Indian Air Force : News, Pics and Discussion thread, page 3

here ... check this out as well...India would never buy some R.I.P. Mirage-4000 (unless for a very good reason that is kept under wraps) when it could have the Rafale itself. Its a 9 billion dollar deal that will be sealed by 2008 .. and its for 126 multirole aircrafts...and 100% tech transfer & Deep Lisence(including metallurgy of engine's, material technologies of the body, radar, full source codes, etc) for unassisted production within India is compulsory....(as was clarified by the Def. Minister at the recent press conf.) Infact the US congress itself has cleared for the Tech Transfer of the F/A-18 Sh and the block 70 F-16 (in additon to many more weapons systems like the Patriot PAC-3, etc). The same is true in Russia's and France's case as well.

Nobody is naive enough to buy a cancelled piece of junk gathering dust in some museum in some remote pocket of France.

when you can get the Rafale or the block 2 S/H with 100% Tech Transfer.

Sources say efforts by the French and UK governments to persuade India to add the Dassault Rafale and Eurofighter Typhoon to the shortlist appear to have been successful.

www.flightinternational.com... es/EurobidIndia.html

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European consortium pushes Typhoon for IAF contract

NEW DELHI: Just days before the government opens bid for one of its largest arms purchase, of 126 multirole fighter aircraft, European defence consortium EADS made a quick last ditch effort on November 25 to push the Eurofighter Typhoon fighter into the $9 billion sweepstakes.

The Typhoon, a higher-end multirole fighter built jointly by UK, France, Germany and Spain, and set to be their frontline fighter in the years to come, was considered as an option late last year by the UPA government during the visit of the then British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon.

However, considering that the IAF is looking for a medium-range multirole fighter, it was decided that the longer range and considerably more expensive Typhoon would be unsuitable for its immediate needs.

South Block sources indicated that the unsolicited offer by Washington for Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet might have encouraged the European firm to make a final attempt to formally propose Typhoon for the competition.

The fact that this will be New Delhi's largest single purchase of fighters has seen countries offering their latest aircraft. Russia, which will field its MiG for the bid, has unilaterally offered the MiG-35, a much-improved variant, which is still to be fully operational.

www.newindpress.com...

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[edit on 6-12-2005 by Stealth Spy]