High cost of Indian Mirage 2000 fighter upgrade causing a rethink

Defenseworld.net ^ | Dec 3, 2010

[sukhoi-30mki]

High cost of Indian Mirage 2000 fighter upgrade causing a rethink

Our Bureau

Fri, Dec 3, 2010

French President Nicholas Sarkozy may miss signing of the Mirage 2000 upgrade deal with the Indian Air Force (IAF) during his visit to India. While officially, “negotiations are still going on”, according India’s senior foreign ministry officials, the reason for the delay seems to be that the high cost of upgrading the fighters is causing a rethink, informed sources told defenseworld.net.

The cost of upgrading the 51 fighters is working out to an average of Euro 45 million per piece which is well over the price of acquiring a new generation fighter such as the Rafale or F-16 which is around Euro 30million-35 million. India is seeking to upgrade the fighters with Beyond Visual Range (BVR) capabilities, Look-down, shoot-down capabilities, Advanced Electronic Counter Counter Measures (ECCM) and Multi-target, multi-shoot capabilities.

The total cost is around Euro 2.4 billion of which work worth Euro 1.5 billon will be directly with the French company Dassault and the rest for work done and equipment supplied by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL).

In comparison, India signed a similar upgrade contract for 62 MiG-29 fighters in 2008 for around $850 million which works to $13.71 million (Euro 10.28 million approximately) per fighter.

Further, the bulk of the IAF Mirage 2000 fleet was acquired in 1986-87 which makes it over 20 year old. The upgradation process is expected to take 7-9 year and residual life of the airframe after the upgrade will be about 15-10 years. A new fighter instead will have a life of 30 plus years.

[sukhoi-30mki]

[Don W]

45 million euros per unit to upgrade an old airframe, or spend 5 million more per unit for brand new super Hornets.

Dassault priced itself out of its upgrade, methinks.

[sukhoi-30mki]

French diplomatic pressure led to a Israeli consortium losing out on an upgrade deal for the Mirage-2000s. The French recently declined Pakistani requests to acquire missiles and radars for it’s JF-17 fighters so I guess the Indian government would feel it obligatory to sign this contract. However this may change if the French Rafale wins a deal for 126 fighters.

[MasterGunner01]

Years ago at an international airshow, the French Mirage 2000 flew its routine immediately after the American’s F-16 had finished. One of the observers commented: “it is nice to see the French have finally perfected the F-102.”

[Historic note: The Convair F-102 was an early 1950’s tailless delta wing fighter-interceptor that was a real turkey and a pilot killer. The best use for the aircraft was as the QF-102 target drone.]

[Loud Mime]

F 102 Pilot

[MayflowerMadam]

Great pics. Compare them to the photo of Hussein trying to “fly” a Frisbee in his excellent girlie manner.

[Conservative Tsunami]

I’m sure ChiCom slave-labor can mass-produce this jet for $99.95 per unit. It’s surprising both the French and Indians didn’t outsource this task - everything else is.

[Loud Mime]

I like the photo of him putting up curtains. “Dat’s our Preesident!

[MasterGunner01]

Thank you for making the point about the F-102 and its brave pilots. I firmly believe that every one of the F-102 and F-106 pilots were VERY brave men.

The F-102 was designed as a fighter-interceptor to shoot down bombers of the day. It had no guns and relied on both unguided 2,75-inch FFAR [folding-fin aircraft rockets] and AIM-4 “Falcon” missiles. One of the Falcon variants carried was the nuclear-tipped version that was designed to take out a squadron of bombers.

The delta wing design of the F-102 made for very steep angles of attack on landing coupled with high landing speeds. The canopy of the F-102 formed a V that limited forward vision to the front and sides, It did not help that the radar screen was directly in front of the pilot's vision when he was landing and was a further restriction on his vision. The result was nearly 2/3 of F-102’s were written-off in landing mishaps and often with fatal results for the pilot. (These were the days before the zero altitude-zero speed ejection seat or “zero-zero” seat.)

[Publius6961]

Bookmark

[Loud Mime]

I didn’t know the 102 carried FFAR rockets; I thought it was the Falcons or nothing. Makes me think of the F89 and the prayers that went along with its ffar attack mode.

[MasterGunner01]

F-102 Armament

Rockets:
24 × 2.75 in (70 mm) FFAR (Folding Fin Aerial Rocket) unguided rockets in missile bay doors.

Missiles:
6 × AIM-4 Falcon air-to-air missiles or
3 × AIM-4 Falcon and
1 × AIM-26 Falcon with conventional or nuclear warhead

[sukhoi-30mki]

Maybe that observer didn’t know that a Mirage-2000 is credited with the only known ‘kill’ of an F-16 in aerial combat

http://www.answers.com/topic/f-16-fighting-falcon#Operational_history

[MasterGunner01]

Pilot training and experience is the determining factor in many dogfights. It helps to have a good airplane, but a good pilot can make up for many short comings.

See the AVG P-40B “Tomahawks” against Japanese fighters in China or John Thach or Joe Foss in their F4F “Wildcats” against A6M2 “Zero” fighters or Robin Olds in his F-4C against North Vietnamese MiG-17s and MiG-21s.

[alfa6]

Speaking of the ol F-89 Scorpion check this blast from the past out

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-vetscor/1511880/posts

Regards

alfa6 ;>}

[Loud Mime]

Alfa: That is really interesting! Could you put it as an add-on to today’s flyby?

I’ll read it at the Senior Center before the bingo game on Thursday.