!
 

That's good - give squillions in aid to a foreign country who then spend it in France - so Sarkozy sticks two fingers up behind Cameron's back - FANTASTIC!

We should go ahead and cancel the aid package, it would be interesting to see if the buy then went ahead.

what about the billions that Britain ripped out of India pre 1947????

payback time methinks to the old colonial master...

If not already stated - this'll mean more jobs to go....

At the risk of starting a huge flame-war - can I ask any knucks who feel qualified to venture an opinion - excluding price, politics etc. is it actually the best jet of the contenders?
What would you rather have strapped on in a real knife fight?

tartare .... ask the Indians ! :ok:

I'm pretty sure once the press add 2 & 2 together there will be some sort of outcry.
IMHO Indian aid is a joke, their a pretty rich and emerging economy, probably in better shape than ours.

As I can see, a lot of ppruners are hoping that some dirty tricks could still capsize the deal, which is obviously difficult to swallow on one side of the channel.
That is obviously expected.
The famous privateer Surcouf, one's captured by a Royal navy frigate, got this comment from the frigate commander: "you the french, fight only for money. We fight for glory " thus entailing the famous answer: "of course, what would you expect? everybody has been fighting for what he is missing the most"
Yes, a lot of ppruners would expect this forum to remain entirely monocultural, with people exchanging consensual ideas or unilateral jokes. The problem is that my fellow citizens are able to log on pprune and to disturb a little bit the dinner arrangements across some of the forums.

Now tell me more about the navalised-proposed Typhoon : on which sea platform could it be experimented and developped (if it's still technically possible, which is another story) ... HMS Ocean?

See you in 10 years :

http://www.marianne2.fr/blogsecretde...21352.jpg?ibox

I like this from the media. How the UK can give aid to a country who has it's own Space Program.



"International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell said in December that Britain’s controversial foreign aid programme was partly designed to win the bid.


Britain is sending £280million to India for each of the next four years, even though the country has more billionaires than Britain and has its own space programme.


The aid package is 15 times larger than the £18million France sent to India in 2009.




Asked to justify Indian aid last year, Mr Mitchell said: ‘It’s a very important relationship. The focus is also about seeking to sell Typhoon.’



The decision is also a setback for David Cameron, who visited India in 2010 with six Cabinet ministers and around 60 businessmen to try to establish Britain as the ‘partner of choice’ for India.
Yesterday, Indian officials said Dassault emerged in front because the Rafale jet was ‘much cheaper unit-wise’ than the Eurofighter.


It was reported today that Dassault slashed its price demands to ensure the deal was done."




I wonder how much Sarkozy had to do with that as I am sure he really wanted this deal.

Ley's see if it gets to contract signature -----

Typhoon vs Mirage
 

A quick query on the typhoon vs the Rafael.

How many typhoons are there flying and what is the cumulative number of hours flown in the typhoon Vs the Mirage.

Considering the Rafael is only tried and tested in France me thinks there is less operational experience in this aircraft than the typhoon. This was one of the reasons for the Griffin being rejected amongst others. A bit confused as the technical merits of one over the other and would be great if someone with operational experience in one or both could elaborate.

Considering the past bruha on defense deals pains were taken to ensure sufficient due diligence so that fingers would not point to kickbacks, but then again .................

Total deal size is now pegged at $20 Billion with order size climbing past 189 aircraft. (18 fly away, rest built locally with options to buy another 60 in fly away in case HAL takes time).

To all who think the Americans are miffed, take a look at the C 130 deal signed as well as BBJ and Naval version of it. Put together that is all in excess of this deal. Main difference........the Yanks did not have to go thru a bidding process and it took a year for the deal... this one took 5 years. Wonder who is laughing all the way to the bank now............... Add to this the Israeli and Russian deals which do not go thru this complex process of bidding and one does realize this was a great bollywood production for public consumption on transparency.

For those who feel the aid is going towards military aid please review the attachment below. Most aid is channeled directly to NGO's or thru WHO as is the smart thing to do so does not touch the governments dirty paws. Stopping this aid will not effect any change in thought process IMHO, besides it being only a fraction of what this deal is worth.

DFID - India country profile - UK aid

A lot of distration here vis Indian aid and other general flag waving, which is of course very noble but it does forget the general trend the UK follows in such things, that of self distruction.

Foreign policy has as much to do with these deals been done as any technical excellence in the kit - I guess we'd have the TSR2 else.

In the meantime the Rafale is (if its airshow demos are anything to go by) a pretty impressive bit of kit.

I wonder if the demonstration of the Rafale's capabilities in Libya influenced the decision ? If Rafale is confirmed in writing come March,will India be assembling most of them and getting technology transfer ? The French better hope they cough up the moolah on time too,scores of international companies got their fingers burnt supplying
goods and services to India for the Commonwealth Games.

India doesn't need our aid contribution and is flush for $$$ - I see this going all the way to contract.

They've decided to buy a proven, highly-capable fighter aircraft and the Indians are not stupid....the whole A-G 'demonstration' by Typhoon over Libya was nothing short of an appallingly desperate attempt to emblazon 'multi-role ready' on the side of the jet...which it wasn't/isn't. I suspect India saw right through that. The French motive was similar.

However, Rafale eclipsed our illustrious Warton Wonder.

TWT

If the Rafale's "performance" re Libya had been a consideration, India would have bought Sopwith Camels first....

Hair dryer for an engine - let's see if the Indians really will sign, they have form on cancelling such requirements/procurements. A quick look under the microscope might reveal the actual selection process vis a vis their own Defence Procurement Plan (DPP). As for level playing fields and price slashing, that's another issue given Dassault's desperation to sell the thing, anywhere, as they couldn't give it away before now

Sarkozy needs a boost before the elections too so another premature selection announcement ????

one thing is clear - there will never be a Sea Typhoon now, so thats plan B out the window. (or should that be plan D - was the -35C plan B or plan C.... I get confused....)and we'll never buy Rafale for the Navy after this. So its back to the good old Hornet as plan E (or is that an F,,,,) I give up

UA, compared to its competitors short lived performance as seen by the public, and I include politicians in that description Typhoon did not cover itself in glory, showing its face like a dutiful son at a parental party, then leaving as soon as possible without causing outright offence.

For balance, sales of Typhoon outside the partner countries are not exactly inspiring either.

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.

F3-04T standard, or not?
 

Will these Rafale's be equipped with the latest systems, like the DDM-NG,
the AESA-RBE radar (iso PESA), video for Damocles, upgraded RCS reduction
on the airframe and last but not least , the upgraded M88's (9T version) ?

Typhoon's credibility is certainly less obvious than Rafale's.

Typhoon's AESA radar programme looks shaky and uncertain.

The roadmap to air-to-ground capabilities (save the UK Austere A-G capability on its Tranche 1 jets) is not much better.

EF GmbH are still making a big deal about P1E (which will/should get Litening 3 and PW4 onto the jet this year), while the Rafale has LGBs and an LDP integrated on all standards of jet, plus Scalp (a Storm Shadow equivalent), the fabulous stand-off AASM Hammer, a recce pod, and Exocet, and the French aircraft have ASMP - a nuclear stand off missile.

And the four nations are still arguing about the order of integrations and upgrades post P1E, when we should have the vision to get them done ASAP, unless we want to lose more potential export sales.

I can't really blame the Indians for opting for a (combat-) proven Rafale over a Typhoon, many of whose essential capabilities remain little more than optimistic hopes.