IAF tender for 126 fighters cleared....finallly!!!!!!!!!!!

[Adux]

Cont...

IAF tender for 126 fighters cleared

Friday, June 29, 2007
17:12 IST

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New Delhi: The defence ministry Friday cleared an Indian Air Force tender for 126 combat aircraft.


The defence acquisition committee that met under the chairmanship of Defence Minister A.K. Antony cleared the tender that has been pending for nearly six years.


"Transparency at all steps must be ensured during the tendering process," the minister told the meeting.


The entire tendering process is likely to take five to six years to be completed.

 

[Adux]

Race for IAF's $6.5b deal to begin


28 Jun, 2007 l 0137 hrs ISTlRajat Pandit /TIMES NEWS NETWORK
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NEW DELHI: After an excruciating delay, decks have finally been cleared for the formal launch of the 'mother of all defence deals': IAF's long-pending quest for acquisition of 126 multi-role combat aircraft (MRCA).

The RFP (request for proposal), to be issued to the six contenders in the race to bag the deal valued upwards of $6.5 billion, is now ready in all respects, with the contentious and complex 'life-cycle costs' and the 30% 'offset' clause being worked out in great detail.

"The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), chaired by defence minister A K Antony, is likely to approve the RFP on Friday. Even if the meeting is delayed for some reason, the RFP is slated for issue in July," said a senior official.

While around 20 fighters will be bought off-the-shelf, the rest will be manufactured under licence in India through transfer of technology, with integration of some Israeli avionics since IAF wants the new jets to be on the "same grid" as its other fighters like Sukhoi-30MKIs, Jaguars and MiG-21 'Bisons'.

Interestingly, apart from 126 fighters, the RFP will also specify that India will have the "option" to go in for 60-65 more jets if required in the future. The six contenders, of course, have been jostling with each other for quite some time now.

They basically fall into two categories. The lightweight ones, in the 20-tonne class, include the Russian MiG-35 (RAC MiG), Swedish JAS-39 (Gripen) and American F-16 'Falcon' (Lockheed Martin).

The heavyweight contenders, in the 25-30-tonne class, are the French Rafale (Dassault), Eurofighter Typhoon (consortium of British, German, Spanish and Italian companies) and American F/A-18 "Super Hornet" (Boeing).

Their capabilities and prices, too, vary. Defence ministry officials, however, stress it will be "a level-playing field", with no compromise being made in technical requirements or costs.

India's geo-political considerations will, of course, also play an important role in the final selection. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself has declared that India's large defence purchases should be leveraged to serve the country's strategic ends.

With the landmark Indo-US civilian nuclear pact lurking in the background, coupled with the aggressively hawking of its fighters by the American government, there is some speculation that F-16s and F/A-18s are already ahead in the sweepstakes. But only time will tell if an American fighter pips others to the MRCA finishing line. It will take a good five to six years for the first lot of the new jets to reach IAF, which is reeling under a rapid depletion in the number of fighter squadrons.

The aviation majors will have around six months to respond to the RFPs, with separate technical and commercial bids in sealed envelopes. First, the technical bids will be evaluated, which will be followed by field evaluation trials of the short listed fighters.

"This will be followed by opening of the commercial bids, a TOC (technical oversight committee) and CNC (commercial negotiation committee), among other things, before the final clearances by finance ministry and Cabinet Committee on Security. The entire process will take over two years," said an official.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Race_for_IAFs_65b_deal_to_begin/articleshow/2155245.cms

 

[Adux]

FIGHTERS PRINT EMAIL
NEW DELHI, JUNE 29 (PTI)
India today issued Request for Proposals for purchase of 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft.

Eighteen aircraft are to be bought in flyaway condition, and 108 to be made in India under license production.

The government imposed 50 per cent direct offset in purchase of fighters.

http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/NEWS/newsrf.php?newsid=8862

 

[Adux]

Fighter aircraft: India seeks indigenous content

Sandeep Dikshit





NEW DELHI: India’s mega tender for the purchase of 126 multi-role combat aircraft will stipulate the sourcing of half of the contract from India in order to enlarge the aircraft manufacturing base in the country.

Normally, 30 per cent of the contract must be sourced from India for all imported defence systems worth over Rs.300 crores. However, a two-day meeting of a high-level committee, which ended on Wednesday, decided to hike the percentage to 50 per cent for this contract, whose value is in the region of Rs.40,000 crores.

The proposal of the committee, which finalised the specifications, will be considered by the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) headed by Defence Minister A. K. Antony and comprising the three Secretaries in the Ministry, the Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) chief, the service chiefs and other senior officials. It will take a month to send a formal request for proposals (RFP) to the companies after the DAC approves the various specifications finalised by the committee, said Ministry officials.

India plans to buy the fighters to arrest the depletion in force levels due to retirement of the older generation of planes, mainly various versions of the MiG series and the delay in the development of the indigenous fighter Tejas. Having been in the pipeline for several years, India has been forced to make emergency purchases of additional Sukhoi planes, compress the production schedule of the ‘in-pipeline’ Sukhoi planes and even scout for second-hand planes with other countries.

Officials scotched speculation that the size of the order would be increased to 190 planes but maintained that the standard clause of opting for more planes, if the need arises, would be retained. India has been incorporating the clause in almost all its major deals and this helped it place an additional order for Russian frigates although it has remained unutilised for the MiG-29 naval version planes for the aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov (INS Vikramaditya). The first squadron of the planes would be manufactured at the makers’ home base and the remaining would be produced in the country.

The tender has attracted tremendous interest not only from the six manufacturers in the fray but even the countries where these companies are based.

For Russia, whose defence equipment exports to its main markets of China and India may slow down over the next decade, a win would pave the way for a bigger share in non-traditional markets, where it has started scoring successes, as well as further consolidate its defence ties with India.

For the two American competitors – Lockheed Martin and Boeing – the tender would pave the way for the U.S.’ biggest ever entry into the Indian defence market.

So far U.S. companies have made marginal inroads into the defence market with New Delhi steering clear of high-end and big-ticket American offers. For the Swedish, which has been selling its Grippen fighter in modest quantities, and Eurofighter (consortium of British, German, Spanish and Italian companies) this order would be of the order of a dream come true.

The French, with their Rafael, would be hoping to score a second quick success in the Indian market as they already have a multi-billion order for submarines in the bag.

Although the RFP is nearing completion, the road to selecting the eventual winner remains tortuous because of diplomatic pressures.


http://www.hindu.com/2007/06/29/stories/2007062954320900.htm

 

[Adux]

The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) headed by the Defence Minister Shri AK Antony has cleared the process for the procurement of 126 Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) for the Indian Air Force. During its meeting here today, the DAC debated various issues related to the initial purchase, transfer of technology, licensed production and life time maintenance support for the 126 MMRCA and gave the final go-ahead for the project.

In pursuant to the recent assurance given by the Defence Minister for an early issue of the much awaited Request for Proposal (RFP) for the 126 fighter jets, the Ministry of Defence and Indian Air Force officers have been working overtime to scrutinize all aspects of the RFP. In view of the size and operational importance of the likely purchase, the criteria for selecting the final MMRCA contender from amongst some of the best combat aircraft offered by American, Russian and European companies, has been fine tuned. The RFP would contain a selection model that would involve an exhaustive evaluation process as detailed in the Defence Procurement Procedures — 2006.

The proposals from the likely contenders would first be technically evaluated by a professional team to check for compliance with IAF’s operational requirements and other RFP conditions. Extensive field trials would be carried out to evaluate the performance. Finally, the commercial proposal of the vendors, short-listed after technical and field evaluations, would be examined and compared. The aircraft are likely to be in service for over 40 years. The vendors are required to provide a life time support and performance based warranty for the aircraft. MoD officials have confirmed that great care has been taken to ensure that only determinable factors, which do not lend themselves to any subjectivity, are included in the commercial selection model. The selection would be transparent and fair.

The DAC has approved that a majority of the MMRCA would be produced in India under transfer of technology. The vendor finally selected would also b e required to undertake offset obligations in India. It is expected that the ToT and offset contracts would provide a great technological and economic boost to the indigenous defence industries, which would include DPSUs, RURs and other eligible private sector industries. Foreign vendors would be provided great flexibility in effecting tie-up with Indian partners, for this purpose.

There are three guiding principles for this procurement scheme. First, the operational requirements of IAF should be fully met. Second, the selection process should be competitive, fair and transparent, so that best value for money is realized. Lastly, Indian defence industries should get an opportunity to grow to global scales.

With the decks finally cleared, the RFP is planned to be issued in the near future.

Sitanshu Kar

 

[Contrarian]

By the time MiG 35 and Gripen come into the IAF, it will be technically bordering obsoltion for the airframes. Double goes for the Shornet, unless its block II.

 

[Adux]

Shornet Blk II or Rafale or Eurofighter ..... gets my vote

 

[joey]

malay no airframe like that gets obsolete, the Raptors airframe is of 80's tech developed in 70, so aerodynamics has been stagnant for years and years in fighter arena what matters what is going isnide.

Mig 35 needs to be indiagenoused which will take generous amout of time that thing is half developed.

 

[Adux]

MiG hasnt even got the FoC , its a half assed attempt technical by the russians, while a brillant marketing campign, TOI was filled with the MiG-35 during Ai07

 

[Contrarian]

malay no airframe like that gets obsolete, the Raptors airframe is of 80's tech developed in 70, so aerodynamics has been stagnant for years and years in fighter arena what matters what is going isnide.

Mig 35 needs to be indiagenoused which will take generous amout of time that thing is half developed.

Yes Joey, i do know that, but the problem is that even though Russia claims that the RCS has been reduced by atleast a factor of 7-10 times of that of the MiG 29, it is still not reliable. Since we will be operating the MRCA for around 2 decades, we need something that is top of the line now, something that includes a drastically reduced RCS like that of the Typhoon or the Shornet blk II seeing as its RCS is already quite low.

and BTW rafale sucks big time.

 

[joey]

Canarded fighter actually adds up to its RCS, plus a fighter with external stores, RCS does not matters much.

Rafale to me has the best design among all the canard-deltas....and I'd love if it wins the MRCA...

 

[Contrarian]

Canarded fighter actually adds up to its RCS, plus a fighter with external stores, RCS does not matters much.

It does matter relatively, its not as if all the external stores on differnt planes amount to the same RCS. This is not to mention that the loadout, the meteor, the storm shadow etc are designed stealthy in nature.

Rafale to me has the best design among all the canard-deltas....and I'd love if it wins the MRCA...

Pointless to go with Rafale. If it has to be Rafale, then Typhoon is far far better.

oh and btw, i found out, there is no problem about the radiation you mentioned at that place. I dont remember whether i informed you or not.

 

[joey]

malay not really Rafale lacks power. to me it is better than Eurofighter, what it needs is better power....

It is impossible to distinguish between EF and Rafale like that, EF's engine is better while Rafales lack power. Rafales canard-delta design is stealthier compared to Ef's design, EF can fit bigger Radar antennae DIA, while Rafales Radome is smaller.

hehe, impossible to judge which is suitable for IAf, let them choose

 

[Neo]

Guys do you know that Mig-29OVT developped serious engine problem in Paris Air Show? As we were watching the plane doing some incredible manoevres on Friday 22nd when a huge flame, bigger than the plane in size came out of the engine.
The mission was aborted and plane landed safely...it was grounded immediately and did not fly on Saturday or Sunday!

I'm surprised there's still no official report about what happened, just some talk on the French forum.
Anybody know what happened?

 

[joey]

no idea, but i heard it happened, Russians has a famous record of creating some sort of issue in paris air show, in Aero India they brough 10 pair of Engines incase the engine screws up!

Seriously enough of this RD crap!

I'm willing to take Mig 29OVt but only its airframe, put EJ 2000 MLU engine in it, Elta 2052 AESA radar in it and indigise the whole avionic suite and electronics.

mmmm.