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The Indian Air Force’s first upgraded Mirage 2000H fighter made its debut flight at the Istres-Le Tubé air base in France yesterday. The upgraded Mirage 2000 (effectively now the ‘Dash-Five’ standard), sporting a brand new avionics suite, self-protection suite, the Thales RDY-2 multimode radar and other systems, is the first of 49 aircraft (2 crashed last year in India in quick succession, forcing a fleet grounding of more than 50 days) that will be upgraded over the next seven years.
Good.
How many of 49 shall be upgraded in France?
Upgraded in 7 years. Cost of upgrading USD 4 billion. What a joke? Definitely a scam of humongous proportion.
The contract itself at such humungous cost & hugely delayed timline speaks of corruption, indifference to nation's needs and irresponsibility at the highest level when Israel was ven tempted to offer an upgrade at half the cost. Purchased along with Mica presumabaly an act to subsidise rafale or adjust the bribes associated with the contract,when few people talk about the Italian connection has major negative fallouts. firstly costly upgrades of both mig 29s and jaguars were justified and left little room for renegotiation towards a lesser price, thus providing a bad precedent. Also provided fresh lease of life to troubled French aerospace industry which could have been otherwise brought by indian negotiators to a position hugely advantageous to india in hour of French desperation to export rafale to save their domestic aerospace capabilities, both in terms of cost and technology transfer i.e AESA, Crystal blade engine tech.,NEURON UAV Tech., etc. etc. . Remember how French demanded extraordinary cost for laser guided weopens at the height of kargil war in 1999, inspite of 1998 defence pact and an offer to purchase complete mirage 2000 line. we also created huge disadvantages for U.A.E ,Kuwait,Qatar too for if we have entered for a combined negotiation for rafale with them (or may be along with either or all of Oman, Brazil and Canada could have been included)prices could have been further reduced, U.A.E & might be Qatar could have readily transferred their used but superior Mirages to us and we could have had better ties with arab states in middle east and gulf which would have been helpful to our large expatriate community,for our energy security, controlling somalian pirates & securing vital sea lanes,& might have helped us in curbing Chinese designs via gwadar port. It might have even arosed interest of Canada,Taiwan and Australia in procuring rafale at such reduced prices when the F35 programme is suffering from its own huge problems. that would have insured us compatability with friendly airforces against china, easy availability of spares and hugely reduced mantainance cost.
The contract itself at such humungous cost & hugely delayed timline speaks of corruption, indifference to nation's needs and irresponsibility at the highest level when Israel was even tempted to offer such an upgrade at half the cost. Purchased along with Mica presumabaly an act to subsidise rafale or adjust the bribes associated with the MMRCA contract,where few people talk about the Italian connection, has major negative fallouts. Firstly costly upgrades of both mig 29s and jaguars were justified and left little room for renegotiation towards a lesser price, thus providing a bad precedent that nothing can be possible in India without greasing someone's palms. Also provided fresh lease of life to troubled French aerospace industry which could have been otherwise brought by indian negotiators to a position hugely advantageous to india in hour of French desperation to export rafale to save their domestic aerospace capabilities, both in terms of cost and technology transfer i.e AESA, Crystal blade engine tech., NEURON UAV Tech.,Neuclear sub(shared with Brazil) and Neuclear aircraft carrier etc. etc. . Remember how French demanded extraordinary cost for laser guided weopens at the height of kargil war in 1999, inspite of 1998 defence pact and an offer to purchase complete mirage 2000 line. We also created huge disadvantages for U.A.E ,Kuwait,Qatar too for if we have entered for a combined negotiation for rafale with them (or may be along with either or all of Oman, Brazil and Canada could have been included)prices could have been further reduced, U.A.E & might be Qatar could have readily transferred their used but superior Mirages to us and we could have had better ties with arab states in middle east and gulf which would have been helpful to our large expatriate community,for our energy security, controlling somalian pirates & securing vital sea lanes,& might have helped us in curbing Chinese designs via gwadar port. It might have even arosed interest of Canada,Taiwan and Australia in procuring rafale at such reduced prices when the F35 programme is suffering from its own huge problems. that would have insured us compatability with friendly airforces against china, easy availability of spares and hugely reduced mantainance cost.
a complete waste of money
Why don't they send two mirages to Israel and get them upgraded as per Israeli standards and let's see which is better and cost effective and I am absolutely sure the Israeli upgrade would be way less expensive and better and python is better than MICA missile and then only give the order for rest of the upgrade.
TIMBAKTOO
is this worth 40 million$?
Hi Shiv,
What I heard was this upgrade is better than UAE M2K –
1) India will have the ICMS mk4 EW suite even more advanced than the UAE and the greek and which was already regarded as very effective.
2) It will also have the RDY-3 (Not RDY-2)which is improved radar compared to UAE and greek mirages.
3) Last but not least it will share the same MDPU (processor) than with the rafale and many common electronic subsystems. (a feature common to UAE mirage 2000-9)
Please confirm.
Waiting to see it back patrolling Gwalior skies…
Gr8…..need 2 urgrade upto Desh 9 level….
Why is this even news? There is no engine change is there? Without an engine upg, is this really to dash-five std?
Upgraded mirages to have multi mode radar? We will eat anything that the firangs serve us and when MMR is to be mounted on Tejas, it is dubbed obsolete tech. For all its bravery and courage, IAF takes the country for a royal ride whenever it wants to and does not let indigenous capabilities develop, heaping all responsibility on NAL, HAL, etc. For how long will we continue to bear shenanigans of IAF?
morocco had similar upgrade for 27 mirage F1 only for 350M euro,incl 100M euro for weapons(mica+aasm)
what is wrong with india and its contracts??it´s becoming ridiculous
it should not cost over 1 billion euro maximum,with weapons and the hole associated eqpmnts
Excellent choice ! India will have the most advanced Mirage in the world (even more than UAE's 2000-9)
Can you explain why it takes 7 years to upgrade 50 planes?
Its a SCAM of Biblical proportions.
Had the IAF any commonsense, it would've instead ordered Tejas Mk.1s instead — warts and all.
Instead, IAF asks ADA to perfect the Tejas to a 'P', while spending an eye-popping $4 billion on old Mirage-2000s (bought in the 1980s and not the 2000s; got to hand it over to the wily French in marketing).
Obviously, there is a scam in this expensive Mirage-2000 upgrade. Why doesn't the media even question the Air Chief and the Air Marshals over this ?
French formally offered to sell mirage 2k manufacturing line to India in 2001. In 2005-6 they were so desperate before closing the mirage line that M2k-09 was offered for around 20 million dollar a peice + a possibble help with tejas development could have been negotiated & all the newer technologies which were innovated for rafale could have been accomodated too. the same M2k is being upgraded (though useful and necessary) for 43 million $ upwards and going by that standards it would not be wrong if U.A.E and Qatar would start asking a higher prices for their newer version mirages with lot of time left with the airframe.Israel has mastered the art of upgrades as chinese has done with reverse engeneering.abovementioned israel python missiles and morrocco's mirage upgrade cost seems to be relavant points. mirage upgrade deal was sighned & payments made and then Rafale selection announced just before U.P election and also french presidential election to much needed relief of incumbent nicholas sarcozy, when if i am not wrong Mrs sonia gandhi made her secret & controversial medical trip abroad. I sincerely hope Rafale deal would be announced and payments made with in few weeks as the elections are approaching. IAF to brass which is hands and cuffs with the political establishment has already started making noises to the effect. one former cheif of naval staff once written India only need upgraded MKIs(Super Sukhoi's)& Tejas. i add used UAE and QATAR mirages(but only at an affordable price) to it to conserve and prevent loss of years of experience IAF pilots have on them.an affordable and corruption free Rafale or MIG 35 deal would have been better only in case of exceptional know-why aerosspace technology transfers not only in mmrca deal but which has to go way beyond that i.e. ceramic engine blade technology,neuron uav, nuclear sub and nuclear aircraft carrier tech, nuclear RNR as well as thermonuclear weapon tech (vis.inertial confinement fusion tech & creating Dual axis radiographic hydrodynamic testing facilites which China already has), with advanced super computing tech. F18's with f414 EPE engines would not suit IAF or naval aviation requirements.already russians are thinking of a naval FGFA.