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But Jairam Ramesh must be pulling his hair out considering that he wanted the money to buy toilets instead!!![]()
Though I would love it but an IAF squadron consists of 18 ac (16 single seater & 2 trainers), so original 126 were needed to raise 7 squadrons & additional orders for 3 more, but that would had made a total figure to 180 ac, don't know what for that etc. 9 are???
@Abingdonboy @sancho , 9 for TACDE??
I thought they wanted MKIs to do the job??
What seems to have been forgotton is the SFC's requirement for its own fleet of 40 fighter bombers, I wonder if this requirment will be filled by the Rafale in lare follow-on orders?
It is a good point you make but, yes, I do think it is a good idea to go for an additional 63 (2-3 SQDs worth) as the IAF is faced with a serious SQD scarcity with 2017 being the year when most MIG-21s and MIG-27s are retired not to mention 1-2 Jaguar SQDs will also be retired. And yes there is a serious need for HAL to ensure they meet deadlines with the Rafale production. I would hope, in an ideal world, that the additional 63 were built simultaneously by Dassualt in France so the IAF got 2 times as many Rafales delivered per year. It is going to be a HUGE challenge for HAL to absorb all the tech and then build the Rafales from scratch and any possible delays need to be addressed before they occur, having offsite production in France by workers that have been chruning out these beasts for many years would be a nice safety net for the IAF IMHO.
this is what I meant- these 63 should be produced by Dassulat and delivered to the IAF parallel
Though I would love it but an IAF squadron consists of 18 ac (16 single seater & 2 trainers), so original 126 were needed to raise 7 squadrons & additional orders for 3 more, but that would had made a total figure to 180 ac, don't know what for that etc. 9 are???
@Abingdonboy @sancho , 9 for TACDE??
Or may be i am wrong & a squadron will consist of 21 ac to raise 9 squads in all.
I thought they wanted MKIs to do the job??
Though I would love it but an IAF squadron consists of 18 ac (16 single seater & 2 trainers), so original 126 were needed to raise 7 squadrons & additional orders for 3 more, but that would had made a total figure to 180 ac, don't know what for that etc. 9 are???
@Abingdonboy @sancho , 9 for TACDE??
Or may be i am wrong & a squadron will consist of 21 ac to raise 9 squads in all.
I thought they wanted MKIs to do the job??
2-4 will be for TACDE, the remaining will be war/crash spares AKAIK.
I don't know if an offical call has been made on SFC requimrent just yet mate. IMHO Rafales would be an ideal choice for SFC.
I feel though that 40 high performance fighters (whether MKI or Rafale) for SFC is far too many. IIRC these were going to be completly seperate from the entire IAF fleet and would be the SFC's very own fighters meaning they wouldn't nessercarily take part in a conventional offensive/defence conflict. Having 40 such fighters sitting around idle seems like a waste. Maybe I've got it wrong or the reports were misleading and the IAF would do what the FrAF do ie have x amount of fighters/pilots trained and ready for nuclear strike but they are still a part of the regular fleet. If this is the case then of these 189 or even the MKI's 272 40 could be hard-wired for nuke strike.
@ Abingdonboy
did you think is good for IAF to go addition 63 rafale coze HAL did not complete the 108 a/c before 2022 and at that time FGFA is in production, did you think it is better to buy 5gen(FGFA) then 4.5(Rafale)