Not Re-considering Gripen offer: IAF Source

[Zarvan]

Not Re-considering Gripen offer: IAF Sources
Published July 6, 2015 | By admin
SOURCE: IDRW NEWS NETWORK (INN)

Reacting to Media reports about Gripen, Eurofighter and even F-16 being back in race to supply Indian air force fighter jets after collapse of original MMRCA tender under which India was supposed to acquire 126 fighter jets a Serving IAF official who didn’t want to be named has informed idrw.org that they will not be any reconsideration of fighter jets which were originally rejected in MMRCA technical rounds .

Eurofighter too cannot be reconsidered since it was not L1 (lowest bidder) in the tender. IAF is making all out effort to include additional purchase option is included into agreements which India and France are currently negotiating for the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets so that additional fighters can be purchased at later date .

Sweden has been making all-out effort to sell Gripen fighter jets to India to replace its ageing Mig-21s which will be phased out by 2019 but Gripen NG Demo aircraft evaluated by IAF officials during Technical evaluation phase of MMRCA tender had failed to meet many critical technical and performance benchmarks and is not finding backers in Indian Air force .

IAF is now firmly backing Indigenous developed Tejas MK-II aircraft to replace Lightweight Mig-21 fleet in future and are even supporting HAL’s effort to develop Aesa and EW suite equipped LCA 1P based on Tejas MK-1 platform.

Posted in India

 

[HariPrasad]

What a plane. I really love gripen. It is a single engine plane but performs like 2 engine plane. Excellent maneuver. Huge weight carrying. It is very fast. It has all goodies.

 

[Ragnar]

IAF and MoD strategic thinking is the worst. No other country has such an assortment of jets. Mig-21, Mig27, Jaguar, Mig-29, Su-30, Mirage-2000, LCA and now Rafale. It is like a kid shopping for candies, not to mention an operational nightmare. US can afford to have specialised aircraft for each role, but even they are rethinking this. A country like India should only operate 2-3 types. FGFA-Rafale-LCA. This is enough. A historic parallel is with the Wehrmacht who captured all kinds of tanks and artillery from all over Europe.When they went to Russia, it became a operational nightmare finding spare parts for each type.

 

[Ankit Kumar 001]

Good , keep away from Gripen.
1.Too costly for what it offers.
2.We don't need yet another type of aircraft in our invenrory.