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

[swiss]

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

Jaws, please tell me.

[Jaws2002]

Originally Posted by swiss

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

Jaws, please tell me.

French aviation is hot!!!!

[Jaws2002]

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.

[WTE_Galway]

Originally Posted by Jaws2002

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 ...

[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.

[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.

[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?

[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.