HAL has been steadily stepping up its Sukhoi-30 MKI delivery schedules. While last year it delivered 23 of these fighters, this year it is expected to produce 28. HAL has already supplied 74 of these fighters.
Can any one explain the above statement
Frankly , i am a bit septical about the above figure and the article in general ,
Till may 2009 HAL had delivered 48 su30mki while russia had suplied 50 mki in batch one of induction .
In the year 2008 , production rate of su30mki was 12 aircraft a year , how is it possible for HAL to nearly double the production rate to 23 aircraft in 2009 .
I had read about production rate being increased to 17 aircraft , but 23 is unexpected unless TOI is wrong and has counted the aircraft being recieved from russia under batch 3 ordered in 2007 and whose deliveries began in october last year .
While i agree with the articles time frame of 2016-17 for completion of induction of 270 su30mki , what i cannot agree on is HAL manufacturing these 42 fighters unless it is sure of completing the liscence production of 140 aircraft by 2014 , which is quite possible if we go bythe production schedule of 28 aircraft a year which is rediculously high by indian standards
Frankly what i think is that these 42 AIRCRAFT WILL BE MANUFACTURED IN RUSSIA AND SUPPLIED IN THE FORM OF KITS TO INDIA FOR ASSEMBLY , SIMILAR TO THE DEAL OF MIG 29K , where the first batch actually arrived un assembled , in containers , Coz thats how i think TOI arived at the number ,which include aircraft manufactured in india and those assembled from russian kits recieved during the year
Another thing which i doubt is regarding the fact that how can su30mki cost double of mmrca contract , simply put if you look at the facts available regarding each batch of induction
Batch 1 = 50 aircraft @ 1.5 billion USD ,orderd in yr 1996
Batch 2 = 140 aircraft @ 5.2 billion USD , ordered in yr 2000
Batch 3 = 40 aircraft @ 2.0 billion USD , ordered in yr 2007
Batch 4 = 42 aircraft @ 3.3 billion USD ,ordered in year 2010
Now you guys can total that number and it turns out to be 12 billion USD , so much for saying that total cost of inducting Su30mki is double that of mmrca
Now if these guys were talking about life time cost , even then the SU30MKI will cost 25 billion USD ,while mmrca is expected to cost 35 billion USD over a life span of 40 years