Rafale wins Indian order
 

BBC News - French Rafale jet beats Eurofighter in $10bn India deal

Now , the question must - will Dassault snatch defeat from the jaws of victory , once again?

Please see #58 at the following link:

http://www.pprune.org/military-aircr...programme.html

It is now confirmed.

India to buy the Rafale?
 

Jan. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Dassault Aviation SA rose the most
in more than 22 years, after a person familiar with the matter
said the company emerged as the lowest bidder to supply 126
fighter jets to the Indian Air Force.
Dassault shares rose more than 22 percent in Paris and
traded 20 percent higher at 735 euros as of 3 p.m. A majority of
the stock is held by the Dassault family, while European
Aerospace, Defense & Space Co., the co-producer of the
competing Typhoon, owns 46 percent.
“The announcement comes after a very high-level, equitable
and transparent competition,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy
said in an e-mailed statement. “The Rafale was selected thanks
to its cost effectiveness over the lifetime of the plane.”
For Dassault Aviation, the sale to India of its Rafale
combat jet, which hasn’t won a single export order after 11
years of flying for the French military, would be mark a major
victory. Over the last decade, Dassault has consistently lost
out in competitions in countries including Singapore, South
Korea, Morocco and Switzerland.
India’s Defense Ministry will begin exclusive negotiations
with Dassault within 10 to 15 days, the person told reporters in
New Delhi today, speaking on condition of anonymity because the
proceedings aren’t public. Talks will likely last for weeks,
pushing the signing of a contract beyond the March 31 end of
India’s fiscal year, he said.
Indian law requires the government to negotiate a contract
with the lowest-bidding vendor. Dassault is competing in the $11
billion contest against the Typhoon, the Eurofighter plane built
by BAE Systems Plc, European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co. and
Italy’s Finmeccanica Spa.
Indian Decision
Dassault is still in the running to win a contest in the
United Arab Emirates, and remains in talks with Brazil about a
contract.
Although it has been producing a plane a month for the
French military, without export orders to help pay the cost of
production, its funding burden falls entirely on France.
India shortlisted the Rafale and Eurofighter in April, when
it rejected bids from U.S. manufacturers Lockheed Martin Corp.
and Boeing Co., as well as Saab AB and OAO United Aircraft Corp.
The country is buying the fighters to replace an aging fleet of
Russian MiG-21s and Dassault Mirage 2000s.
Dassault had no immediate comment. The company recently
lost a contest to Saab’s Gripen in Switzerland, and Dassault has
since sought to get back into the contest by offering a new
commercial offer that includes fewer and modified Rafale jets.

Russia, the US (2 times with the F16 and F18), EU, and France were fighting to get a big fighter airplane contract in India (more than 100 airplanes). It seems France won.
That's a 10 billion contract...

http://s2.lemde.fr/image/2012/01/31/...6126220717.jpg

Dassault va vendre 126 rafales à l'Inde - Libération

-----------------------------------------------------------

The Dassault Rafale (French pronunciation: [ʁafal], squall) is a French twin-engine delta-wing multi-role jet fighter aircraft designed and built by Dassault Aviation. It is called an "omnirole" fighter by its manufacturer.

Introduced in 2000, the Rafale is being produced both for land-based use with the French Air Force and for carrier-based operations with the French Navy. It has also been marketed for export to several countries, including a $10.4 billion order from Indian Air Force.

That'll teach us for not saying sorry about Top Gear.

Were the other teenage mutant ninja turtles bidding?

Nice one Al :ok:

Like it was supposed to be a big surprise here...
India has already chose in the past and is already equipped today with french fighters, the older version (mirage 2000) of the rafale, they update their fleet with french fighters (rafale), what makes sense. In fact nothing new.

What is new is the fact this is one of the world's biggest defence deals. 10 billions.

Ah, ça fait quand même du bien... :D:D:D:D:D

Yeap, a winner had to be at some moment.

The Bloomberg article is full of mistakes :
Biggest one is that the Rafale is not due to replace the Mirage 2000 - even if it's part of the anglo-saxon strategy to say "ageing Mirage 2000"
A very big contract of modernisation has been signed with french industry a couple of months ago for those Mirage 2000, new avionics - and new missiles , more than 500 MICA all-sectors, multi-sensors. The french avionics companies Thales and Sagem did the modernisation of the indian Jaguars in the 80s, and also of the Sukkhoi 30....
Before the Mirage 2000 deal of the end of the 80s, there had been the big contract of the Jaguar, mostly with the british (as Dassault never acknowledged paternity of that aircraft, which was originally a Breguet product...)
Before, 110 Mystère IV had been bought (sorry for those who don"t know what it is - yes, it's another Dassault aircraft) and they fought gallantly during a couple of wars with sub-continent neighbours...
And even before, 104 Dassault Ouragan (sorry for the sam eoneshad been bought at the beginning of the 50s...... and also 30 Breguet Alizé for the indian Navy carriers in the 60s...
The Rafale C (Air Force) and M (Navy, from french aircraft carrier) have been operating for a couple of years over Afghanistan, and more recently over Lybia.
A small Rafale squadron is based by the Armée de l'air in UAE.

And now, back to the bottles... :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

I can`t help but think that this will mean more job losses at BWOS. Typhoon build has slowed down considerably and JSF build is at a crawl. They were really relying on this order.

Yeah was going to ask - how does this affect BAE Systems?

Should've let BAE take the lead sales role rather than EADS.
BAE have a better palm-greasing technique, they would have won the contract, although they would have had to pay a few commission fees somewhere

Plus, of course, there's a readily available M version should India's naval ambitions warrant it.

How many Rafale's does our aid buy them?

Will they be using British overseas aid to pay for them? It's a clandestine way of helping to bale out the Euro.

I think technically they haven't won the order, they entrered the "exclusive negotiations" phase...:uhoh:
However it is true that things are looking pretty good... for once!

Well EADS don't really care given it owns 46% of Dassault....

This one is ready for the next round :

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

Shame for EF.....that's a big order.

Won't India have more 'gusts' than France now...? ;)

Maybe BAe/EADS could sell them to the porridge wog air force?

!
 

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.