement, the F-16 fits the bill and offers more bang for the buck than any of the other competitors including Rafale (I doubt IAF would want to be pigeonholed with a single producer/user problem with the Rafale), Typhoon (way too expensive but a possibility), F/A-18 (definitely a possibility) and Mig-35 (also a possibility but same issue as single producer/no users of the Rafale).

F-16 will remain a valid and potent platform for the next two decades. After that the airframe and upgrades will start to show age.

 

[blain2]

Your quite of the mark.

The USAF has stopped ordering any new F-16 after inducting The Fighting Falcon in 1979. The last of 2,231 F-16 fighters for the US Air Force was delivered in March 2005.

Since 2002, 650 will only be upgraded. So the USAF does not feel the need for new F-16's.

Lets talk about the orders recvd in 2007.

Turkey (already a user)
Morrocco.

Hardly anything earth shattering.

Regards

I beg to differ. I said the orders placed in last 4-5 years. Those include the deliveries to UAE, Greece, Israel, and other repeat buyers. Every single one of these buyers has bought the aircraft with the intention of keeping the aircraft in service for at least 3 decades.

The situation that the F-16 is in applies to the F/A-18 as well. With the JSF coming down the pike, is anyone else buying the Super Hornet? Nope!

You mention the USAF, well USAF has a bigger budget than all of the above listed Air Forces combined . Their threat perception and strategy requires that they stay a generation ahead with capabilities fully operationalized while the rest are catching up or introducing the same capability. Can't use the same yardstick for non-NATO Air Forces (even within NATO, there are more countries falling in the India - Pakistan league in terms of their Air Defense capabilities and requirements).

 

[BATMAN]

Mr. Blain, I also assume that difference between F-18 and F-16 is not of a generation.
Inductions of F-18 in US fleet started from 1978 so obviously orders was placed some time before and its development started much before.

Today, again US is inducting both F-22 and F-35 those may be little bit adapted for certain roles or in other words may differ from each other in different tasks but are not generations apart.

I also assume that when 'northorp' or 'LHM' embarks on any development, they get their parameters from USAF. When foreign nations decide to buy same products manufactured on USAF parmeters and standards they pick what suites their application not what is most recently produced by a.m. corporations. Specially, when adversary is not US.

 

[Energon]

What makes you think that MiG-35 will not win?

1. The Mig35 is not a production model as yet. There is a trust issue in the capabilities of the Russian industrial complex when it comes to large scale deliveries of non mass production units. India it seems would prefer to either buy mature technology in production (such as the T-90 tanks & Su30 variants) or start JVs where the IPRs and production rights are split from the start such as in the case of the BRAHMOS or PAK-FA projects.

2. The ex- Mikoyan bureau has had some issues with quality control and aftermarket services when it came to the last batch of Mig29s.

3. The recent problems with the Algerian Mig29s and the other controversies with Russian suppliers do not help matters at all.

US is new to your stick and carrot approach where as others are tired of it.
I really doubt that your order will surpas any number above 100.
Its is just an attempt to milk the contractors with false hopes.

Interesting would be to see the eventual response from Russia once they are dropped out.

I don't even know what the hell any of this means. This is a competitive business. The Russians aren't playing their cards right. If they lose the contract they will be upset at first, but eventually things will simmer down. India is still one of Russia's primary military hardware client; China is not nearly as trusted and smaller nations do not have enough money to buy big ticket items like the way India does. Also there are other on going projects which eventually have to be saved. The MoU is for 126 fighters.

F-16 and F-18 both will be generation increment in Indian fleet.
India is a rich country and can afford to buy as many AESA it needs, why need TOT?
Whole concept of development collapse if eventually it has to be disclosed to competitors.
Even if US allow assembly of radars in India it is already proliferation of intellect.

The shopping list is for a Gen 4+ fighters to augment the Su30MKI which is also a Gen 4+ aircraft.
I don't think India can "afford to buy as many AESAs it needs." The IAF has only been allotted around 15 billion, which really isn't all that much if you look at modern air forces around the world. The Indian military branches and the industrial complex that serves them are heavily underfunded and will remain so in the foreseeable future. Local offsets given the availability of cheap skilled labor makes everything a lot cheaper.

I'm fairly certain that Raytheon isn't being asked for a full ToT; local assembly under manufacturer's license is about as far as it will go. EADS is the only firm as far as I know that is willing to participate in a joint venture which would avail complete ToT for an AESA radar. India from what I understand has always had some sort of an offset clause to most of the big ticket items they have bought in the past, so it should come of no surprise that the same is being included in the current deal.

Inductions of F-18 in US fleet started from 1978 so obviously orders was placed some time before and its development started much before.

I think you're confusing F-18 C/D with the F-18 E/F Superhornet variant which has some major differences with it's predecessors including changes to the fuselage and other primary structures. The Superhornet was only introduced in the late 1990s as far as I know.

 

[Energon]

I beg to differ. I said the orders placed in last 4-5 years. Those include the deliveries to UAE, Greece, Israel, and other repeat buyers. Every single one of these buyers has bought the aircraft with the intention of keeping the aircraft in service for at least 3 decades.

The situation that the F-16 is in applies to the F/A-18 as well. With the JSF coming down the pike, is anyone else buying the Super Hornet? Nope!

Most of the F-16 users have used this platform for quiet some time now and have invested copious sums of money in establishing a sizable infrastructure to service the aircraft. For these forces sticking with a reliable and mature platform is certainly a very cost effective option. This however is not the case for India. They would have to make that initial investment to establish groundwork for a platform for whom they will more than likely be the last customer. However, there are also many advantages to this. First, the per unit cost is bound to be lower, the level of ToT will be a lot higher, procurements of parts will never be a problem given the number of units available for catabolysis. Likewise with the ability to produce so much of this jet, the LM venture in India can also make some profit by helping others keep their F-16s airborne through affordable aftermarket services.

The US Navy will order more F-18 E/F and EA-18 Growlers until all the problems with the JSF-Cs are sorted out, and that may take a while.

 

[BATMAN]

I think you're confusing F-18 C/D with the F-18 E/F Superhornet variant which has some major differences with it's predecessors including changes to the fuselage and other primary structures. The Superhornet was only introduced in the late 1990s as far as I know.

In this context AN is also confusing the F-16 from 1979 with F-16 C/D of present day.
MKI cannot hold a minute against any F-16, with BVR.
BTW, you seemed confused, when you are shooting out of context. Go read history, it may help you.

I don't even know what the hell any of this means

It means 'riding a hungry bunny while he is chasing a carrot'

Su30MKI which is also a Gen 4+ aircraft.

Why are you loosing the chance to buy Su34 or mig35, generation higher than their predessor.

The MoU is for 126 fighters.

With whom, have you made MoU?