Senior Dassault officials in France briefed visiting Indian Air Force AOC-in-C Eastern Air Command, Air Marshal KK Nowhar, about the Rafale and reiterated the company’s willingness/ability to rapidly supply 40 Rafales to the IAF as a stopgap ahead of the MMRCA competition results. Dassault’s pitch plays on the IAF squadron depletions, and the assertion that none of the other MMRCA contenders can deliver new jets as quickly as it can. The offer is a reiteration of what French prez Nicolas Sarkozy brought with him when he visited India in January 2008 — ostensibly to help the IAF maintain its combat edge in the face of a possible delay in the outcome of the MMRCA competition. French Air Force Rafales did not participate in the just concluded Garuda-2010 air exercise, though it has been decided that four Rafales will fly to India at the end of next year for Garuda-2011.
Photo by Juan Antonio Cifuentes
Photo by Juan Antonio Cifuentes
and source of this news being?
Shiv,
IAF's press releases said that Rafales participated.
its gonna be a logistics nightmare to handle so many different types of aircraft..assuming the fact that some other aircraft would be chosen in mrca…
We already have mirage 2000 , i dont think rafale is totally different tech , mica AAM in rafale is also will be used for LCA . 40 nos rafale will add more edge against pak new F-16 52 / chinese J series .
YES THEY WILL THEY ARE DESPERATE FOR ORDERS RAFA DOES NOT HAVE A DEDICATED CUSTOMER APART FROM FAF AND A GULF COUNTRY LIFECYCLE COST TAKEN INTO CONSIDERATION.
I feel the logistics for french aircraft can be hadnled by the one's being handled for mirage – 2000.
Quite happy about the news. But why did not Rafale particapate in the concluded Garuda excersie.
Great blog with useful information.
Rafale offer shall be considerable only if the contract gets signed within next 3 months and supplies of all 50 aircrafts are made within next one year and India gets benefit of all the falling prices of Euro.
french are deseprate for some sale .
Heh. It's a cheeky offer. Buy some of my planes until you decide whether or not you want my planes.
This must be a French way to poke fun at how ridiculously slow this procurement process has been. Like Ajai Shukla said, AK Antony's desire to ensure 'transparency' in arms procurement has come at the cost of the armed forces.
If the old NDA government with George Fernandes as Defence Minister were still in power this entire MMRCA circus would never have come to be and the IAF would have been granted its original request to just buy 120 Mirage-2000s.
Yup, Buy Rafales and pay through the nose like we did to upgrade the Mirage-2000. 51 planes cost $ 1.9B to upgrade. That's $40 M/per plane. Same issue with the Scorpenes. The French want three times the cost of some equipment MDL thought they could develop on their own (and MDL cannot develop it on their own now). Strange that the media has reported the Gorshkov cost escalation everywhere, but the French toast (at our expense) does not show up anywhere.
The Rafale's under-powered, offers no exceptional capabilities, has not notched a single foreign sale and is damn expensive. If we do buy them, expect a nut/bolt of the Rafale to sell at a million dollars in the future, coz no-one else is buying them. The French have to amortize the $37 Billion they spent developing this loser. I would rather buy the Eurofighter if i have the budget to buy an expensive plane. If money is limited-you have Gripen/F-16/Mig-35(not much of a technological edge in all three)
Stay clear of the Rafale!!
@anon 2.02 am
I have to agree with you.
Ajai Shukla's blog says that Snecma is demanding exorbitant prices to integrate the Shakti engine with the Light Utility Helicopter.
Another article says IAF is unhappy with DRDO partnering Snecma to develop the Kaveri because the core of the engine has already been developed by Snecma & all DRDO will be doing is provide it with an indigenous stamp.