Congratulations to Dassault!!! 10.4 billion Indian Air Force Rafale contract!
 

:)

In the end they had to choose between Rafale and Eurofighter. The rafale won. They couldn't go wrong with either of them.
I kinda like the Rafale a bit better.

http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/da...sources-171975

and the mandatory sexy Rafale pictures.:-P

http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/1162/raf1z.jpg

http://img848.imageshack.us/img848/9274/s4n19.jpg

http://img849.imageshack.us/img849/1783/r433.jpg

http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/8...7072009110.jpg

On one hand I'm happy for the aviaton market as a whole as this is a major boost to Dassault who operate in a Europe that doesn't really have a variety of aircraft companies any more (and those that it does have spend too much time cooperating with each other, which the pro-EU and pro-European in me loves, but the aircraft enthusiast in me hates as it leads to a lack of variety of planes to look at :P ), so it's nice to see Dassault getting some cash that might hopefully mean we see more from them in the future.

On the other hand, being British, I'm a bit miffed that the money didn't end up in the hands of BAe Systems, but you can't have the best of both worlds, so mustn't grumble I suppose :D

But what about the fm/dm?

Thank you India for choosing the french ahead of us. All those Brit connections paid off I see, but you bought the worse machine. Bad luck.

The Germans were running with this one on behalf of Euro-fighter, (would that make it Gmbh?) BAE got the Saudi deal. Anyway, it wouldn't be the first time Dassault's been to the altar and been jilted, so it ain't over yet. I'd agree that Tiffie's by far the better combat system but it's expensive and so much about this sort of thing is to do with dimensions beyond the combat efficacy of the product. It may well be that, in addition to price, aspects such as technology transfer, which is a subject very dear to India, were much sweeter with the Rafale. It's election year in France, I dare say the Indians will be looking to seal the deal before election day to ensure the best outcome for themselves.

LOL! There goes a dent on British pride...

Agreed, the Brit connections paid off, they did not forget... LOL, LOL...

And for the objective part, I presume you know why a single role combat aircraft (converted to multi-role) is better than a multi-role aircraft all together.

~S~

The one thing it has going for it though is more configurations, most importantly for aircraft carriers. I think the Eurofighter is better than the Rafale in a lot of ways, but certainly not carrier capabilities. The carrier-modded Eurofighter idea is just plain awful, since to mod the Eurofighter to take all the cat and trap gear (I suppose the only way to get it off a carrier) would have robbed it of a lot of its manouverability since it was never designed for that. You know it's bad since we took the, uh, 'wonderful' F-35 for our carriers instead of building converted Eurofighters.

You know, would it've killed Dassault to have made that refuelling probe retractable?

Not sure I agree with how that point is made, but it's still fair enough. If Libya has taught us anything, it's that that Eurofighter needs to undergo serious development to become a decent multirole aircraft. There's a reason we're still using Tornados for the ground attack role, simply because the Eurofighter still hasn't met that capability yet. It's like strapping bombs on a Spitfire - sure, it works just fine, but it's not what it's designed for and there are aircraft that can do the job much better, freeing the fighters up to do what they were designed for.

I guess the Indians didn't like the one Kurt tank designed for them ;) nice pics OP

s!

More to the point, Asia may see some serious ground/air conflicts in the next half century as the US and Europe decay and the Asian region emerges.

The requirements of a country like India are quite different to western countries that occasionally get involved in "police actions" where they blow up random camel herders with the help of billion dollar high tech weapon systems.

It is however odd they have not gone with more homegrown tech.

WTE you do know that tank did design an airplane for India right? sorry OP not trying to hijack your thread but when i saw india it reminded me of the Hindustan Aeronautics HF-24 Marut

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...F-24-Marut.jpg

S!

what are the cost per unit and maintenance costs of a Rafale and Eurofighter?

I think they made the right decision. It's prbabily easier to work with France when it comes to technology import. They'll build about a hundred of them locally, in India and probabily they have rights to all the tech that goes into it.
The Rafale is also much more suited for ground support than Eurofighter and it's carrier capable. They already have very positive experience with Dassault aircraft, so I think in the end, they made the right decision. :grin:

And the mandatory cool Rafale shot.:-P

http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/7...8012009417.jpg

:lol:

Yeah how dare they forgot we the British were there um... err...protectorate... lmao

Congrats India you got the best fighter !

Wow, looking at the seams on the fuselage that ship looks quite worn out. The wings and the canards are very tight looking, but the main body of the fighter doesn't seem to benefit from the same production values. Perhaps it's the angle of light being unkind, but that doesn't look like a 4.5 fighter.

Of course if the ongoing squabble with Pakistan escalates you may see the new generation of Dassault products taking on the PAF's aging but operational 150 odd Dassault Mirage III's (ex Aussie RAAF I believe) and Mirage V's.

I admit yours is a much more balanced statement, sorry for been cheeky at my previous post.

Eurofighter is a great plane, for what it was developed for.
It is unfortunate that somewhere along the timeline, armies requirements changed somewhat and now a lot of armies favour a multi-purpose platform instead of an air superiority plane.

@Ploughman: The Rafal is a very beautiful plane, much more good looking than the Eurofighter!
"would it've killed Dassault to have made that refuelling probe retractable? " LOL! +1000 !


~S~

Nice to see all that aid money being put to good use.

It seems that this is actually just a 1st round in a series of decision making processes and it does not mean that Dassault have won the deal yet, at least that is what I just heard during PMQ's a minute ago.

i also read that the decission can still change......but i doubt it actually.

???

Who sends aid to India these days?

India is number 8 in the world for GDP and almost certain to pass the UK in the next years.

If anything aid will soon be going the other way.

the UK sends about £280 million a year, this to a country who has a space programe and an air force practically twice the size of ours.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12607537

"Deutsche staatliche Mittel für Entwicklungs*zusammen*arbeit pro Jahr:
50,5 Millionen Euro (2011)"

so, half a Rafale from Germany ;)

even China gets money, and would be not amused if not.............

No worries ;) The main 'problem' with the Eurofighter is that really it was designed at the tail-end of the cold war when the requirements for a fighter were different, as in more geared around fast takeoff and rate of climb to intercept the pesky Tupolev Bears and the like rather than an air-superiority fighter in the more modern sense. It's come a long way in meeting that role now but it's still got a way to go to become a reliable and useful multi-role aircraft, for which it was never really designed but could still meet. I've heard of the figure of 5 years being chucked around in some magazines, at which point it will apparently be better than the Rafale, but I'm not sure if they're talking about the Eurofighter being better in 5 years than the Rafale is now, or if both were updated the Eurofighter being better in 5 years time. We'll see I suppose.

Anyway, there's no point getting all hurt about it, sure we didn't get the deal but it's not like India didn't accept it because the Eurofighter is British (which it isn't even fully British). If India chose the Rafale it's because they deemed it the better option for them, or at least the cheaper option for them, it's not a personal insult aimed at us.

What happened to JAS Gripen?

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DsKIS3dPl2...AS39Gripen.jpg

Probably not enough payload/range for India.

Edit: I just read it was about nuclear capability which EADS didnt like too much.

Agreed.. a sad day.

Fair enough, but £280 million? The real question is why would you bother? ... that's like pocket money in International terms.

Still you have a point, India could just order 123 Rafale jets instead of 126 and send back the British aid.

I think one of the reasons we bother is to secure trade deals......that went well then didn't it.....

I think the lads from Top Gear have a lot to answer for in this instance.

It's beyond my understanding how anyone can like the Rafale.
I mean it is FRENCH. :shock:

Jaws, please tell me.

French aviation is hot!!!!:-P

http://i.imgur.com/T7qhn.jpg

It's disappointing seeing aviation fans complaining the Indians didn't fall for politics and selected a fighter based on capability and price.

The Gripen was in the competition, together with F16, Super Hornet, Mig-35 and Eurofighter, but all except the Typhoon dropped out in December.
Rafale and Eurofighter went into the last phase of the competition and the Rafale won.

It was a good competition based on performance, capabilities and in the final, price.

I wish all military contracts would be awarded this way.

Well said.

More often that purchasing is based on political considerations combined with who can bribe the best and we end up with something like this ...

http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...09135491_n.jpg

Erm, no.

Obligatory 'does it come with white flag dispensers?' post :D

We're still waiting on the F-35 here in The Netherlands. Incredibly expensive, but from the looks of it, it's also a very good multi task plane.

I rather it go back in my pocket :)

Rafael is the choice.

well, they dont need the best fighter. For air to air they have ozher planes - Su30 & MiG29.
They were looking for a good Multirole aircraft, and i guess more imortant is the air to ground mission.
India now begins to upgrade their Mirage2000H in France , if Dassault would not have stopped its productionlines, i would have benn not surprised if India would have choosen to buy more Mirage2000 :D
the packet, technological transfer, planeperformance and price was superiour over the Typhoon packet.

Well apparently the US never "offered" the F35 to India and was merely being nice by allowing the Indians to look at it, hence it was never actually "rejected" by the indians.

Something like that ....

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/f16-f18-u.../226635-3.html

Meanwhile here in Australia the RAAF is looking at outlaying a fair bit on more Super Hornets as the F35 appears to be less and less like to actually turn up any time before teh end of the decade.

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/art...hedule-367523/

Well, F16 and F18 performance was not exactly unbeatable from what i picked up here and there about the competition. Read somwhere this morning that during the testing, after landing at some high altitude base in Himalaya, the F18 was not able to take off again.:eek:

Only the Rafale and Typhoon passed all the tests thrown at them by the Indian test pilots.

You're naive.
It's about nukes, like always. Areva rings a bell?


http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/edit...cle2851227.ece

109 over the he100d :)

The He100 wasn't exactly a jewel - especially as a fighter.

Pitty we didn't keep out F-111's flying! Cold-war dinosaur and all, is there anything out that can really replace them?

I don't know what India needs, but saying that the Rafale is a better fighter than the Eurofighter is ludicrous to say the least.

If France stopped sitting on their thumb and collaborated with the rest of Europe (like they're keen on doing with Airbus), we might well be capable of delivering better stuff than US or Russia.

Sukhoi has a few models that would do just fine. :lol:

Actually in what India needs the Rafale is better. It has better air to ground capabilities and to India this is very important.

They wanted a carrier capable aircraft. That's why they pulled out of the Eurofighter deal.
In the end it worked better for them than for the Brits. France has a capable carrier fighter/ strike aircraft and UK is stuck with empty decks.
I'm sure many in British DoD kick themselves for not going for a carrier capable Eurofighter, when they had a chance.

Empty decks? How about no decks.

In business,the French play hard and dirty. My uncle,an ex-RAF Wing Commander,was involved with international sales negotiations as regards aircraft.

Those were his words, not mine.

Best Regards,
MB_Avro.

I wouldn't want to be in the plane in front of this one

The neighbour of the beast?