The Typhoon, manufactured by a joint venture between BAE, Italy's Alenia Aeronautica and the German-Spanish giant EADS
Posted on 11/07/2010 1:42:26 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
UK closes in on $11bn fighter deal
The European-made Typhoon fighter is winning the fight for the $11.5bn (£7.1bn) contract to supply 126 fighters to the Indian Air Force in a deal worth $5 billion and 2,000 new jobs to Britain.
By Praveen Swami and Dean Nelson
Published: 10:00PM GMT 06 Nov 2010
The multi-role combat aircraft, manufactured by a joint venture between Britain's BAE Systems, Italy's Alenia Aeronautica and the German-Spanish giant EADS, has come top in the Indian Air Force's technical assessment of rival bids, beating the American F16 and F18s, the Russian MiG 35 and its closest rival, the French Dassault Rafale.
If the Typhoon clinches the deal, India would become the consortium's third-largest customer and an unofficial "fifth partner" in the project. Thousands of new jobs would also be created in India, including a new EADS avionics plant. "The Indians would be one of the biggest users of Typhoon, which would give them a vote at the table," one official said last week.
Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain are waging a joint diplomatic campaign to support the Typhoon bid, with the leaders of all four countries expected to raise the issue in meetings with India's prime minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, at next week's G20 meeting in Seoul. David Cameron is expected to lobby Dr Singh in a bilateral meeting at the summit.
President Barack Obama of the United States is in India this weekend and is expected to lobby on behalf of the US defence industry for the F16 and F18.
A senior Indian official has told The Sunday Telegraph that its air force's technical findings have been forwarded to the defence ministry, where a final decision is expected to be made in the next few months.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
The Typhoon, manufactured by a joint venture between BAE, Italy's Alenia Aeronautica and the German-Spanish giant EADS
This would be reason enough for India to reject the Lougheed bid. Obama should have stayed home.
excuse me ... McDonnell Douglas ... it’s getting late
Care to try one more time? Hint: McDonnell Douglas merged with Boeing in 1997.
Boeing and Lockheed Martin
Dear Sukhoi,
I had predicted this over a year ago, in one of your threads about this competition.
India was ALWAYS going to chose a western fighter. So the MiG never had a chance.
However, the US messed up by not bringing in the F-35 to the mix. The Eurofighter is a half generation above the F-16 and the F-18 (athough in fairness all of this is apples and oranges and mixing 1 and 2 engined planes)
The offer of the Eurofighter group to bring India in as a partner (much like the F-35 has multiple partners) is what has swung the deal
Also, it does not hurt that the Eurofighter is a capable plane and better than anything China or Pakistan has in that niche.
You are right-but this is just the technical evaluation part. The government’s decision is likely to be affected by other facts as well-purchase and operating costs, technology transfer and offset programmes and of course political factors.
The US offerings can make the cut on most of the factors barring technology transfers. My wild guess is that the Indian government is unlikely to risk a possible domestic backlash from politicians, strategists and the air force by choosing an American platform when ties with Washington are still at a nascent stage.
Dear Sukhoi,
Actually, in this case, I do not think there will be any backlash on a US purchase
India is one of the few countries where the US is very popular and GWB is especially popular.
There will be no blowback there.
The thing that WILL swing the deal is technology transfer. Indians are smarting from Russia’s refusal to transfer key technologies despite India being a long time Russian/Soviet arms customer
India has finally realized (4 decades after China) that building up an industrial/military complex is the only way to be a regional superpower
They have seen how little Saudi Arabia has achieved despite having pumped in 100s of billions of dollars in arms purchases.
So, slowly (and VERY slowly.. this being India) they are now indegenising their arms industry. They are finally putting together capital class ships and submarines.
They are also building trainer jets and have a decent space program. They have a MBT (tank) that is somewhat decent.
Their Missile program is going well. They have Surface to Air, Air To Air, Ballistic missiles etc
They have also used homebuilt ground transports like trucks (Tata) etc.
So, slowly, they are building up for the inevitable war against China/Pakistan. Yes, it is inevitable. China has already begun overreaching and is poised to make a critical mistake against the US or Korea or Japan or India. Either way, China is headed for war within a decade
While US-India defense ties have improved over the past decade, the issue here is whether there is a requisite level of trust at the current juncture to award a big fighter contract (Boeing estimates final numbers may reach 400)??? The disputes over signing of monitoring agreements and sales to Pakistan will make such a deal political tricky and of course subject to opposition from the military and bureaucrats. C-17s, C-130s and sale of engines are on a different level compared to purchasing a fleet of fighters which will be a main component of your defense capabilities until approximately 2050. Since a couple of defense scams in the 80s, governments and policy makers in India have been wary of being too adventurous in their procurement plans.
Very good points!
I love your knowledge of India. I visit India twice or thrice a year on business (and have for over a decade) but you certainly outshine me in your local knowledge
If I remember from our past conversations (each of which was intelectually stimulating) you are not even an Indian and you don’t even live in India.
Correct?
Nyet-Im an Injun living in the land of coconuts, spices and turbans!!
An honest injun from these blessed United States or a Injun Injun from the land of Kamasutra.
And if you are a First People person, what are you doing in the Land of Spices, Coconuts and Turbans?
BTW, when I visit India, I visit our offices in the Panjab. Brave Sikhs there. One of the toughest sets of peoples in the world. Fair and friendly but cross them (as some Muslims did in the past centuries) and you got a kirpan (Sikh dagger) up your ying yang
Was there an article posted on FR on how the US gutted certain technology from the C130 sold to India? If that can happen on a C130, what confidence is there that any fighter technology sold by the US will not have (at least some) monkey model aspect to it? At least with the Typhoon (or for that matter, Rafale - although I've come to hard terms thT the Rafale has a hard road to win this) would not have such constraints, and the level of technology transfer, as well as systems such as the Meteor and StormShadow, would be good value add. Furthermorw, India would be more or less a full partner (not that such an animal exists, but MUCH closer than if they selected anything from Lockmart or Boeing). Finally, I doubt the Europeans would be stripping equipment!!!!!
You can easily tell where my biases are as pertains to what India should buy - i.e heavy twin-engined amd European.
True blue Injun from the land of Kamasutra!!
I don’t think the US ‘stripped’ any equipment off the C-130s. The sale of those systems-mainly secure radios and electronic warfare systems is dependent on the customer signing a couple of agreements on monitoring and access to joint-communication systems involving the US. So India or any customer which does not want complete interoperability with the US could refuse to sign those agreements. These agreements are more in the fine print and cannot be taken as a major setback in itself.
The EU also have their set of restrictions but they have generally been flexible on issues of communications, modification of equipment etc.
But I remember at one point you were not in India physically. Correct?
I remember this typical FR flame fest where someone was jumping down your throat for no good reason (which constitutes 90% of all FR flame fests)
Your knowledge of the Indian Military is very good. It has always fascinated me as they are an odd mix of home grown, Russian, American and European weapon systems.
I don't think another military comes close in the number of vendors that India has.
I would suggest you start monitoring the Indian Space program too. It was recently brought to my attention and I am reading up on it. Apparently India can now put medium sized communication satellites in a geosynchronous orbit with home grown boosters (rather than Russian ones strapped on to their GSLV)
I have travelled a wee bit-mainly to he Middle East.
About the Indian space programme, it’s fairly advanced in the technological sense, but it doesn’t have the dept that the Chinese or Japanese have in terms of funding and facilities.
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