Eurofighter’s Pitch To The Indian Navy


From Eurofighter World

21 thoughts on “Eurofighter’s Pitch To The Indian Navy”

  1. "Under development": on paper, for sure. On paper you can easily integrate thrust vectoring, add non-existing AESA radar, put whatever armaments you wish, and so on. Reality is technically much more complicated and associated costs for development and integration would hardly lead this paper project anywhere. Not to mention that none of the European nations supporting the Typhoon has any interest in this hypothetic project and that EADS has no experience in this kind of seaborne aircraft. Nice artist view, anyway !

  2. IF logic has any place in MOD acquisitions, I think F-18 varient has the most chance. The reason is, it's the only contender of all that has all of the following: Proven AESA, carrier opration, number of copies in service, hours logged and wartime experience (however small it may be but it highlights maintainability/ sortie rate/ etc.). Yes, it comes with some string attached, but every supplies is going to have some end user monitoring, some more some less, but Babus and Media have focused their efforts only on the US. If MOD wants some commonality between IAF and IN, F-18 is the one that makes a lot of sense. Also, because a lot of the F-18 have been in service, the cost of development per bird is bound to be much smaller than any other competitor. Whether we want to work with the US suppliers or not is a totally different question. But, if we do not want to work with them in the first place, I think that we should have not even allowed them to bid. To me it's wrong to ask someone to participate if we have no intention of giving them a fair chance. F-18 may not be best in all area, but it certainly seems to be capable of holding it's own in the overall game… Just my two cents. And yes, when I say F-18, I mean the superbug.

  3. Which capabilities, A2A or A2G, are more crucial for IAF in case of MMRCA requirements? And which types of aircraft in the current IAF inventory MMRCA is supposed to replace in the first place?

  4. Actually all 6 contenders are multi-role fighters. There are no pure A2G or A2A in this race. However, each one may offer something that gives it an edge in one role over the other.

  5. @Anon10.23: French Rafale also fulfill your criterias: combat proven, designed from the early beginning in both Navy and Air versions, and so on. AESA radar has been qualified and will equip operational Rafale Mk-4 in 2013. That leads to 2 proven & state-of-the-art seaborne plateforms, would make a superb competition !

  6. As one said, the typhoon looks good on paper. its true that not even the British Navy is actively supporting the project and is instead waiting for the F-35C ( which too, has its share of problems ).

    The current typhoon is more reliable and maybe Eurofighter GmBh trusts that to make a bid about its naval version design capabilities.
    Also, just highlight the word "Simulation" in the brochure, to underline its carrier take-off capabilities. Believe me, I do lots of simulation myself and it is just that the results all depend upon how accurate the field conditions are set. there is every chance of a flawed result without having actual data from an indian navy carrier about its deck and weather conditions it operates in.
    I doubt if they obtained those data or just used some "canned" test conditions to perform the sims.
    guilty until proven innocent , should be the attitude.

  7. As regards to the post, The MOD may prefer the F-18 based on logic,
    but it should be kept in mind that supplies from the US are not guaranteed always due to political misgivings and issues with Pakistan.
    Also, technology transfer is not somethin Boeing will readily do, but the Typhoon is more willing.
    Apart from Technical factors, there are many other issues to be considered. defence production self reliance is not somethin you can guarantee from US imports.

  8. Eurofighter Typhoon : 70 000 euro per fly hour
    Naval Typhoon : 80 000 ? 90 0000 ? 100 000 ?

    I doubt the costs will decrease

  9. @anon@10:23,

    If you had any logic, you would not have suggested tying ourselves up with strings unnecessarily where products are available from so many other sources too.

    "Proven" is often used as a euphemism for obsolete. Here that's what electronics has done to the obsolete unkil birds

  10. All MMRCA contenders are multirole fighters but it's quite obvious that not all jets in this tender have equal capabilities in fulfilling both A2A&A2G missions. Best example is slugish F/A-18E/F which barely flies and is optimised for A2G missions. In contrast you've got Typhoon designed primarly as air supriority fighter [to replace obsolete or flawed fighters/interceptors like Tornado ADV(UK), F-4(Germany), F-104(Italy), Mirage F1(Spain)] which has been maturing as a multirole fighter with every next production tranche. Also Gripen has been primarly air defense jet with growing A2G potential. In case of MiG-35 its 3D TVN engines and AESA radar enhance mainly A2A capabilities. There's also very well balanced Rafale F3 and F-16 Blk 60 rather kinda heavy to be a dedicated airfighter thus relying on its advanced (but comparable with other contenders) avionics.
    Regarding that in near future IAF will be operating Su-30MKI, Mirage-2000H/TH UPG, MiG-29UPG, Tejas MkI/II and MMRCA winner all of them being 'multirole' I consider my earlier question (anon 1:31 AM) about tasks planned for MMRCA quite reasonable also in the context of a weapon package offered with every MMRCA wannabe.
    Cheers!

  11. Anon @ 3:45PM:

    You wrote ""Proven" is often used as a euphemism for obsolete"…. not true if the "Proven" has been ahead of the game. Let's see, which one came with a first AESA France or US, the answer is US. Yes, their AESA is a generation or two ahead of the rest. All others are just recent developers of AESA. In fact the french competition just qualified their AESA (as per this blog). By that definition the US AESA is obsolete? Just because something has been around for a while does not automatically make it obsolete. There is always a chance that it's around for a while because it's way ahead of it's competition. For all those folks touting tech transfer, please define what that means… I see no way to transfer someone's thoughts and ideas, and that's the real tech that we need. Only way to get that is through out own blood, sweat, toil and tears…. there are no short-cuts; that's how they got it and that is the only way we will get it. By the way I am no fan of US goods, but if our concers around supply guarentee are so big, we should have not included in the competition. I think it's unethical to give anyone a false hope…. It's just bad business practice. That's all I want to say.

    Anon at 9:47 AM: Rafael has a navy version too, but what is the experience with that bird, how many in serice and for how long? Yes, Rafael has been wartime service too, but in what numbers and for how long? Rafael has an AESA, but since how long? How many copies of Rafael (all versions) are in service vs the copies of F-18E/F? Like I said earlier, I am no fan of the American suppliers, but Rafael is not equal to the superbug in the above comparison. Rafael does have it's goodness, such as it's load capacity, etc. But the initial cost is high as well. The fact is all 6 have something that the other 5 cannot provide. This will be a balancing act in the end.

  12. Well the Tejas Mk2 version for navy would be a better option & be ready by 2016 ,EF Typhoon would not be of much use then,therefore why 2 buy it 😉

  13. UK has rejected the naval version of Eurofighter in favour of JSF-35 so waht is the logic behind going for this plane?

  14. @anon@8:13pm who wrote "I see no way to transfer someone's thoughts and ideas, and that's the real tech that we need. Only way to get that is through out own blood, sweat, toil and tears…. there are no short-cuts"

    >> Please take a look at how GE has agreed to transfer the tech to China. Also please read up about how they went around acquiring tech for High Speed Rail from Bombardier and others. Keep this advice of deliberately toiling to yourself. There are others who have found short-cuts and leapt ahead.

    "Yes, their AESA is a generation or two ahead of the rest."
    >> The superiority that is NOT UNDER YOUR CONTROL is not guaranteed to serve you under all circumstances.

    "By the way I am no fan of US goods, but if our concers around supply guarentee are so big, we should have not included in the competition. I think it's unethical to give anyone a false hope…. It's just bad business practice."

    >> We never wanted them in. They barged in.

  15. @Anon8:13pm : Rafale, not Rafael! Rafale is French aircraft, Rafael israeli missiles maker, which does not (yet) equip the Rafale with its products ! Journalists often make the same spelling mistake, is it so difficult to write names properly ?

    For Rafale statistics (numbers in Air Force or Navy, ..), just check on the net, everything is available, as for the others. For sure Rafale is younger than F/A 18 E/F, that does not mean it is better or worse and nobody on this forum is probably qualified enough to say which AESA radar is better. The IAF probably does know after FETs. The same for the price of the six aircrafts, if you have information on how much they have been quoted for MMRCA, please share the info with us !

  16. @anon 7.51.
    you are right… The crux here is to acquire military independence, in design and production.it really doesn`t matter if they buy the technology, or steal it or reverse engineer it.
    what anon 8.13 says maybe an ideal business ethic but one must remember that "all is fair in war".

    Even China has stolen plans from the F-35 JSF program by breaking into their systems. The JF-17 Thunder was reverse engineered F-16, and the Chengdu J-20 was allegedly re-engineered by analysing RAM debris from the crashed US F-117A Nighthawk.

    Does it ring a bell?We need to be self-reliant if we were to match our neighbour. The mode of acquisition is irrelevant.

  17. I see a lot of comments but few things are really clear:
    1 – The Typhoon has much better performances of both Rafale and F-18.
    2 – Adapting the Typhoon to naval role is easy and not much costly
    3 – UK aerospace industry have built thousands of naval fighter since 1930's. They have experience to do that
    4 – the aircraft is made in composite, so no issues of corrosion etc.
    5 – the cost per flying hours of the Typhoon is not 70.000 but 15.000 (official quote from EF)
    6 – The Rafale has not an AESA radar yet. It will have one in 2018
    7 – The AESA radar of Rafale and F-18 are fixed plate, i.e. first AESA generation, no large field of regards etc.
    8 – let's see what will happen for the Royal Navy, the F-35C is large, costly and is just a bomber
    9 – Let's see what the Italian and the Spanish Navy will now that the F-35B is gone and the F-35C cannot operate on Italian and Spanish aircraft carriers
    10 – The Super Hornet is called also Super Slow, barely get supersonic. Is an aircrfat that cannot defend a Navy task force In teh US system it works because they have a layered defence system that no other navies can enjoy
    11 – The Rafale is…the Rafale. If zero have been exported probably there is a reason, right?

  18. Why are we even entertaining this farce? What's wrong with the MiG-29K and Tejas? Does the Navy want a logistical nightmare like the IAF?

    If the they yet another fighter so badly why not atleast go for the 5th gen F-35?

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