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

[JG53Frankyboy]

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger II

Erm, no.

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
the packet, technological transfer, planeperformance and price was superiour over the Typhoon packet.

[WTE_Galway]

Originally Posted by Sven

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.

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/

[Jaws2002]

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.

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

[swiss]

Originally Posted by Jaws2002

I wish all military contracts would be awarded this way.

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


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

[Thee_oddball]

Originally Posted by WTE_Galway

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 ...

109 over the he100d

[swiss]

Originally Posted by Thee_oddball

109 over the he100d

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

[Skoshi Tiger]

Originally Posted by WTE_Galway

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/

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

[Sternjaeger II]

Originally Posted by JG53Frankyboy

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
the packet, technological transfer, planeperformance and price was superiour over the Typhoon packet.

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.

[Jaws2002]

Originally Posted by Skoshi Tiger

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

Sukhoi has a few models that would do just fine.

[Jaws2002]

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger II

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.

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

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.

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.