Dassault seems concerned that they'll lose on cost grounds right away. From AW&ST:






India Gearing Up for MMRCA Field Trials


AWIN First Mar 26 , 2009
Neelam Mathews mathews.neelam@gmail.com
New Delhi



The Indian air force is submitting its Flight Evaluation report on the candidate aircraft for its Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) to the Indian defense ministry, as the 126-aircraft acquisition nears its field trial phase.

After the ministry gives its blessing, the air force will invite vendors to start field trials in India, which are expected to begin at the end of June or beginning of July, and should take eight-nine months.

Heat and dust trials will be held in the desert region of Jaisalmer for 10-12 days. Trials in tropical conditions will take place in Bangalore for two-three days, and high-altitude trials will occupy a day in the mountainous region around Leh.

The trials could be completed this year, if five instead of six vendors are chosen, an official says. Otherwise, it may be delayed and spill into the middle of next year. Last August, proposals were submitted for the Boeing F/A-18, Lockheed Martin F-16, Eurofighter Typhoon, Mikoyan MiG-35, Saab Gripen and Dassault Rafale.

The final field trial phase will include weapons firing and electronic warfare in the vendors’ countries.

Vendors have been dismayed to see there are no bonus points for exceeding the requirements laid out in the MMRCA request for proposals.

Dassault late last year also expressed its concern over India’s focus on price. “We’re worried about the selection process in India. If you compare the Rafale with the lighter single-engine F-16 and Gripen, it is obvious that Rafale will be more expensive,” Dassault Aviation Senior Vice President Jean Pierre Chabriol said. “We’re surprised to see that if we’re overcompliant, we will be forgotten.”

Field trials for the MMRCA contenders were expected to be held immediately following the Bangalore air show in mid-February. Since the dates were not announced, Gripen and Rafale did not bring their aircraft to the air show.

Meanwhile, the air force has already summoned six of its best training pilots to assemble on April 1 at its head office here for a briefing, after which they will fly abroad to become familiar with the proposed aircraft prior to flight trials in India.

Is it me, or does India have an absurd amount of fighter projects going on at once?

There is the MMRCA competition, the HAL Tejas, the FGFA (Indian version of the yet-to-be-seen PAK-FA), plus the MCA program.

What a load of BS by Dassault. India is looking for an aircraft that fits in between the Sus and the Tejas and if they have no toher product to offer then the Rafale (India liked the M2k-9), then they must expect to be dropped form the list. Also it seems interesting that they see themselves as more expesinve as Typhoon.

India liked the M2K-9 so much that it decided to re-launch the competition in full knowledge that the Mirage 2000 would thereby be removed from contention. It knew production was about to end.

India refused to even evaluate Dassaults offer of the entire Mirage 2000 production line & full rights to do what it wanted to the plane.

The IAF liked the Mirage 2000 a lot. But the government wasn't interested.

BTW, why do you think Rafale doesn't fit between Tejas & Su-30? In size & weight, it is between them. If you exclude Rafale because it doesn't fit in there, you also exclude all the other aircraft. Gripen is very close to Tejas in size, & MiG-35 & F-18E are bigger & heavier than Rafale.

Perhaps it doesn't fit there in terms of cost. You might be able to buy an MKI and a Tejas for the price of a Rafale... On second thoughts, probably not...

Sounds like Dassault has entered the wrong competition then. Why should India pay extra for something they don't need if they can meet their own requirements at a lesser cost?

Dassault is trying to get bonus points for exceeding the requirement. If it succeeds, good luck. If not, so what? Dassaults problem.

Of course, if the Indians refuse to give any credit for exceeding the requirement, they should logically choose the cheapest aircraft which meets the requirements. It'll be interesting to see if that happens.

It seems to me that if a nation were to want to develop some indigenous design capability, it would be wise to see what lessons other nations have learned.

India has the LCA Tejas project going on. The MMRCA project only came on when IAF felt that the Tejas was taking too long and IAF could not afford to wait. They wanted to spur the LCA team instead of dragging their feet further.

The PAK-FA project is intended as the eventualy replacement of the Su-30 Sukhoi.

India needs to also replace its aging MiG-27s and Jaguars. Hopefully the PAK-FA can take some of the slack while the MMRCA can take that other slack.

The MCA program is just a program doing designs on papers and coming up with theoretical stuff. The MCA will most likely run in conjunction with the PAK-FA project.

Given the fact that India's military contracting (Especially aviation) is probably one of the few that could make the Pentagon say 'Look, we're not that much worse than other countries'

I wouldn't hold my breath for a result any time soon...

It's election year, so the trials will probably be delayed to wait for election results, then the selection will become a major point of contention for whoever wins the election, then the inevitable bribery scandal will break open, then a review by Conggress, then rejection and retender, by which point another election year would be looming on the horizon...

Unless the Third Front (Communists + regionals) come into power, elections wont have much effect on the MMRCA in terms of it being a scandal or whatever. Take a look at the MKI project and the MiG-21 Bison upgrades - they went ahead without cancellation despite protests and what not.

When it comes to defence - if the BJP comes into power - a very big if - the MRCA will definitely not be scrapped.

There is a deliberate reason why India has kept the specifications ambiguous and kept the competitors guessing - and with India, I mean the IAF & the MOD. For one, they get to choose exactly what they want, second, the Govt Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) does not whack them for not taking x which was cheaper than y.

Heres the more interesting thing- India's tenders have historically run on the L1 principle.

Meet the requirements and the cheapest contender wins the bid.

How the IAF et al have bypassed this is by going for the best product they can afford and making it a single vendor situation where they add more customisation etc and get what they wanted, eg the MKI project.

But in the interests of competitive bidding, transparency and avoiding allegations of corruption - the CAG is now insisting on a multi vendor process.

Add the L1 to this, and the disadvantages are obvious.

Now heres the crunch - in two recent deals, the LRMP where the Poseidon beat the Airbus, and in the IFR bid, where the Airbus A330 MRTT is expected to beat the IL78 - the losers are actually the cheaper bids!

So the establishment seems to have given the agreement on choosing the better offer, EVEN if it is not the cheaper one.

If so- then the MMRCA game changes rapidly - and the chances of the Rafale, Eurofighter and F/A-18 E/F increase by leaps and bounds.

Otherwise, on cost grounds (including Life cycle costs), the Gripen and F-16 would have been the front runners as single engine types.

Personally, I wouldnt go for either, but rather the EF or the Rafale. Expensive, yes, but capable over the long term with modern airframes.

The MMRCA project has been an AHQ dream for decades, and came into its own when the MiG-23 BN/MF fleet retirement came into the picture. It has little/nothing to do with the LCA. India plans a 3 tier aircraft structure - heavy, medium, light.

The current plan is that they will complement the MKI's not replace them. The MKI production will end in 2015 and the oldest aircraft will still have a fair bit of airframe life left when the PAK-FAs are expected to roll out.



MiG-27's yes. Jaguars are expected to soldier on for quite a while. An engine upgrade is on the cards and avionics upgrades are already completed for around a third of the fleet. The remaining will also get touched up. 40 MiG-27s have also been upgraded.



The MCA is actually an existing program - how it works is they take an approval in principle and begin work. But a formal budget proposal and development sanction is sought only once the entire thing is planned out. Lessons learnt over the years at a hard price.

Werent IAF MiG-27s and Jags upgraded pretty recently?

Yes, 40 each.

darin 3 for the remaining jaguars - each will have a radar as well most probably the elta 2032.

News

Rafale Out, MMRCA Field Trials by August


AWIN First Apr 16 , 2009
Neelam Mathews mathews.neelam@gmail.com
New Delhi




Dassault Aviation’s Rafale has been booted from competition for India’s 126 Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA).

This leaves the Boeing F/A-18, Lockheed Martin F-16, Eurofighter Typhoon, RSK MiG-35 and Saab Gripen in the race.

All the contenders were awaiting word from the Indian defense ministry on final dates for field trials, which they hoped would be this summer. Currently, officials seem to still disagree.

Flight trials will be held “anytime between July and August,” one defense official told Aviation Week. But another senior official said he did not expect the trials to start before September.

Nevertheless, things are moving fast. Aviation Week had learned recently that the Indian air force completed technical evaluation a few months ago and had submitted its Flight Evaluation report to the ministry.

The air force has already started meeting vendors and has asked them to forward 10 names each as required to do a site survey for security clearance. The vendors also are being asked to give their preferential time for flight evaluation.

In the first phase, the air force will send two teams of three pilots each to be familiarized and trained on vendors’ aircraft simulators.

In the second phase, flight trials will be conducted in India on two twin-seater aircraft. In India, a sortie will be made for heat and dust trials in the desert region of Jaisalmer lasting for two or three days, in Bengaluru for tropical conditions for 10-12 days, and in the mountainous region around Leh for a day of high-altitude trials.

It is expected, however, that the flight evaluation trials will be completed by March next year.

The final phase to be conducted in the vendor’s country, including flying a single-seater, will showcase weapons, radar and electronic weapons, as well as maintenance evaluation trials.

Rafale proponents previously let known their disappointment that an exhaustive matrix table had been laid out based on a basic minimum performance in the request for proposals, and that there were no bonus points on over-compliance.

Field trials once were expected immediately following the Bengaluru air show in mid-February. But since the dates were not announced, Gripen and Rafale did not bring their aircraft to the air show.

Earlier, many vendors Aviation Week spoke to said they hoped the down-select would be made before the trials to enable them to be completed this year. Some indicated since the cost of holding the trials exceeded $20 million, it would help in conserving cash in this global economic recession

since then, the IAF has publicly came out (yesterday I believe) and denied this, saying no participant has been kicked out.
A few months ago the same thing happened when news broke out the Gripen was dropped but in reality wasn't.