[Marine_Uncle]

This is old stuff. India said some months back it has no intentions of purchasing any F18 or F16's. It would prefer S-27 modified or MiG29's. However, the Indian government did express a desire to obtain F35 JSF once avialable.

[Mariner]

Yes, it's true they prefer Russian airframes....sturdy, fast and agile. Not to mention they're relatively cheap and leverage existing maintenance infrastructure.

However, they'd like to load them up with Israeli and US avionics and weapons.

It's a great combo.

[A.A. Cunningham]

The Indian Navy is interested in the JSF. The Super Hornet is still being shopped to the Indian Air Force.

[sukhoi-30mki]

The IAF's newest aircraft as of now is the SU-30,which is a variant of the SU-27.About 200 will be in service by 2015,which would put it out of contention for this current contract.A carrier borne variant of the Mig-29 is being purchased for the Indian navy & the IAF hasn't actually had a great time with maintaining it's existing fleet of air defence Mig-29s,which could go against the Fulcrum.