Russian Storm rising: Building India’s supersized carrier

[MilSpec]

I think they confused it with the Viggen. If so, that is correct - the IAF had a long and tedious selection procedure akin to the MMRCA saga, in which the Viggen, Mirage F-1 and Jaguar competed against each other.

There are several theories about the eventual choice, which was the Jaguars - one was that the IAF wanted a twin engine jet. Another was that they were wary about the American engine in the Viggens, because of USA's support for Pakistan in 1965. It didn't help matters that the USA had imposed sanctions on India after the '65 war. The British PM at the time issued a statement that Britain would not impose any such sanctions on India. This helped the choice of the Anglo-French Jaguars.

Later, charges of corruption were laid regarding the deal. The insinuation was that the Viggen was a better choice, and that the IAF had chosen the Jaguar for non-technical reasons. (Corruption, geopolitical pressure etc.)

At the end of the day, the IAF became one of the largest operators of the Jaguars, and presently is the largest operator.

Confusing Viggen with Gripen tells you quality of writing.

Viggens were indeed stonewalled by DoD, As far a Jaguar selection, it was less of corruption more of a political appeasement. It continues to be the dud in the forces. Just the fact that there would be contention between Viggen, a mach 2 interceptor with it's 72kn dry thrust and Jaguar a a twin engine bumblefoot with close to half the power with both engine combined was ludicrous to begin with. That tells you what happened in defence circles a few decades back.

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

There have been recent reports that the Chinese are developing EMALS for their new ACs. Is there a possibility that India and Russia could collaborate and develop EMALS which can be integrated into the Storm project?

The development of our EMALS was started since the 1990s, probably not much later than that of the US.

And the US EMALS hasn't met the requirement yet.

The original requirement was 1/4166 as the ratio of glitch, but now it only got 1/400.

BTW, there are many different methods to develop the EMALS, China uses its own method, and India/Russia can also follow a new method. No need to always follow after the US.