Date Posted: 31-Jan-2012
Rafale chosen as India's MMRCA
Rahul Bedi Correspondent - New Delhi
Gareth Jennings - Aviation Desk Editor - London
Key Points
•The Dassault Rafale has been chosen as the preferred bidder for India's Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft competition
•The Rafale beat the Eurofighter Typhoon to win a deal that will see the Indian Air Force buy at least 126 aircraft for about USD10.6 billion
Dassault has been selected as the preferred bidder for the Indian MMRCA fighter procurement programme after its Rafale fighter beat off competition from the Eurofighter Typhoon.
Dassault Aviation's Rafale has bested the Eurofighter Typhoon in the contest to supply the Indian Air Force (IAF) with 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA), it was announced on 31 January in New Delhi. The decision marks the first export order for the type.
Official sources said representatives of the two aircraft were summoned to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and told that the Rafale had been selected as it was the lowest bidder, or L1. No details of the bids were available but sources indicated that Dassault's price was about 15-17 per cent less than Eurofighter's.
Unconfirmed sources, quoting senior officials, said that the Rafale was around USD5 million cheaper than the Typhoon per aircraft.
Defence Minister A K Antony said no deal would be signed before the end of March. "It is a long process. The file has not come to my table," said Antony, adding that the Finance Ministry and a Cabinet panel headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also had to examine the contract terms.
MoD officials told Jane's that a final round of price negotiations with Dassault would follow during the next few weeks to finalise the contract and that the deal, estimated at more than USD10.4 billion, would be signed sometime in the financial year beginning in April.
The Rafale's final cost, however, is expected to rise above the MoD's sanctioned USD10.4 billion figure as it will be determined by benchmarking against its global market sale price. Dassault will also be required to defray 50 per cent of the total contract value in local offsets, largely in the military sector.
According to the contract terms, 18 Rafales will be acquired in fly-away condition within 36 months of the deal being signed. The remaining 108 will be built locally by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in Bangalore. The final contract will also offer the IAF the option to acquire an additional 75-80 Rafales, raising the total number to more than 200.
Senior IAF officials said the Rafale would complement the IAF's 51 Dassault Mirage 2000H fighters presently being upgraded by Dassault-Thales-MBDA to the Mirage 2000-5 standard.
"The Rafale is a technologically sound 4.5-generation fighter that has adequately proved its omni-role capability in the recent Libyan campaign," retired Air Marshal V K Bhatia said. "It will more than meet the IAF's requirements over the coming decades."
Following the announcement, French President Nicolas Sarkozy issued a statement, saying: "France is pleased with the Indian government's decision to select the French aircraft [and] to enter into exclusive negotiations with Dassault.
"The Rafale has been selected thanks to the aircraft's competitive life-cycle costs, after the April 2011 pre-selection on the basis of its top-level operational performance. The negotiation of the contract will begin very soon and has the full support of the French authorities.
"It will include important technology transfers guaranteed by the French government. The realisation of the Rafale project will illustrate the depth and scale of the strategic partnership between France and India."
When asked to respond to the decision, an India-based official from EADS, the German partner in Eurofighter that led the Typhoon bid in India, told Janes : "We lost, they won; it's all over." In an official statement, Eurofighter said that, while it is disappointed with the outcome, it respects the decision of the Indian MoD.
"Based on the Indian government feedback, we will now carefully analyse and evaluate this situation together with our European partner companies and their respective governments," the official added.
The Rafale and Typhoon were shortlisted in April 2011 from an original MMRCA contest that featured the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, Lockheed Martin F-16IN, Saab JAS 39 Gripen and United Aircraft Corporation MiG-35.
COMMENT
India's decision to procure the Rafale came as a surprise to many industry observers who had predicted the Typhoon's greater industrial base and superior combat capabilities would win the day for the international fighter aircraft.
However, it is worth noting that, despite the repeated assertions that the Typhoon was ahead in the race, it had consistently been recognised that the Rafale was the more affordable of the two platforms, both in terms of unit price and support costs.
Throughout the selection process, the IAF said that the competition would be weighted towards the cheapest platform. The Rafale's selection, therefore, should not be regarded as being quite so unexpected.
Technically speaking, the competition between the Typhoon and Rafale was finely poised, with both platforms being highly capable and combat proven. While the Typhoon has superior performance statistics and a long-term upgrade path mapped out, the Rafale has an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar already in place and operational.
In addition, the Rafale is a carrier-capable platform, whereas the Typhoon is not; Eurofighter had offered to developed a maritime variant of the Typhoon had it secured the Indian contract. While the MMRCA programme has no naval component to it, interoperability between the air force and navy was seen to be an advantage over the long term.
In terms of industrial relationships between the competing companies and India, Dassault had already sold it Mirage 2000 fighter to the IAF and had recently signed a contract to upgrade these platforms. Dassault's longstanding relationship with the Indian Ministry of Defence may have gone a long way to securing the Rafale deal.
While Dassault built on the already-strong ties it has with India, Eurofighter instead opted to pursue a completely contrary approach, whereby the German member of the consortium - EADS - was charged with leading the bid despite having no history in the country. Many felt that the consortium's UK partner - BAE Systems - would have been the more obvious choice given the strong historical ties that already exist between the two countries.
With the Indian MMRCA competition now seemingly over, Eurofighter has to hope that the projected Typhoon sale to Oman materialises, and that ongoing competitions in markets such as Malaysia, Qatar and South Korea yield better results to secure the aircraft's production run.
For Dassault, securing the Rafale's first export order might just be the springboard it needs as it looks to win future orders in Brazil, the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere.