IAF to begin MMRCA trials in April-May.

[godsavetheworld]

India to begin fighter jet trials
Thu Apr 2, 2009 5:20am EDT Email | Print | Share| Reprints | Single Page[-] Text [+]
By Bappa Majumdar

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India will soon begin trials of fighter jets competing for one of the world's biggest arms deals, a defense ministry official said Thursday, brushing aside speculation the upcoming election could affect the deal.

Last year, six international companies submitted bids to supply India with 126 multi-role fighter jets and bag the $10-billion contract.

Two U.S. companies, Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co., are competing with Russia's MiG-35, France's Dassault Rafale, Sweden's Saab KAS-39 Gripen and the Eurofighter Typhoon, a consortium of British, German, Italian and Spanish companies for the fighter deal.

Indian media have been reporting that a new government could take a fresh look at the deal after the April/May election, but defense officials said the trial process could begin by end-May.

"The election will not have a bearing on the fighter jet trials, as the Indian Air Force is now working on the modalities before trials and things are moving in the right direction," said defense ministry spokesman Sitanshu Kar.

India is looking to spend more than $30 billion over the next five years to modernize its largely Soviet-era weapons systems and is also launching its first military spy satellite next year.

Talks between Indian officials and some of the bidders were held last week and would continue before the trials, officials said.

A special technical team from Lockheed Martin Corp had also arrived in India to oversee the company's preparation, company officials said.

The first step will be to train Indian pilots to fly the sophisticated aircraft, before the trials begin.

"We are ready for the trials," Douglas A. Hartwick, chief executive officer of Lockheed's Indian operations, told Reuters. "It will take a few weeks of training for the pilots to get used to flying the planes."

Lockheed last year sold six C-130J military transport planes to India for about $1.1 billion and is now offering its F-16 fighters to India.

Lockheed and its U.S.-based rival Boeing Co, which is offering the "Super Hornets," have emerged as the frontrunners for lucrative contract, air force officials said.

After the training of the Indian pilots, trials to test the planes' maneuverability and effectiveness will begin in various weather conditions, officials said.

"It will take a full cycle of season to test the fighters," Kar said.

(Editing by Sugita Katyal)

 

[duhastmish]

SOLD !!!!!

We will get f-16 in, because as usual our officials are for sale - Hope less - that red comment i heard it many times . and we all know we will get f16 or f/a 18 s.h but we all know why ............

 

[Awesome]

We have a lot more advantage of India going towards America on this one. America politically is already a lot closely aligned to India and it can turn its back on her any day still.

Russia has been resisting our advances towards them out of some sort of faithfulness to be shown to India. Russian observers would definitely be upset at losing the Indian deal, while we'll be ready to swoop in and place some orders.

Sure it won't be the be-all-end-all of defining relations between the western powers and South Asian powers, but it would be a significant nudge and for once Pakistan and China would have the opening we've always sought towards an India-free Russian relationship.

 

[duhastmish]

no asim , india - russian relationship is - not even 1% depended on mrca - we already have 20 billion $ deals struck with them-other wise in - PAK-FA, gorskov , su-30 mk1 , mig -29k etc etc and many space programme.
and russia know mrca dont stand much chance - 1. the fighters they are competing with are a notch better than their -mig-35
2. politicians and corrupt officials will get easy money from - us or west any day.

 

[godsavetheworld]

SOLD !!!!!

We will get f-16 in, because as usual our officials are for sale - Hope less - that red comment i heard it many times . and we all know we will get f16 or f/a 18 s.h but we all know why ............

Chill duhast, let the trials begin. I have faith in our armed forces that they will choose what they think is the best for them, and wouldnt bow down to political pressure. I have seen this happeneing in the past where they chose quality over politics(Arjun, repetitive trials of Brahmos).

Even if they choose F-16IN it is not a bad aircraft by any scale it is by-far the most advanced F-16 ever produced. And we are not going to leave it "purely American" we are probably gonna incorporate Indian/Israeli gadgets and software as well.

And "super hornet" is not F-16IN but F/A 18E.

 

[duhastmish]

Chill duhast, let the trials begin. I have faith in our armed forces that they will choose what they think is the best for them, and wouldnt bow down to political pressure. I have seen this happeneing in the past where they chose quality over politics(Arjun, repetitive trials of Brahmos).

Even if they choose F-16IN it is not a bad aircraft by any scale it is by-far the most advanced F-16 ever produced. And we are not going to leave it "purely American" we are probably gonna incorporate Indian/Israeli gadgets and software as well.

And "super hornet" is not F-16IN but F/A 18E.

i know bro its -F/A 18 E , s.h thats what i wrote, but I seriously doubt the credibility of our officials ,
Because the fact is : we are already 5 yrs ahead of schedule - and its still not finalized what we want. and by the time we will finalize it, it will be useless because of change in technology and better prospect.
Thats what happened with Aircraft carrier. So my distrust in these officials is very much -reasonable.
Yes i totally agree our armed forces choose the best in market( many say what India forces choose you can buy them with closed eyes) but by the time the best is included - its already obsolete so we spend years just to upgrade and get to the level of next generation.
Now f-16 in - is best of the lost of f-16 but by the time we will get it - in our arsenal it will be like mig-21 right now. So no hope there .

 

[godsavetheworld]

i know bro its -F/A 18 E , s.h thats what i wrote, but I seriously doubt the credibility of our officials ,
Because the fact is : we are already 5 yrs ahead of schedule - and its still not finalized what we want. and by the time we will finalize it, it will be useless because of change in technology and better prospect.
Thats what happened with Aircraft carrier. So my distrust in these officials is very much -reasonable.
Yes i totally agree our armed forces choose the best in market( many say what India forces choose you can buy them with closed eyes) but by the time the best is included - its already obsolete so we spend years just to upgrade and get to the level of next generation.
Now f-16 in - is best of the lost of f-16 but by the time we will get it - in our arsenal it will be like mig-21 right now. So no hope there .

I donot agree with you completely. I doubt they are going to adopt the same red tapism that has infected our process of acquisition for so many years. Antony wanted to end all the red tapism for speedy acquisition himself.

What is different this time is that Mumbai has been an eye opener, shaking up politicians to the extent that has never been witnessed before. Even Kargil didnt increase our defence budget the way Mumbai did. Government has woken up and ramped up acquisition as the aftermath of the attacks. I doubt they would allow themselves to be caught off-guard another time.

And I were to believe a couple of reports that "INdia was not prepared for war" then I believe they would have taken Mumbai as a punch in their guts telling themselves "Never Again".

 

[satishkumarcsc]

I think this can be discussed in MMRCA section.

 

[Rajkumar]

i totally go with rafale , french never let us down and we have history of using french equipment. mig 35 too much russian stuff. rest are just too odd to select and IAF knows it.

 

[Jako]

Go for rafale.........french offer them faster dan da eurofighter......others have no chance.........one thing ,is da rafale radar AESA???

 

[Nihat]

Why does mig-35 not stand a chance according to many , we're familiar with it's aerodynamics from Mig-29 and with 3D TVS and already equipped AESA radar it's more than a match for any other MMRCA contender.

Euro fighter is prohibitively high cost and the fight may well be between Rafale and Mig - 35 , the EUM restrictions of the Us may be a big time spoilspoty apart from the prohibitive cost and entirely new Logistical base that would have to be built.

 

[Rajkumar]

Why does mig-35 not stand a chance according to many , we're familiar with it's aerodynamics from Mig-29 and with 3D TVS and already equipped AESA radar it's more than a match for any other MMRCA contender.

Euro fighter is prohibitively high cost and the fight may well be between Rafale and Mig - 35 , the EUM restrictions of the Us may be a big time spoilspoty apart from the prohibitive cost and entirely new Logistical base that would have to be built.

let me tell you why rafale instead mig 35. russians hiking prices even after the contract, we need to tell them that they are not the only one who can provide us weapons. lately we felt problem of spares for our mig21's we got crap in the name of spares. we should not rely totally on russians so that in time of need we will be having option that's the rule of survival, diversify your source.

if go for rafale doesn't mean russia dont see india as its partner bcoz we already buying stuff from them and jv's worth of 15 bill's plus we are familiar with not only russian system but french also so infrastructure cost wont be too high to welcome rafale at home.

 

[Nihat]

Leave aside the Gorki project for a second , which frankly we looted them first and they're ripping us off now , where else did we have such a big problem.

The mig-21 spares is our fault for delaying the LCA so much , production lines for mig 21 were closed in 1980's itself , I assume spares would be an obvious problem thereon.

The list of Indo-Russian successful projects is endless with MKI and Brahmos being the best ones.

Rafale may well cost in excess of 80 million per unit with weaponry and AESA , if we go for 126 Mig-35 maybe the follow on order can be for Rafale as it would not be so expensive then and we can induct more aircraft's as there would be 2 reliable suppliers backing us .

 

[satishkumarcsc]

Russia has always been a reliable defence supplier,the problems pertaining to gorshkov as well as after-sales support are insignificant compared to the broader indo-russian relations.Russia has always backed us in the world arena and supplied us with the latest in weaponry.I think the mig-35 is the obvious winner as IAF is most familiar with russian tech

The Russians haven't let us down. And I am in this with you, but why do you want to give them more leverage? We are already inducting 230 Su-30s and PAK-FA is coming. There are still orders from Russia. There are MiG 29s which are being upgraded to SMT standards. So IMHO the deal must go to the EADS Eurofarter or the Dassault Rafale. I would prefer the Rafale as we wont have problems with the sanctions and the French are strict business people. It also comes along with a Half-baked AESA with all its source codes. And the French government has cleared 100% TOT unlike America where only the companies have agreed not the government.

 

[satishkumarcsc]

But we will be getting SPECTRA along with Rafale. This can counter most of the missiles in the world. Just give them some money these guys will give the codes as they did with Exocet in Falklands. There are lots of advantages with rafale. The pros outweighs the cons. Or else we have to stick with the Eurofighter. But the CAPTOR and Meteor are yet to be operational.It is basically an air superiority fighter and anly the TRANCHE III is multirole capable. IMHO the only aircrafts that should be in fray are Rafale and the Superbug. Nothing else is a good strike fighter with decent A2A capblity. The F-16 and Gripen are good but not as good as the bug and rafale.