India selects EF, Rafale for MMRCA shortlist

[jha]

I dont know why, but somehow the hope for F18 simply refuses to die in me..

I am in support of anything but RAFALE...

 

[AC&I]

I say inshallah all the time. What does that make me? Get your bearings straight and understand what the word means.
What if he says "by God" or "thank God"? Where does that leave him in your book?

INSHALLAH = If ALLAH wills then.... or by the will of ALLAH ...... {The IAF chief spoke correctly}
MASHALLAH = Whatever ( or that) ALLAH wills
ALHAMDULILLAH = All Praise belong to ALLAH
SUBHANALLAH = All Glory belong to ALLAH
WALLAHI or ALLAH ki Kasam = By ALLAH (By God)
Shukr ALLAH = Thank ALLAH (Thank God)

 

[sudhir007]

India to announce jet fighter within weeks - UPI.com

Dassault and Eurofighter will go head-to-head this month to win a $10.4 billion contract to supply India with a medium multi-role combat aircraft.

The winner is expected to be announced in November, The Times of India reported

Defense Minister A. K. Antony, who is chairman of the Defense Acquisitions Council, made the announcement. He said the council approved the offsets evaluation reports of the Eurofighter Typhoon -- backed by EADS that includes British, Germany, Spanish and Italian companies-- and the French group Dassault's Rafale jet.

The announcement signals the final stage of the controversial competition that has seen India reject bids from four other major fighter manufacturers.

India is in "the last lap" for making a decision, Air Chief Marshal Norman Anil Kumar Browne said.

"In the middle of November, we shall be able to announce to the whole world which plane we have selected," he said.

India is hoping to have the plane operational by 2015.

India also evaluated proposals for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet from Boeing, Lockheed Martin's F-16, the Russian-made MiG-35 and the Gripen from Swedish firm Saab.

DAC began evaluating all the proposals in April, looking at each bidder's value-for-money tender, although trials of the aircraft began last year.

The U.S., Russian and Swedish bids eventually were rejected after technical evaluation and field trials, The Times of India report said.

Indian media reported in April that one unnamed bidder had made a final pitch to upgrade its offer but the DCA rejected any last-minute changes to bids.

"No offers for upgrades or changes in the original bid submitted by the six aircraft companies would be allowed as their aircraft have been judged on the basis of capabilities offered in the original bid and their performance in the field trials," an unnamed air force source said at the time.

Many of India's nearly 800 fighters are aging Soviet-era and Russian aircraft, including the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21, MiG-27 and MiG-29 and some Sukhoi Su-30MKI planes. The air force also has Anglo-French SEPECAT Jaguar and French Mirage 2000 aircraft produced under license.

The MRCA deal is imperative for the air force because of the age of its largest aircraft by numbers, the MIG-21, a 1970s fighter.

The long-awaited aircraft deal -- the tender was issued in August 2007 -- will be one of India's largest capital military expenditures likely in the next several years.

The purchase is reflected in the country's boosted defense budget, announced earlier this year -- an increase of more than 11 percent in the face of China's growing military might.

The jump to $36.5 billion for 2011-12, from $32.74 billion, includes a 12 percent boost in capital spending for equipment and services.

 

[RPK]

Typhoon export deal will secure BAE jobs - LEP Business - lep.co.uk


Jobs at a pair of Lancashire jet-building factories will be secured if a £6billion order to sell aircraft to Japan is won.

Andy Latham, senior business development executive at BAE Systems, said parts for the 40 jets due to be ordered would be built at the firm’s factories at Warton and Samlesbury, near Preston, if it succeeded in landed an order to sell its Eurofighter Typhoon jets.

The consortium submitted its bid in September against competition from the US-built F-35 and F-18 aircraft and expects to get an answer from Japan’s defence chiefs by the end of the year.

It would be a lift for workers at BAE’s factories at Warton and Samlesbury, near Preston, which have been rocked by plans to cut 1,300 jobs on the back of defence spending cuts.

Mr Latham said: “Japan has a very capable defence industry which has built fighters for the past 40 years, but there would be significant work in the UK and Europe.

“The major units would be supplied from Europe with final assembly completed in Japan.

“It is good quality work producing major units and providing technical expertise on a number of areas.”

The bid from the four-nation Typhoon consortium, which includes defence firms in Germany, Italy and Spain, has offered the Japan “sovereign control” over manufacturing, support and upgrade on the jets.

Mr Latham said the value of the bid “compared favourably” with the rival US bids but admitted it would be a coup for the European bid to land the work with Japan having bought American aircraft in recent years.

He said the Japanese would be “very well-informed” on the planned slow-down of production for Typhoon among its European partners which has led to the latest round of job cuts, but insisted it would not impact the export bid.

The BAE chief said: “They understand the UK’s position in terms of recent events but I do not believe it has a negative impact. I think our partnership with Government is strong and a positive impact.

“Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, was in Tokyo last week and was actively supporting our export capabilities.”

Eurofighter is also in the running for a £6bn order to sell 126 jets to the Indian air force.

 

[sudhir007]

MACHINIST - MoD Begins Calculations to evaluate Life Cycle Cost of aircrafts for MMRCA

The Indian Defence Ministry has initiated the process of calculation of the Life Cycle Cost (LCC) of the two shortlisted aircrafts - the Eurofighter and Dassault Rafale - in order to determine the lowest bidder and the ultimate winner of the medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) deal.

On November 4th, commercial bids from the two firms were opened in the presence of their representatives, by the Contracts Negotiation Committee of the Defence Ministry. Though both firms were notified about the cost per unit of each aircraft, confidentiality clauses prevent the figures from being revealed.

According to sources, the per unit cost of the Dassault Rafale is understood to be around 5 percent lower than the Eurofighter. However the final decision will be made on the basis of Life Cycle Cost of these aircrafts, which would be operated for around 40 years or 6,000 hours. The offset and technology transfer proposals made by the firms may also influence the decision.

The ultimate winner is expected to be revealed in six to eight weeks, after which final commercial negotiations will commence with the lowest bidder.

The Government had earmarked Rs 42,000 crore for the deal in 2007. According to officials, the funds can be increased significantly if required.

The offset clause in the tender requires the winner to reinvest 50 percent of the deal amount in the Indian defence industry. The Defence Acquisitions Council (DAC) had approved the offset proposals of the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Dassault Rafale on October 7.

 

[ptltejas]

I think Eurafale (hybrid eurofighter and rafale) could be good one.

 

[sudhir007]

Chindits: Raytheon To Do The Entire Weapons Suite For Typhoon!!

Following are the five weapons which will be integrated onboard Typhoon, if it wins, two of which are already on it :

1. Paveway IV --- Recently tested successfully, is more advanced than II and III.

2. Sidewinder AIM 9X Block-II---Analog, air-to-air, the Block-II is the most advanced in the sidewinder family.

3. AMRAAM---Tested in Iraq.

4. HARM--High-speed anti-radiation missile--this is a requirement in the RFP, and there are only two countries in the world which make the anti-radiation missile--USA and Russia!!

5. JSOW--Joint Stand-Off Weapon--the heaviest of them all, to go on the pylon!

No rough figure or estimate available. These can be changed/modified as per the customer needs.

 

[sudhir007]

MMRCA Principals Pore Over Bids | idrw.org

The cost of acquiring the winning aircraft for India’s Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) competition is no longer a secret except to the public, for now.With final bids in for the Dassault Rafale and Eurofighter Typhoon, the offers of both European companies were opened Nov. 4 and their contents revealed for the first time to the two European rivals, as well as the Indian government’s MMRCA program team, and three defense ministry officers who will spend the next 6-8 weeks boiling the two offers down to a common, comparable form.

Bid details are not yet public. But after the 3-hr. meeting at the Indian air force (IAF) headquarters, a ministry officer in the acquisitions office indicated that certain parameters, including the flyaway cost per aircraft, were not as disparate as might have been expected.

Officials from the two firms would not comment on the bids, though EADS Cassidian released a statement minutes after the meeting, saying: “Our offer for India’s MMRCA tender is backed by the four Eurofighter partner nations as well as their respective aerospace and defense industries. It is competitive and designed to deliver maximum value to India.”

Privately, officials at both companies said they were confident with where their bids were placed. That is not surprising, especially since the biggest factor is still an unknown: how the ministry will arrive at the ownership/life-cycle cost of both aircraft over a 40-year/6,000-hr. run — an exercise it has never attempted before. Mystery also shrouds the benchmark price, a figure that the ministry and IAF jointly formulated this year, and one to which the bid prices of the Rafale and Eurofighter will be compared with, to focus on the more competitive proposal.

“Both companies now know the unit cost of each other’s aircraft,” the ministry officer said. “That was closely held information so far. But the real calculations, which will include [the] cost of flying these aircraft over their lifetime, plus inputs from technology transfer and offsets, will provide a final picture. We have a formula and process. It will now be applied to both bids.”

Industry observers suggest that the government is now well-placed to make a decision, though others indicate that the only real political decision made in the competition so far was the elimination of the two U.S. contenders, Lockheed Martin and Boeing, in April.

“If the two final offers from Dassault and Eurofighter are roughly comparable, the government will perhaps want to leverage more strategic benefits from the potential winner,” says an adviser to the Confederation of Indian Industry, which counts among its members several firms that will be offsets partners to either Dassault or EADS Cassidian. “You couldn’t ask for two aircraft that are more comparable, or bigger rivals in the aerospace market today. It’s an opportunity for India to truly gain something here, over and above the 126 airplanes.”

The lowest bidder, and therefore the one poised to win the $10.4 billion deal, is expected to be formally announced before the new year. Price negotiations will follow with the lowest bidder, leading to contract signature by March 2012, and bringing to an end a 10-year effort by the IAF to buy a stopgap fleet to stem fighter squadron depletion.

The government has not formally announced lowest bidders in arms competitions, but it had apparently decided unofficially last year to begin the practice as an exercise in transparency. In September 2010, the government revealed that General Electric had been identified as the lowest bidder in a competition against Eurojet to power the indigenous Tejas Mk. 2.

As for the MMRCA’s final contract value, it is likely to be well more than the originally budgeted $10.4 billion. It could reach roughly double that figure, taking into account factors such as inflation, currency fluctuation adjustments and the possibility of a larger buy.

 

[SpArK]

UAE Also Eyeing Typhoon in Combat Aircraft Competition - Defense News

 

[Andross]

UAE want EF seems like nobody wants the underpowered, poor A2A inferior Rafale

 

[SpArK]

'Combat aircraft contest not over'




Ajai Shukla / Linkoping/ Sweden December 05, 2011, 0:13 IST



There are celebrations at Linkoping, the home of the Gripen NG fighter, which is barely two hours from Stockholm in one of Sweden’s ultra-friendly inter-city trains. On Tuesday, the Swiss government announced its selection of the Gripen fighter for the Swiss Air Force, turning away the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Dassault Rafale.

“If confirmed, a win in Switzerland (according to the Swiss constitution, this might even require a national referendum) will provide a much-needed boost to Saab's status as a fighter manufacturer, after its Gripen was eliminated in another high-profile contest in India,” said respected aviation magazine, Flight Global.


India’s has decided differently, short-listing the Typhoon and Rafale over the Gripen NG in New Delhi’s ongoing selection of 126 medium, multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA). But, visiting Linkoping, Business Standard sees little despondency. With India’s defence ministry (MoD) uncomfortable with how it might have to double its $10.5 billion allocation for those heavy fighters, Gripen is not ruling itself out of the MMRCA competition.


“It’s not over till it’s over,” says Eddy de la Motte, Head of Gripen Export. “We have been and are still confident that Gripen is the perfect match for the IAF as well as for the Indian defence and aviation industry.”

Eddy de la Motte also points out that Gripen has provided details of its Sea Gripen fighter (which is still being developed) in response to an Indian Navy’s enquiry.

Executives in Linkoping all insist that the Gripen NG — the New Generation version of the current Gripen-D fighter —would provide India with the fighter it needs for a far cheaper procurement and operating cost. They say it would be one-third the cost of the Typhoon and the Rafale, calculated on a “through-life” basis.

We tour the Linkoping facility, which was set up in 1930, when Sweden was unable to buy fighters because of the embargoes that preceded World War II. Over the next eight decades, a fierce focus on aerospace R&D — 20 per cent of revenues to back into research — has driven the development of world-beating aircraft at Linkoping. These include the Saab-21A in 1945 (the world’s first aircraft with an ejection seat); the Saab 29 Tunnan (the first aircraft with swept wings); and the Viggen, which the Indian Air Force had selected in the 1970s as a ground strike aircraft. But an angry Washington, seething from India’s nuclear experiment in Pokhran, vetoed the supply of its American-origin engines to India. The IAF bought the Jaguar instead.

Today, Linkoping is dedicated to the Gripen. Over 200 Gripens currently fly with five air forces — Sweden, South Africa, Thailand, Czech Republic and Hungary — and Switzerland will be the sixth. Gripen is also a leading contender (along with the Rafale) in the Brazilian Air Force’s purchase of medium fighters.

But India demanded a more capable aircraft than the current Gripen-D; and Saab offered its futuristic Gripen NG fighter, of which only a single prototype exists.



Housed in a secluded hangar, the Gripen NG is discernably bigger than the Gripen-D. The earlier Gripen fighters were light, agile fighters, which could land and take off from 800-metre stretches of regular highway. A carefully inbuilt ability to be refuelled and rearmed within just 10 minutes of landing allowed a small number of Gripen-Ds to fly as many sorties as a significantly larger number of heavier-maintenance fighters. But, along with low maintenance, India wanted a heavier fighter, with more weaponry and a longer range and endurance. Enter the Gripen NG.

“The NG is essentially a Mark III Gripen fighter. The Gripen A/B, a 12-tonne light fighter, was the Mark I. This went up to 14-tonnes in the Gripen C/D, which can be considered the Mark II. Our latest development, the Gripen NG, will be a 16.5 tonne medium fighter,” explains de la Motte.



That extra weight includes an additional tonne of fuel. Along with two 450-gallon fuel pods on the wings, this allows the Gripen NG to fly a staggering 4,100 kilometres. On internal fuel alone, it flies 2,500 kilometres. That exceeds the range of much bigger aircraft like the Typhoon.

Moving the undercarriage to the wings for enlarging the fuel tanks also created space for two additional hard points (on which weapons are mounted). The Gripen NG now has ten stations, extraordinary for a 16-tonne fighter. Flying into combat, it would typically carry two IRIS-T air-to-air missiles on its wingtips, which can shoot down enemy aircraft 25 kilometres away; two Meteor beyond-visual-range (BVR) missiles, deadly accurate at ranges in excess of 100 kilometres; two fuel pods with 900 gallons of fuel; three GBU-12 precision-guided bombs for ground targets; and a reconnaissance pod.

To power all this weight, the Gripen-D’s General Electric F-404 engine is being replaced with the advanced F-414 engine, an upgrade that is common to India’s Tejas fighter. With thrust increased from 18,000 pounds to 22,000 pounds, the Gripen NG already super-cruises, or flies supersonic in economy mode.

But the NG’s real strength is the cockpit, which is built to delight a fighter pilot. Using Saab’s acknowledged data link capability, information is drawn from multiple sensors inside and outside the aircraft, including satellites. A terabyte-capacity computer screens out superfluous information, providing the pilot only the best input of each category. This allows him to concentrate on battle, rather than handling information.

And finally, the pilot has satellite communications, permitting him to communicate across the globe. In a sensitive situation — such as an attack that could start, or escalate a war, or even on a nuclear strike mission — the pilot might need to take permission before launching weapons. This could be done over the satellite radio.

“During the Indian trials, when the Gripen successfully took off from Leh, the pilot called Linkoping on the satellite radio to say all is well,” said one of the Gripen NG pilots.


'Combat aircraft contest not over'

After the failed campaign of F-35 , Shuklaji is back wth gripen argument.

Though it would be sensible to look into this posibility ( wont happen as we know) rather than replying it as PR job , like i just did.

 

[IndoUS]

re we going to get the Final decision in the next coming week? or is it going to be pushed back again. Last time they said mid December, I am crossing my fingers and hoping they are early.

 

[500]

“It’s not over till it’s over,” says Eddy de la Motte, Head of Gripen Export. “We have been and are still confident that Gripen is the perfect match for the IAF as well as for the Indian defence and aviation industry.”

Monty Python-The Black Knight - YouTube

 

[Nirvana]

Though Gripen Will be Cost Effective and Cheaper,There is No Chance for it Anyway as MoD Stated Long Ago that Cost is Not a Problem but the Aircraft Should Match the Requirements and the Gripen was Already Rejected On Requirement Basis !!

Shukla jee Is Now on Payroll of Gripen Since Gripen now Has a 'Ray Of Hope' After Victory In Swiss !!

Lockheed Martin has cut the Payroll to Mr.Shukla Since It has No 'Hope'

 

[Tangent]

Tejas is meant to do Grippen's role in IAF.