Forum: F-35 Lightning II

http://www.business-standard.com/india/ ... ri/454091/

"Knife-edge tension is guaranteed as senior executives from Eurofighter GmbH and Dassault assemble on Friday in the office of Vivek Rae, Director General (Acquisitions) of the Ministry of Defence (MoD). The purpose of the gathering: to open commercial bids for the world’s most ill-conceived and biggest international arms purchase. I refer to the Indian Air Force’s harebrained proposal to buy 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) that will be outrun and outgunned by Chinese fighters soon after they enter Indian Air Force (IAF) service."

Laughing

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And there is that $65 Million again (from above/below URL): [author above must be an LM employee - right?] (Oh wait... top of page logo says "Sponsored by 'BOING'") Twisted Evil

Ajai Shukla: End this MMRCA hara-kiri Ajai Shukla / November 01, 2011

http://www.business-standard.com/india/ ... ri/454091/

"...Years later, as the IAF finds itself choosing between two Gen-4+ aircraft, it must also note that the F-35 is on the cusp of operational clearance. It’s manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, has signalled in multiple ways that it would supply the IAF that fighter at a fly-away cost of $65 million per aircraft (significantly cheaper than the Rafale and the Typhoon) with deliveries beginning by 2015. Washington has indicated that any F-35 sale to India would be expeditiously cleared. But for an insecure IAF, used to being shoved around by the MoD, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. The MMRCA purchase would bring in six squadrons of reasonably good fighters, even if they were outclassed by the PLAAF in war. Any change at this state, or so the IAF believes and accepts, would require fresh MoD clearances and financial sanctions that could take another three years.

But there is an alternative. The IAF must frankly tell the MoD that the situation has changed, and that national security demands scrapping the overpriced MMRCA procurement and buying the F-35 through a single-vendor contract. The defence of the realm cannot be held hostage to the procedural requirement of multi-vendor bidding; nor is overpaying justifiable if it was done through competitive bidding. New Delhi has recently procured several fine aircraft on a single-vendor, government-to-government basis: the Sukhoi-30MKI from Russia; and the C-130J and C-17 transport aircraft from the US. The procurement of a new fighter that will form the backbone of the IAF for decades must be treated with the same urgency."

What a lame article. Requirements scaled down? The original requirement was more suited to even less advanced and capable platforms! Not a single word about the IAFs rapidly declining numbers or the FGFA and AMCA both 5th generation fighter programmes in the works.

Let me state at the outset that I'm really not familiar with India... so everything I say is probably conjecture.

If India's interest is the development of its domestic industry, then the Eurofighter/Rafale are probably just what they want. Its going to give them key technical knowledge of producing high end fighters (which they want given the reports of the poor quality of the indian Aerospace IB.) They won't get that with the F-35 and its restrictive export controls.

Furthermore, I'd be hesitant about exporting to India for security concerns. We know that they will likely try to reverse engineer parts of the fighter like japan. However Japan doesn't have an ongoing alliance with Russia or any other competing power. India is a fickle ally... one wrong diplomatic move (like supporting Pakistan during a flare up in tensions, like we did in 1972 with the USS Enterprise) and we could see them sell the F-35's systems off to our nearest competitor.

Finally, I think the Eurocanards are just fine for the time being to defend against any Chinese aggression. Ignoring the J-20 (which is a complete unknown and likely not some superfighter) they are better platforms than anything else the PLAAF may field in the near future.

I fear its much too late in the day and the IAF will always claim they have the FGFA to fall back on.

popcorn wrote:

.. and the IAF will always claim they have the FGFA to fall back on.

India will always be for India, only! The gen. four+ a/c are good enough for the Pakistani's and the neighbor across the Himalayas maybe better dealt with with RT-2PM Topol type system.

Scorpion82 wrote:

What a lame article. Requirements scaled down? The original requirement was more suited to even less advanced and capable platforms! Not a single word about the IAFs rapidly declining numbers or the FGFA and AMCA both 5th generation fighter programmes in the works.

Yup, that's why one shouldn't pay much attention to an opinion piece in a business journal - unless the author specializes in aviation matters - which apparently he does to some extent. He seems to be a defense analyst, and has a blog "Broadsword."

Is it just me....or is the only US fighter available for $65M that isn't crammed full of avionics to the point of being 'full' to upgrades the SHornet?? Built by BOEING??

I shudder to think how F-35 might fare under Indian maintenance conditions. The Indians are used to operating Russian a/c that are robust in dealing with the FOD typical of their less-than-scrubbed airfields. For example B version in Indian hands along the country's peripheral bases would be ingesting all sorts of blown up debris. F-35 program best write serious warranty disclaimers. In terms of a/c tech transfer, F-35 concerns me the most because it represents a complete package of current hardware and design philosophies that would be worth a lot of money. One "defecting" or "unfound" plane and Indian aviation and/or a near peer a/c competitor can make leaps and bounds. Clearly I don't like the prospect much. Go Gripen.

velocityvector wrote:

I shudder to think how F-35 might fare under Indian maintenance conditions. The Indians are used to operating Russian a/c that are robust in dealing with the FOD typical of their less-than-scrubbed airfields. For example B version in Indian hands along the country's peripheral bases would be ingesting all sorts of blown up debris. F-35 program best write serious warranty disclaimers. In terms of a/c tech transfer, F-35 concerns me the most because it represents a complete package of current hardware and design philosophies that would be worth a lot of money. One "defecting" or "unfound" plane and Indian aviation and/or a near peer a/c competitor can make leaps and bounds. Clearly I don't like the prospect much. Go Gripen.

Actually, India is one of the few countries outside Russia that is able to keep a sizable fleet of Mig-29s up and running, which is quite a feat of maintenance. As for the FOD issue, I would suggest reading some accounts about the measures that have to be taken at Red Flag whenever India is operating. Seems their "rugged" Su-30s are rather persnickety. Turns out that Russian fighters, 4th generation and up, are any thing but rugged, and don't get TEG started on their TBO.

Thank you for that. TEG, thoughts? ;>) Perhaps the site participants a'Gripen does begin anew. Another aspect that would concern me with F-35 for India is that over 5-10 years the Indians and certain interested parties, with "Frankenstein" adapters plugged-in (well it is Halloween here) at key nodes, could reverse engineer message traffic coursing through F-35 to write all component software interfaces and then, with the math guys/gals involved, quickly write close or even superior algorithms that constitute our present F-35 and other platform knowledge bases. Even though we obfuscate all crucial payloads. That's not, for PRC or India, as farfetched as it may sound to the ears of some. I don't like it. 0.02

I heard the newer Sukhois do indeed have a really short time before overhaul so I'd imagine the Indians would have to be good at maintaining fighters with their defense budget. Anyway what a stupid article. He's basing his opinion completely off of the J-20 coming into service and wiping the floor with everything India has. We don't even know when the J-20 will enter service considering all of the problems the Chinese WILL have with developing it. Compared to the everything else China has the Typhoon or Rafale will do its job rather well. Against the J-20 there's still FGFA and AMCA so it's not like India has no other plans on the drawing board.

If India purchased Bs or Cs, would it be expected to operate off the INS Vikramaditya (fmr Admiral Gorshkov)? That'll be interesting.

What complete and utter tosh! Only in the dreams of fan~boys would this ever happen only to wake up in the real world to find it was a wee bit of a wet dream gone wrong. Some people are obviously still a bit pee'd off that both US fighters got dropped....Amusing!

7 wrote:

What complete and utter tosh! Only in the dreams of fan~boys would this ever happen only to wake up in the real world to find it was a wee bit of a wet dream gone wrong. Some people are obviously still a bit pee'd off that both US fighters got dropped....Amusing!

LOL! "Tosh"? Well it's not hard to see you don't like it. Wink

Forum: F-35 Lightning II

Indian Analyst recommends dumping Eurocanards for F-35.