PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Rafale wins Indian order
View Single Post
Old 1st Feb 2012, 10:26
  #38 (permalink)  
pr00ne
 
Join Date: May 2003
Location: London/Oxford/New York
Posts: 2,924
Received 139 Likes on 64 Posts
THere's not much to choose between either aircraft.
Typhoon has 111 sales to 3 customers outside the consortium who actually build it versus 1 "sale" of 126 aircraft to 1 customer for the Rafale.

Typhoon SHOULD be cheaper owing to its far larger production run for the home markets.

Don't forget that Dassault has been here before. They were selected in the UAE contest to this exact same stage and then blew it on the final pricing negotiation, so this isn't in the bag for Dassault just yet.

Whilst both aircraft are undoubtedly worldclass and would both be an excellent choice for any of the Air Forces that have evaluated then, I do fear that the very pedestrian pace of bringing Typhoon up to a fully operational air to ground capability has cost it dear in competitions and will do so again. Its limited abilities over Libya and lack of deployment to Afghanistan stands in rather uncomfortable comparison to Rafale.
pr00ne is offline