Rafale & MMRCA News and Discussions

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Victor
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Victor »

On the one hand we have Rafale costs going up and on the other, F-35 costs are coming down. If we think Rafale is expensive, wait till we back pedal to the Typhoon and deal with the real shopkeepers.

Russians have basically told us to buy FGFA off the shelf or take a hike and this is a plane which may or may not even be certifiably 5th gen.

If we cut our losses on both programs, the F-35 can do both jobs for half the price in about the same time frame. The smart thing to do is ask to join the F-35 program now and lock down as much as we can on offsets.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Cosmo_R »

NRao wrote:
And, they are ever eager to sell advanced techs to the Chinese too. What a cost multiplier that would be.

India would also be a captive client - and given the M2K, imagine a rafale MLU.
But they are our friends right?
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by NRao »

^^^^^

France? Lol

They are not even their own friends. Ot for here, but they will sell their grandmother if they could.

(I know your question was rhetoric.)

However, with both the Russians and French, I am betting they are technologically relatively bankrupt. Their industries IMHO need funds badly and that is not coming from their own governments - they have no major threat and therefore no need. But, they cannot allow their industry to be idle either. Thus my fear of long term high risk for India.

The risk is not in their technologies, but in their financials.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by abhik »

The countries which are signing up for the F-35 now are expecting their first deliveries in 2018. Even in the best case scenario the IAF will get start getting Rafaels only from 2017. To say that one "exists" and the other "does not exist" is absurd.
Sancho
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Sancho »

Viv S wrote:
I wouldn't have expressed dissent at this stage, had we awarded the contract to Saab. By most measures, Gripen is good value for money.


The Rafale on the other hand, is painfully expensive and, as is becoming increasingly clear, its prices will only rise given the French state's flagging commitment and the aircraft's fading export prospects. Also the capability it brings to the table is good but not particularly impressive.

And I'm bringing up the F-35, because it can realistically perform, what the Rafale can only claim i.e. the ability to carry out unescorted strikes in hostile/heavily disputed airspace. It will comfortably exceed even the PAKFA in that role. This wouldn't have been relevant if not for the FACT that it costs less than the Rafale, even though its in the LRIP stage and irrespective of whether it achieves the $85 million unit cost target.
There are a lot of mistakes in your argumentation! For example, you complain about Rafale coming only in 2017 (because the contract might be signed only next year), but prefered a fighter that is only fully developed by 2018?
Not to mention that Gripen would come mostly with similar costly European weapons that you criticised for the Rafale too (IRIS-T / METEOR, Taurus, RBS15), so the only cost advantage of the weapon pack could be SDB compared to AASM, if it's integrated.
Also keep in mind that the value of the price is not only calculated by the performance of the fighter, but also by the industrial, or political advantages, both areas where the Gripen falls short.

Your figures of Rafale and F35 costs are also flawed, the offer for MMRCA was submitted long ago and can't have a relation to the possible reduction of the French budget.
And as said by other members, you only took the cost for an F35 airframe, without engine or electronics..., the latest defence budget on the other side shows a price of $164 million each F35A, while the B and C versions are much higher and still rising:

http://comptroller.defense.gov/defbudge ... 014_p1.pdf

(Page 149, 150)

And the part about F35 doing unescorted strikes is just funny, when you take to account that it's requirements gets constantly reduced, because it doesn't meet them, or that it carries only 2 missiles in strike configs. It has the stealth advantage compared to Rafale, but lacks behind in many areas to FGFA and would fall short in performance, industrial and cost requirements of the MMRCA competition, which once again shows that it's a useless discussion.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Sancho »

NRao wrote: The risk is not in their technologies, but in their financials.
By that logic, we could only buy German arms today, since they are the only western country without big financial problems and we shouldn't go for US arms at all don't you think?

On the other side we see Dassault, Thales, or EADS making more and more deals (even with Russia), we see Russian industry recovering and going more and more to co-developments with European partners, which makes them more attractive for export customers again and share the costs. Just like nearly any major European defence project is a joint one today (NH90, A400, nEUROn,) and sooner or later they will form joint a European military as well, to counter the budget cuts of the countries alone and share budgets and responsibilties, so no need to worry about European defence. That's actually something that we have to learn and follow, but we still think about fully indigenous projects only, instead of joint developments with the Europeans and more with the Israelis.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by member_20292 »

NRao wrote:^^^^^

France? Lol

They are not even their own friends. Ot for here, but they will sell their grandmother if they could.

(I know your question was rhetoric.)

However, with both the Russians and French, I am betting they are technologically relatively bankrupt. Their industries IMHO need funds badly and that is not coming from their own governments - they have no major threat and therefore no need. But, they cannot allow their industry to be idle either. Thus my fear of long term high risk for India.

The risk is not in their technologies, but in their financials.
NRao ji....you have a lot of exposure to the French and their ways of working with the world? Those are pretty strong blanket opinions for an entire country.

My perception of French technology is a little bit different from the above. It's : 'French stuff is expensive+works and designed very well '.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by member_20292 »

Sancho wrote:
On the other side we see Dassault, Thales, or EADS making more and more deals (even with Russia), we see Russian industry recovering and going more and more to co-developments with European partners, which makes them more attractive for export customers again and share the costs. Just like nearly any major European defence project is a joint one today (NH90, A400, nEUROn,) and sooner or later they will form joint a European military as well, to counter the budget cuts of the countries alone and share budgets and responsibilties, so no need to worry about European defence. That's actually something that we have to learn and follow, but we still think about fully indigenous projects only, instead of joint developments with the Europeans and more with the Israelis.
And thus, we, as Indians, should move to a defence co-production future in which we have a lot of influence over European and American and Russian defence production companies. The Chinese are and should be left out of all of this activity. Long live totally indigenous Chinese design and production, and co-produced desi screwdriver technology!
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Lalmohan »

the french view aerospace technology as being critically strategic - and invest much more heavily in it than other europeans (also nuclear power tech)
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by NRao »

{Very slow AM}
By that logic, we could only buy German arms today, since they are the only western country without big financial problems and we shouldn't go for US arms at all don't you think?
I suspect you missed the point. It is not just the well being of the nation, but more so the need of that nation, which then will infuse the funds (if there is a need).
On the other side we see Dassault, Thales, or EADS making more and more deals (even with Russia), we see Russian industry recovering and going more and more to co-developments with European partners, which makes them more attractive for export customers again and share the costs. Just like nearly any major European defence project is a joint one today (NH90, A400, nEUROn,) and sooner or later they will form joint a European military as well, to counter the budget cuts of the countries alone and share budgets and responsibilities, so no need to worry about European defence. That's actually something that we have to learn and follow, but we still think about fully indigenous projects only, instead of joint developments with the Europeans and more with the Israelis.
Fine and dandy. But, which of these applies to India? And, even if they do not will France/Dassault divert funds from such projects to the continued development of the Rafale?

This is not a new point I am making. There used to be a French person who used to post very regularly on BR (some 7-10 years ago) and I used to debate him on this very point. Even the AESA radar that Thalle has - IMHO of course) was a semi-NEED for the French (nice to have, but we do not NEED it right now). Many items on the Rafale were funded by the French Gov, but not because they wanted/needed it - but to make the plane more exportable.

That support has/will vanish (with the current reduction in the French purchase of the Rafale AND their Govs instructions to Dassault to look at exports - I think that support HAS vanished).

So, if you were to look out into say 2030-40 time period, India will still have a HUGE need to maintain the Rafale fleet and France with a very, very low threat level will have even a further reduced NEED to keep the Rafale going.

Furthermore, the point you make that Europe will coalesce is proving my point.
Those are pretty strong blanket opinions for an entire country.
Apologies. That was a going joke on BR in the late 90s.

But supposedly the word on the street is that India is paying France to keep them from selling to Pakistan. And, as I noted, France has been at the forefront to sell high tech stuff to China. Nothing new in what they do, just that perhaps you have not heard that sentence before.
It's : 'French stuff is expensive+works and designed very well '
Very, very true.

But you are missing the point. In 2040 the Rafale MLU would be through the roof - India would be the only export nation to be running around using the Rafale.



Folks, The question I have is is the Rafale worth the cost? (I just happen to feel it is not worth it. The plane is great, France will part with MOST techs (NOT all), very well designed, built, support, etc, etc, etc. Cost is bad.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by negi »

I think we need to desist from bringing in variables like weak financial system, cultural leanings of a nation and such stuff into these kind of threads . Firstly such sweeping statements are difficult to substantiate and secondly they are tangential to the topic at hand . The MMRCA deal took more than a decade to materialize and mind you we are yet to actually ink the details with the French with this in mind it is only kiddish and absurd to question the merits of a platform chosen by the IAF post exhaustive trails and that too what has been the trigger for this debate ? That LM have in recent months has been reported to bring the unit cost of F-35 airframe sans the engine below 100 million USD a piece ? Isn't this being too fickle ?

Al that being said where is the JSF even ready ? The Rafale actually operates as we speak it has served in operations where a platform under test is not even sanctioned to go.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by NRao »

"fickle"? Perhaps. Not an issue here - but understand that it could be to most.

Specifically on the JSF (which I do not think is coming to India) the costs are nailed down - LM and partners are bearing any cost over runs here on out. So, the thinking that they are struggling to keep the cost low really does not apply - LM will pick up whatever it is struggling with. Furthermore, the JSF is a FMS contract - again the cost is a known factor.

And, when one takes into account that the JSF will be around for a while - meaning proper support, spares, the very best in supply chain (even France does not come close - at cost). IMHO, it is the lowest "risk" (with teh highest techs - so the RoI (IMHO) is the best of the lot).

WRT the Rafale - the M2K is a great example of what can happen.

But, I think the Rafale will come. And, it will be a huge expense to India in the future - short and long. But, if that is what India wants, that is what she should
get.
such sweeping statements are difficult to substantiate and secondly they are tangential to the topic at hand
Totally disagree. But, that is a diff matter. SO carry on. I will perhaps slide out.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Viv S »

Sancho wrote:There are a lot of mistakes in your argumentation! For example, you complain about Rafale coming only in 2017 (because the contract might be signed only next year), but prefered a fighter that is only fully developed by 2018?
On the contrary, what I was pointing out was that an aircraft delivered in 2017, would presumably be priced differently than one delivered in 2010.

And I brought up the F-35's 2018 schedule to illustrate the fact that its not some 'future' fighter being compared to 'here-and-now' Rafale. Thanks to the delay in the MMRCA's schedule, they're both available in almost the same time frame. Difference is that in 2017, the Rafale will be a mature but still aging fighter, while the F-35 (like the IN's P-8s) will be at forefront in terms of technology.

Not to mention that Gripen would come mostly with similar costly European weapons that you criticised for the Rafale too (IRIS-T / METEOR, Taurus, RBS15), so the only cost advantage of the weapon pack could be SDB compared to AASM, if it's integrated.
My criticism was that the Rafale's weapons complement far from being an advantage (as some were claiming) is a liability. Even assuming the Rafale purchase goes through, my (fading) hope is that the munitions will be sourced from Raytheon/Boeing instead of Sagem/MBDA.

In the event of a Gripen purchase too I'd have hoped for an US weapons package; the AIM-120, AIM-9, SDB, JDAM are already operational on it, as is the Litening III pod. As for the cruise missile, its already being acquired by the IAF independently for the entire fleet. The KEPD 350 is the running, but the JASSM and JSOW probably have the edge.

Also keep in mind that the value of the price is not only calculated by the performance of the fighter, but also by the industrial, or political advantages, both areas where the Gripen falls short.
Political concerns are (or at least should be) secondary, since there's no way to accurate measure their value. The benefits accrued via the commonality with the Tejas on the other hand can be ascertained in monetary terms.

Your figures of Rafale and F35 costs are also flawed, the offer for MMRCA was submitted long ago and can't have a relation to the possible reduction of the French budget.
First off, the figures I quoted were for 2010. Hardly irrelevant to the MMRCA.

Secondly, the commercial bid placed by Dassault expired on 31st March 2013. Unless the company's decided to pass on the cost of inflation to its shareholders, fact is those figures are no longer valid.

And as said by other members, you only took the cost for an F35 airframe, without engine or electronics..., the latest defence budget on the other side shows a price of $164 million each F35A, while the B and C versions are much higher and still rising:

http://comptroller.defense.gov/defbudge ... 014_p1.pdf

(Page 149, 150)
Those aren't production costs. :)

Not unless the F-22A is still in production. You may have attached the wrong document, suggest you check it again (page 149-150 had nothing to do with the F-35).

And the part about F35 doing unescorted strikes is just funny, when you take to account that it's requirements gets constantly reduced, because it doesn't meet them, or that it carries only 2 missiles in strike configs. It has the stealth advantage compared to Rafale, but lacks behind in many areas to FGFA and would fall short in performance, industrial and cost requirements of the MMRCA competition, which once again shows that it's a useless discussion.
The Rafale cannot enter airspace as well as defended as the PLAAF's, without featuring prominently on its AEW&C and ADGE network, while its still a long long way off. This isn't Libya with an abundance of holes in its tattered air defences, to be exploited.

The F-35 can carry upto 8 SDBs internally for tactical strikes in a stealth configuration. And in a relatively low threat environment like Libya, it can match the Rafale, with a payload of two fuel tanks, 16 SDBs, 4 AIM-120Ds and 2 AIM-9Xs.
Last edited by Viv S on 25 Oct 2013 19:13, edited 1 time in total.
Mihir
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Mihir »

negi wrote:Al that being said where is the JSF even ready ? The Rafale actually operates as we speak it has served in operations where a platform under test is not even sanctioned to go.
There are far more pretty pictures and documentaries and yee-haw Popular Mechanics fluff pieces on the JSF than the Rafale. Why would that be the case if the JSF weren't already better than the Rafale? My sources also tell me that the LRIP-8 cost is expected to fall even further since they won't include the wings in their calculations :rotfl:

In the meantime...
Among the numerous oversight shortcomings, the IG found that JPO failed to:
  • Ensure that Lockheed Martin and its subcontractors were applying rigor to design, manufacturing, and quality assurance processes.
  • Flow down critical safety item requirements.
  • Ensure that Lockheed Martin flowed down quality assurance and technical requirements to subcontractors.
  • Establish an effective quality assurance organization.
  • Ensure that the Defense Contract Management Agency perform adequate quality assurance oversight.
  • In addition, the Defense Contract Management Agency did not sufficiently perform Government quality assurance oversight of F-35 contractors.
After all this, we still have people believing that it was a good idea to build 75 aircraft (with more on the way) while basic problems still haven't been solved.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by pragnya »

NRao wrote: Very, very true.

But you are missing the point. In 2040 the Rafale MLU would be through the roof - India would be the only export nation to be running around using the Rafale.
are you saying even till 2040, Dassault will not be able to sell Rafale to any other customer (other than India)?? what do you base it on that makes you so sure??
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by negi »

Nrao sir

We all are entitled to our opinions my question is in your post what are the hard numbers there for anyone to make a case ?

Lets step back a little and see what we have.

1. Rafale is OPERATIONAL JSF is NOT , Can you or me say or predict as to when will it be ready for any user to evaluate it ? It will be a GUESS.
2. JSF is by and large a US product it WILL COME with EUMA and CISMOA , you cannot refute it just because you wish otherwise there is simply no precedent to indicate otherwise. Is it a BIG deal ? For you may be NO for me YES , do you know about the IAF ? I guess your guess is as good as mine.
3. Rafale has cleared the IAF's evaluation , it has met the Ministry of Finance's numbers in terms of the lowest bidder . JSF is not even in picture there. Just based on LRIP numbers being pubished by LM you can only make educated guesses about it's cost to India but it is a guess at the end of the day . Rafale has been sanctioned by an otherwise frugal MOF which has in the past turned down platforms just because they were expensive and this despite IAF clearing them (I think the Airbus tanker was one such example).


Apart from unit fly way COST (again just the unit FLY away cost , no one knows here about actual lifecycle costs not even the USAF, yet ) number what are your or Viv's arguments to call for cancellation of a deal which has been struck after a rigorous series of field tests ?

I already see other tangential excuses creeping in as to how Dassault has failed to sell Rafale to other countries and hence we should not buy it seriously ? Guys for a moment can we put a little faith in our processes and no not the MOD at least the IAF ?
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by SaiK »

our processes has to be time bound .. no? how can I put a 'little faith' in a process that has taken 15 years? now tell me did we change our requirements over the 15 years of wait? can we table what are the requirement changes here if available?
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by pragnya »

+1 negi sir.

in view of -

1. Rafale is selected. unless the govt decides it is not tenable and cancels the deal F-35 or any other aircraft doesn't come into the picture.

2. even in the event IAF/MOD decide to go for F 35, when are the possible deliveries going to be?? first the F 35 partners need to be delivered besides the 'huuuuge' order for the US services. i don't see the deliveries to IAF happening before 2022 at the least and IAF needed the MRCA 5-8 yrs back.

3. it is well possible the IAF may reduce the numbers to accomadate the budget just the way they did for the FGFA. besides we don't even know what is the 'real' cost quoted by the Dassault in the bid.

so why all this when it is not even on the table.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Viv S »

Lalmohan wrote:the french view aerospace technology as being critically strategic - and invest much more heavily in it than other europeans (also nuclear power tech)
True. Unfortunately, while the cost of technology is rising, French budgets are falling and most important they simply cannot manufacture at the scale required to remain competitive. In the past it could rely on exports to at least partially underwrite development costs, but even that's not viable anymore since European defence spending continues to fall and the Americans dominate the Pacific Rim markets.

pragnya wrote:are you saying even till 2040, Dassault will not be able to sell Rafale to any other customer (other than India)?? what do you base it on that makes you so sure??
Post 2020, the Rafale's prospects diminish even further.

In East and South East Asia, the major spenders i.e. Japan, South Korea & Singapore are all but committed to the F-35. Others like Malaysia or Indonesia will at best buy more Su-30MKM/MK2s to bolster their small fleets.

In South America, the only country that can afford a modern fighter is Brazil and its program has been stalled for a while now, before which the SH and Gripen had effectively reduced the Rafale to the status of an also-ran.

Most of Europe too has signed up for the F-35 and those that are undecided/reconsidering are eyeing the economical choice i.e. the Gripen.

Finally, the Middle East (plus Maghreb) ; here prospects for the Rafale seemed fairly bright, with sales to Morocco, Libya and UAE being almost assured, less than a decade ago. Since then Morocco has opted for the F-16 and Libya has, quite literally, been bombed by the Rafale. The GCC is looking to create a common defence policy (plus joint defence force). Two of the GCC states (Saudi Arabia & Oman) already operate the Eurofighter, which is in talks with UAE and Bahrain, and predictably on Qatar and Kuwait's radar as well now.


Given the Rafale's ballooning cost, India remains Dassault's best and only bet.
Last edited by Viv S on 25 Oct 2013 21:00, edited 2 times in total.
NRao
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by NRao »

Negi,

Rafale is coming.

And, I am NOT proposing the JSF for any Indian situation (I just do not agree that the JSF is a "turkey" - right now). There are other issues I have with your post, but that is OK. Would like to move along.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by NRao »

pragnya wrote:
NRao wrote: Very, very true.

But you are missing the point. In 2040 the Rafale MLU would be through the roof - India would be the only export nation to be running around using the Rafale.
are you saying even till 2040, Dassault will not be able to sell Rafale to any other customer (other than India)?? what do you base it on that makes you so sure??
Per Wiki:

Code: Select all

Operational:
  France:
     France AF: 84
     French Navy: 38
     Expected: 180

Potential Operators:
  India: 126 + 64 (will go through)
  Canada: No idea (IMO dead)
  Brazil: 36 (On-going?)
  Kuwait: 22 (on-going)
  Qatar: 36 (2012)
  UAE: 60 (on-going?)

Failed bids:
  South Korea: (40)
  Singapore: 
  UK: 
  Switzerland:
  Libya:
  Morocco:
  Oman:
My final tally:
France: 180
India: 180
ME: 110 (IF at all)

I do not see any others on the horizon. Please let me know if you/anyone do.

However, no matter what, as we have seen with the MKI (and perhaps other purchases) Indian purchases are large (nearly in every instance India is the 2nd biggest operator after the natives) and they are unique. As time goes by I would expect a ton of Indian "stuff" to be integrated with the MMRCA. Something others, including the French AF, will not need and India will need in large quantities. India is a very different situation/environment.
Last edited by NRao on 25 Oct 2013 21:18, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by vishvak »

France is energy independent because of local nuke industry. Same for Aero space industry. That by itself is major achievement wrt other countries. Same with Russia. Plus Russia has oil too. We should be securing spares for its lifetime from lessons learnt and get as much ToT as possible. As far as USA is concerned we should keep in mind sanctions regimes and selective exceptions to exactly same sanctions in dealings with its own stretegic partner Pakistan.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Viv S »

negi wrote:1. Rafale is OPERATIONAL JSF is NOT , Can you or me say or predict as to when will it be ready for any user to evaluate it ? It will be a GUESS.
True. Then again, the Indian Navy signed on for the P-8 MMA, well before its IOC. One the best decisions taken by the MoD to date.

2. JSF is by and large a US product it WILL COME with EUMA and CISMOA , you cannot refute it just because you wish otherwise there is simply no precedent to indicate otherwise. Is it a BIG deal ? For you may be NO for me YES , do you know about the IAF ? I guess your guess is as good as mine.
Again true. The main objection to the CISMOA and BECA is that these are 'set-piece' agreements presented by the US. Given that the AH-64D is already on its way, with UAV/UCAVs and AEW&C aircraft (E-2D) under evaluation, a solution needs to be found, of which non-standard agreement/treaty negotiated bilaterally is the most viable.
In any case, its worth examining.

3. Rafale has cleared the IAF's evaluation , it has met the Ministry of Finance's numbers in terms of the lowest bidder . JSF is not even in picture there. Just based on LRIP numbers being pubished by LM you can only make educated guesses about it's cost to India but it is a guess at the end of the day . Rafale has been sanctioned by an otherwise frugal MOF which has in the past turned down platforms just because they were expensive and this despite IAF clearing them (I think the Airbus tanker was one such example).
At the same time, there still remains the fact that its been under negotiations for almost two year after its selection, and it seems likely to take even longer. Something appears to have gone wrong.

Apart from unit fly way COST (again just the unit FLY away cost , no one knows here about actual lifecycle costs not even the USAF, yet ) number what are your or Viv's arguments to call for cancellation of a deal which has been struck after a rigorous series of field tests ?
I might have agreed if the Rafale's flyaway cost was even (marginally) cheaper, as the total cost could still presumably have been low, and worth it given the ToT considerations and higher offset requirement.

But you can see how one would become skeptical, when the Rafale's production turns out to cost at least 50% more than the F-35. Even assuming lower life-cycle costs, its a prospect that worries, especially since the PLAAF will be inducting the J-20 and J-31 in the same time-frame (though they will take some time to attain full operationality).
Last edited by Viv S on 25 Oct 2013 23:23, edited 1 time in total.
pragnya
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by pragnya »

NRao sir,

i wish i could see 27 years into the future and predict TODAY so confidently as you did!!! that too when you yourself note 'on going' competitions which are not closed yet besides new opportunities which may crop up in 27 years - which nobody knows, not even Dassault!!!

Bravo.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Viv S »

Eric Trapp, Dassault President and CEO interview excerpt. (I'll remove it if its been posted before.)




Not a very good translation but gives out the gist.





- Last year you won an exclusive tender in India Procurement fighter Rafale. However, the contract with the Indian Ministry of Defence is still not signed. Does your company have time to sign him before the presidential elections in India, scheduled for July 2014?

- ( smiles.) And that Russian is so well versed in what is happening in India?

- This theme is very interested in Russian aviation industry.

- Prepares a huge contract. Rafale sale to India - it is for us something very important. Negotiations began last year, they continue, all is going well. It is always difficult to predict the date of the end of negotiations and the signing of the contract. But we are seeing more activity on the part of our team and the Indian authorities. On such a huge deal to a lot of the time. Everything is complicated by the fact that the Rafale will be manufactured in India - requires a detailed agreement with the Indian aviapromyshlennikami. I am confident that this contract will be signed. And what will happen next year in connection with the Indian elections, I do not presume to comment.

- What is the total amount of the contract?

- That's confidential information, you must ask this from the Indian government.



- As far as the estimate of $ 20 billion?

- No, it's much more.




- Tell us about the cooperation with the Russian company KRTV. Will come with her Indian Rafale aircraft weapons?

- I can not comment on it. Rafale equipment is entirely dependent on the contract with the Government of India, it must address these. This is the first. And second, if the Indian authorities decide to equip their aircraft by Russian rockets and if the French authorities will give this good, I do not see any problem in having to work with the Russian manufacturers and integrate their product.

- Why are your negotiations with India before entering into a contract for the supply of Rafale took a few years?

- The contract is huge and affects the interests of a large group of industrialists, since we are talking about an assembly in India. In India, we have a company with which we are working on this contract. To settle all takes time. But, in my opinion, for India, it is even very fast! ( smiles.) I know India and I can say that for a contract of this importance our discussion moved soon enough.


http://www.vedomosti.ru/library/news/17 ... i?full#cut



NOTE: Only 126 aircraft are being negotiated for at the moment. Follow-on orders are invariably placed only after the object has been commissioned into service.
NRao
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by NRao »

pragnya wrote: ^
NRao sir,

i wish i could see 27 years into the future and predict TODAY so confidently as you did!!! that too when you yourself note 'on going' competitions which are not closed yet besides new opportunities which may crop up in 27 years - which nobody knows, not even Dassault!!!

Bravo.
You do not have to wish, get a degree in predictive analytics and you too can join the crowd. Nothing great there.

I do not know what Dassault knows, but, I came to this conclusion based on what is out there in open source - part of which I provided above. (You chose not to consider the one reason I provided there.) (Note: If data set changes, so would my conclusion/s.)

From two months ago, Here is another data set, but, same conclusion:
"If UAE is signed, this could put pressure on India, which would be the only export customer for Rafale and could bring Typhoon back into the picture, although India is not in our forecasts or expectations," they say.
It is not rocket science. It would help you IF you read more - do not have to agree.


Also, I would suggest that you read up on what transpired between dassault and the UAE - I feel that is a critical (and expensive) exchange that will play out with India some time.
Philip
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Location: India

Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Philip »

US allies will never be allowed to buy anything other than US warbirds.It is a fact of life,Uncle Sam has its allies by their ghoolies! European fighters from the three remaining stables have to look for business from elsewhere,especially the (once) oil-rich M-E/Gulf states.Even here Uncle Sam generally has the first sip of the crude.Rafale's chances of exports depend hugely upon the Indian deal.The deal seems to have stumbled upon a large boulder ,local production,the agencies who will absorb the TOT,quality assurances,etc. After the collapse of the whoopie,the price has become an additional negative factor.However,there is nothing left in the IAF's "what if" kitty,but more of the same,Sukhois or MIGs as cost-effective "band-aid" remedies,unless we want to trash the TOT and simply buy the bird and some key tech,postponing the painful cost of medicine (spares,etc.) for future generations.

In a blast from the past,the late sage,Air Cmde. Jasjit Singh,writing in VAYU in 2006 (Looking Ahead :The IAF in 2032), espoused two decades ago in the '90s,when there was a resource crunch affecting modernisation,recommended reopening the MIG-21 line as a "cushion" for the time it would take to develop the LCA.At that time,both the Chinese and Pakis were going in for upgraded MIGs too (F-7s).At that time,manufacturing the MIG-21 cost us a staggering 1.2 crores a piece! Imagine if we had reopened the line and built 100+ Bis versions,which could've been turned into Bisons,for less than $3-5M a piece at today's prices. A decade ago we on BR ,Shiv would remember well,were espousing the same.Going by the same commonsense,the alternative today that will be easiest to absorb would be buying more single-seat MIG-29s upto UG std. (like the IN's 29Ks) which can later on be raised to MIG-35 std.,TVC,etc.or even right away if available at reasonable cost.They would be around half as expensive as the MKIs,with one pilot less and certainly more capable than the LCA which is limping along, trying to breast the tape after its marathon race which began way back in the '80s.
pragnya
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by pragnya »

NRao wrote:You do not have to wish, get a degree in predictive analytics and you too can join the crowd. Nothing great there.

I do not know what Dassault knows, but, I came to this conclusion based on what is out there in open source - part of which I provided above. (You chose not to consider the one reason I provided there.) (Note: If data set changes, so would my conclusion/s.)
i will consider your suggestion on 'predictive analytics' but am not joining the crowd. :lol:
From two months ago, Here is another data set, but, same conclusion:
"If UAE is signed, this could put pressure on India, which would be the only export customer for Rafale and could bring Typhoon back into the picture, although India is not in our forecasts or expectations," they say.
It is not rocket science. It would help you IF you read more - do not have to agree.

Also, I would suggest that you read up on what transpired between dassault and the UAE - I feel that is a critical (and expensive) exchange that will play out with India some time.
what makes you think i am not reading any?? and simply jumping in??

situations are not set in stone. they are ever fluid and can swing whichever way. consider these -

http://vanguardcanada.com/mission-satis ... apability/

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/ ... 2C20130619
arthuro
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by arthuro »

The rafale vs F35 comparison is irrelevant as the F35 was never a serious option for the IAF and for good reasons :

-The F35 is much more expensive to buy and operate than the rafale. Even countries traditionally politically close to the US like Canada are considering an open competition with the rafale due to F35 huge price tag.
-There is close to no room for industrial cooperation with the F35 for india
-ToT would be extremely limited for India with the F35 and with no access to source codes
-With no access to source codes and no license build F35, india would become completely dependent from the US.

It seems that there is a bunch of armchair generals that still can't swallow the result of a fair and transparent tender.

Besides the LCA Mk2, mk3 whatever is just dreaming at this stage. Just look at facts and how long it took to bring the regular LCA which is not even operational in large numbers despite being designed as a cheap, simple, lightweight fighter. For this reason future standards do not look very credible. Furthermore the LCA is a very small, lightweight fighter and it is very limited "by design" in terms of range and carrying capabilities.
arthuro
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by arthuro »

Here is a critical and well documented analysis that counterbalances the Lockheed Martin and its supporter media offensive that is often copy past on forum with any critical sense:

America’s F35s: Can’t turn, can’t climb, can’t run
AUGUST 19, 2013
POSTED IN: DEFENSE TECHNOLOGY, HEADLINES, SECURITY

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter was meant to improve the U.S. air arsenal but has made it more vulnerable instead
From all the recent sounds of celebrating coming out of Washington, D.C., you might think the Pentagon’s biggest, priciest and most controversial warplane development had accelerated right past all its problems.

The price tag —currently an estimated $1 trillion to design, build and operate 2,400 copies—is steadily going down. Production of dozens of the planes a year for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps is getting easier. Daily flight tests increasingly are hitting all the right marks.

Or so proponents would have you believe.

“The program appears to have stabilized,” Michael Sullivan from the Government Accountability Office told Congress. “I’m encouraged by what I’ve seen,” chimed in Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, head of the program on the government side. When War is Boring asked Lockheed spokesman Laura Siebert about the F-35, she said she expected a “much more positive” article than usual owing to what she described as the program’s “significant progress.”

But the chorus of praise is wrong. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter — a do-it-all strike jet being designed by Lockheed Martin to evade enemy radars, bomb ground targets and shoot down rival fighters — is as troubled as ever. Any recent tidbits of apparent good news can’t alter a fundamental flaw in the plane’s design with roots going back decades.

Owing to heavy design compromises foisted on the plane mostly by the Marine Corps, the F-35 is an inferior combatant, seriously outclassedby even older Russian and Chinese jets that can fly faster and farther and maneuver better. In a fast-moving aerial battle, the JSF “is a dog … overweight and underpowered,” according to Winslow Wheeler, director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Project on Government Oversight in Washington, D.C.

And future enemy planes, designed strictly with air combat in mind, could prove even deadlier to the compromised JSF.

It doesn’t really matter how smoothly Lockheed and the government’s work on the new warplane proceeds. Even the best-manufactured JSF is a second-rate fighter where it actually matters — in the air, in life-or-death combat against a determined foe. And that could mean a death sentence for American pilots required to fly the vulnerable F-35.

‘Can’t turn, can’t climb, can’t run’

The F-35′s inferiority became glaringly obvious five years ago in a computer simulation run by John Stillion and Harold Scott Perdue, two analysts at RAND, a think tank in Santa Monica, California. Founded in 1948, RAND maintains close ties to the Air Force. The air arm provides classified data, and in return RAND games out possible war scenarios for government planners.

In Stillion and Perdue’s August 2008 war simulation, a massive Chinese air and naval force bore down on Beijing’s longtime rival Taiwan amid rising tensions in the western Pacific. A sudden Chinese missile barrage wiped out the tiny, outdated Taiwanese air force, leaving American jet fighters based in Japan and Guam to do battle with Beijing’s own planes and, hopefully, forestall a bloody invasion.

In the scenario, 72 Chinese jets patrolled the Taiwan Strait. Just 26 American warplanes — the survivors of a second missile barrage targeting their airfields — were able to intercept them, including 10 twin-engine F-22 stealth fighters that quickly fired off all their missiles.

That left 16 of the smaller, single-engine F-35s to do battle with the Chinese. As they began exchanging fire with the enemy jets within the mathematical models of the mock conflict, the results were shocking.

America’s newest stealth warplane and the planned mainstay of the future Air Force and the air arms of the Navy and Marine Corps, was no match for Chinese warplanes. Despite their vaunted ability to evade detection by radar, the JSFs were blown out of the sky. “The F-35 is double-inferior,” Stillion and Perdue moaned in their written summaryof the war game, later leaked to the press.

The analysts railed against the new plane, which to be fair played only a small role in the overall simulation. “Inferior acceleration, inferior climb [rate], inferior sustained turn capability,” they wrote. “Also has lower top speed. Can’t turn, can’t climb, can’t run.” Once missiles and guns had been fired and avoiding detection was no longer an option — in all but the first few seconds of combat, in other words — the F-35 was unable to keep pace with rival planes.

And partly as a result, the U.S. lost the simulated war. Hundreds of computer-code American air crew perished. Taiwan fell to the 1s and 0s representing Chinese troops in Stillion and Perdue’s virtual world. Nearly a century of American air superiority ended among the wreckage of simulated warplanes, scattered across the Pacific.

In a September 2008 statement Lockheed shot back against the war game’s results, insisting the F-35 was capable of “effectively meeting” the “aggressive operational challenges” presented in the Taiwan scenario. RAND backed away from the report, claiming it was never about jet-to-jet comparisons, and Stillion and Perdue soon left the think tank. Stillion is now at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments think tank in Washington, D.C. Perdue currently works for Northrop Grumman.

Steve O’Bryan, a Lockheed vice president and former fighter pilot, targeted the war game analysis and its authors. “It was policy people who did that report, [people] with no airplane experience,” O’Bryan said, adding that many critics of the F-35 “are people who are self-proclaimed experts who live in their mom’s basement and wear slippers to work.”

But Stillion and Perdue are both veteran aviators. Stillion flew in RF-4 recon planes and Perdue in F-15s during the Gulf War. “I don’t live in my mom’s basement,” Perdue said.

Even if its results were disputable, the 2008 war game should have been a wake-up call. Since the mid-1990s the Pentagon has utterly depended on the F-35 to replenish its diminishing arsenal of warplanes built mostly in the 1970s and 1980s. If there’s even a small chance the new plane can’t fight, the Pentagon should be very, very worried.

Indeed, the military should have been concerned more than 40 years ago. “What you have to understand is that problems with the F-35 are the result of pathological decision-making patterns that go back at least to the 1960s,” explained Chuck Spinney, a retired Defense Department analyst and whistleblower whom one senator called the “conscience of the Pentagon.”

Among the pathologies inherent in the F-35′s design, by far the most damaging is the result of a peculiar institutional obsession by one of the new plane’s three main customers. Early on, the Marine Corps contrived to equip the JSF as a “jump jet,” able to take off and land vertically like a helicopter — a gimmick that the Marines have long insisted would make its fighters more flexible, but which has rarely worked in combat.

The JSF comes in three variants — one each for the Air Force, Navy and Marines — all sharing a mostly common fuselage, engine, radar and weapons. The wings and vertical-takeoff gear vary between models.

Altogether the three F-35 variants are meant to replace around a dozen older plane types from half a dozen manufacturers, ranging from the Air Force’s maneuverable, supersonic F-16 to the slow-flying, heavily armored A-10 and, most consequentially, the Marines’ AV-8B Harrier, an early-generation jump jet whose unique flight characteristics do not blend well with those of other plane types.

Engineering compromises forced on the F-35 by this unprecedented need for versatility have taken their toll on the new jet’s performance. Largely because of the wide vertical-takeoff fan the Marines demanded, the JSF is wide, heavy and has high drag, and is neither as quick as an F-16 nor as toughly constructed as an A-10. The jack-of-all-trades JSF has become the master of none.

And since the F-35 was purposely set up as a monopoly, replacing almost every other warplane in the Pentagon’s inventory, there are fewer and fewer true alternatives. In winning the 2001 competition to build the multipurpose JSF, Lockheed set a course to eventually becoming America’s sole active builder of new-generation jet fighters, leaving competitors such as Boeing pushing older warplane designs.

Which means that arguably the worst new jet fighter in the world, which one Australian military analyst-turned-politician claimed would be “clubbed like baby seals” in combat, could soon also be America’sonly new jet fighter.

Where once mighty American warplanes soared over all others, giving Washington a distinct strategic advantage against any foe, in coming decades the U.S. air arsenal will likely be totally outclassed on a plane-by-plane basis by any country possessing the latest Russian and Chinese models — one of which, ironically, appears to be an improved copy of the JSF … minus all its worst design elements.

If the unthinkable happens and sometime in the next 40 years a real war — as opposed to a simulation — breaks out over Taiwan or some other hot spot, a lot of U.S. jets could get shot down and a lot of American pilots killed. Battles could be lost. Wars could be forfeit.

World war origins

The oldest of the roughly 50 F-35 prototypes currently in existence is barely seven years old, having flown for the first time in December 2006. But the new plane’s design origins stretch back much farther, to a time before China was a rising world power — and even before jet engines. In many ways, America’s new, universal jet was born in the confusion, chaos and bloodshed of World War II’s jungle battlefields.

In August 1942 a force of U.S. Marines stormed ashore on Guadalcanal, part of the Solomons island chain in the South Pacific. Less than a year after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. and its allies were still fighting a defensive action against Japanese forces. The Guadalcanal landing was meant to blunt Tokyo’s advance.

But the lightly-equipped Marines ended up surrounded and all but abandoned after Japanese ships wiped out a portion of the Allied fleet. The Navy withdrew its precious aircraft carriers, and for months the Japanese planes, opposed by only a handful of Marine fighters flying from a crude beachhead airstrip, pounded the hapless Americans.

Robert Leckie, a Marine rifleman on Guadalcanal, described one of his squadmates breaking under the strain. The rattled Marine grabbed a light machine gun — a totally ineffective weapon against airplanes — and charged against a strafing Japanese Zero fighter. “He could not bear huddling in the pit while the Jap [sic] made sport of us,” Leckie wrote in his memoir Helmet for my Pillow.

Luckily, the Marine survived his nearly suicidal confrontation with the Zero. But as an organization, the Marine Corps was forever changed by its exposure on Guadalcanal. “The lesson learned was that the U.S. Marine Corps needed to be able to bring its air power with it over the beach because the large-deck Navy aircraft carriers might not always be there,” said Ben Kristy, an official Marine historian.

In the 1950s and ‘60s the Corps bought hundreds of helicopters, a new invention at the time. But what it really wanted was a fighter plane that could launch from the same amphibious assault ships that hauled Marine ground troops. These big assault ships had flat helicopter flight deck areas, but with neither the catapults nor the runway length to support the big, high-performance planes favored by the Navy.

The Marines wanted a “jump jet” capable of taking off from these helicopter decks with a short rolling takeoff and returning to land vertically, lighter because of all the fuel it had burned.

Besides launching from amphibious ships, the new planes were touted to fly in support of ground troops from so-called “lilypads” —100 foot concrete patches supposedly quickly installed near the front lines.

The concept became known to engineers as Vertical/Short Takeoff and Landing (V/STOL) or Short Takeoff and Vertical Landing (STOVL). It was subject to extensive, crash-plagued experimentation throughout the early years of the jet age — every STOVL or V/STOL prototype from 1946 to 1966 crashed. “USMC interest in a working V/STOL attack aircraft outstripped the state of aeronautical technology,” Kristy pointed out.

Then in the late ‘60s a British company invented a new jet with complex, rotating engine nozzles that could point downward to provide vertical lift, allowing it to launch from short airstrips or small ships. The Marines fell blindly in love with this temperamental new plane, nicknamed Harrier after a low-flying hawk, and schemed to acquire it for their own air wings.

The Navy was the biggest obstacle. The sailing branch controls the Marines’ weapons funding and was not keen to invest in a single-use airplane that only the Corps wanted. At the time the Navy was working with the Air Force on the F-111, an early attempt at a one-size-fits-all jet that the Pentagon believed would replace nearly all older planes with a single, multipurpose model.

Thanks to what Kristy described as “very, very shrewd political maneuvering,” a small group of Marine officers alternately convinced and tricked Congress, the Navy and the U.S. aerospace industry into taking a chance on the Harrier. The Corps ended up buying more than 400 of the compact planes through the 1990s.

But the Harrier, so appealing in theory, has been a disaster in practice. Fundamentally, the problem is one of lift. A plane taking off vertically gets no lift from the wings. All the flight forces must come from the downward engine blast. Forcing the motor to do all the work results in three design drawbacks: a big, hot engine with almost no safety margin; an unsafe airframe that must be thinly built with tiny wings in order to keep the plane’s weight less than the down-thrust of the engine; and minimal fuel and weapons load, also to save weight.

As a result, in vertical mode the Harrier carries far fewer bombs than conventional fighters and also lacks their flying range. And the concentrated downward blast of the Harrier’s vertical engine nozzles melts asphalt and kicks up engine-destroying dirt, making it impossible to operate from roads or even manicured lawns.

In the 1991 Gulf War, the front-line concrete lily pads never showed up, so the jump jet had to fly from distant full-size bases or assault ships. With their very limited fuel, they were lucky to be able to put in five or 10 minutes supporting Marines on the ground — and they proved tremendously vulnerable to machine guns and shoulder-fired missiles.

Even when it isn’t launching and landing vertically or being shot at, the Harrier is delicate and hard to fly owing to the complex vertical-flight controls and the minimal lift and maneuverability of the tiny wings. By the early 2000s a full third of all Harriers had been destroyed in crashes, killing 45 Marines.

“The Harrier was based on a complete lie,” said Pierre Sprey, an experienced fighter engineer whose design credits include the nimble F-16 and the tank-killing A-10. “The Marines simply concocted it because they wanted their own unique airplane and wanted to convert amphibious ships into their own private carriers.”

And the Corps stuck with the V/STOL concept for the same pathological reasons. With the crash-prone Harriers dwindling in number and showing their age, in the early ‘80s the Marines started working with the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s high-tech dreamers on R&D for a new jump jet. One that had to be supersonic and had to evade radar detection in addition to launching vertically — in essence, tripling down on the Harrier’s false promise by piling on additional requirements that were all “grossly incompatible,” according to Sprey.

After a decade funding Lockheed design and wind tunnel work, mostly through DARPA’s unauditable “black” money, the dreamers concluded that the best way to push a V/STOL jet to supersonic speed was to replace the rotating engine nozzles with a dual system combining a single, rearward-thrusting engine plus a second engine, called a lift fan, installed horizontally in the mid-fuselage.

New but unproven concept in hand, in the early 1990s the Marines emerged into the light to urge Congress to start a mega-procurement program for their supersonic, stealthy jump jet.

Jump jet 2.0

In 1993 and 1994, the Navy and Air Force also wanted new jet fighter designs — ones with the same radar-evading characteristics of the new F-117 stealth fighter and B-2 stealth bomber. As chance would have it, all three jet-operating military branches approached Congress at roughly the same time asking for tens of billions of dollars to develop and buy new planes.

“Congress said we couldn’t afford that,” said Lt. Gen. Harold Blot, a Harrier pilot who headed Marine aviation in the mid-’90s. Lawmakers asked Blot and other aviation chiefs whether the three services could combine their new fighters into one universal model.

Such jets had a spotty past: some worked; most didn’t. The F-111, the universal fighter from the 1960s, had grown too complicated, heavy and expensive as each branch piled on equipment; only the Air Force ended up buying it — and only a few hundred of the 1,500 copies originally planned.

The less complex F-4, however, began as a Navy fighter and was eventually adopted by the Air Force and Marines as well, serving through Vietnam and the Cold War. Congress was hoping to duplicate the F-4′s relative success in the 21st century, equipping all the military branches with new, radar-evading jets and saving money in the process.

But the concept for the new universal plane, known early on as the Common Affordable Lightweight Fighter, included a fatal flaw. Where the F-4 had been a conventional plane taking off and landing from runways, CALF (soon renamed Joint Advanced Strike Technology) would be a STOVL plane — because the Marines insisted. “We’re on a 40-year path to get an airplane that’s more responsive,” Blot explained. And to the Corps, that meant a jump jet.

Despite the history of failures, Congress bought into the idea of a universal stealth fighter that was also STOVL. But legislators’ embrace of the risky concept did not take place in a vacuum. It was, in part, the outcome of a focused influence campaign by the Lockheed, the company most likely to win the competition to build the new plane.

Lockheed had made its name building specialized interceptors, spy planes and bombers. The F-117, the world’s first operational stealth warplane, was a Lockheed product. An aggressive campaign of corporate acquisitions also brought Sprey’s bestselling F-16 into the Lockheed fold. Those programs positioned Lockheed to make a hugegrab for greater market share.

Meanwhile, the company’s secret tests for the fringe-science DARPA, meant to prove that a STOVL jet could also fly faster than the speed of sound, provided the basis for the company’s pitch for the universal jet fighter.

Granted, the tests had produced plenty of theories but no working hardware. “The technologies available were not yet advanced enough,” was the government’s official conclusion. But Lockheed spun the experiments as stepping stones to a supersonic jump jet that could also be adapted to suit the Air Force and Navy’s needs.

With just one swappable component — the downward-blasting second engine — a single airplane design could do the jobs of the Marines’ vertical-launching Harrier and of the faster, farther-flying conventional planes of the Navy and Air Force.

Convinced by Lockheed and DARPA that the universal STOVL jet concept could work, in 1996 Congress directed the Pentagon to organize a contest to build the new plane. General Dynamics, Boeing and Lockheed drew up blueprints but Lockheed, having worked with DARPA since the ‘80s, clearly had the advantage. “It wasn’t truly competitive,” Sprey said of the new fighter contest. “The other companies were way behind the curve.”

General Dynamics, whose main airplane-making division had been bought by Lockheed, dropped out of the competition. Boeing cobbled together an ungainly supersonic prototype called the X-32 whose gaping engine inlet resembled a grouper in mid-swallow. Rushed, amateurish and overweight, the X-32 was an ungainly thing.

But it flew — barely — starting in September 2000. For the critical vertical-takeoff test the following June, Boeing engineers had to strip off non-critical parts to get the weight down — a glaring flaw the company took pains to keep from the press, but couldn’t hide from government referees.

Lockheed’s X-35 was less of a disaster. Sleeker and more efficient than the Boeing plane thanks to Lockheed’s two-decade head start, the faster-than-sound X-35 needed no help taking off vertically for the first time in June 2001. And on the afternoon of Oct. 26, Pete Aldridge, the military’s top weapons buyer, stepped up to a podium in the Pentagon briefing room and announced that Lockheed had won the $19-billion contract to begin developing what was now known as the Joint Strike Fighter.

As Aldridge spoke, 2,600 miles away at a top-secret facility in Palmdale, California, 200 Lockheed engineers whooped and cheered. They had every reason to celebrate. The Pentagon wanted thousands of copies of the JSF to start entering Marine, Navy and Air Force service in 2010, replacing nearly every other jet fighter in the military arsenal — in other words, a monopoly. Once production was factored in, the program was expected to cost at least $200 billion.

Even adjusted for two decades of inflation, that estimate would turn out to hopelessly, outrageously, low. Among other problems, the fundamental flaws of the STOVL concept inexorably crept into the JSF’s 20-year development, adding delays, complexity and cost.

Fatal flaw

Where the Harrier has its rotating engine nozzles for downward thrust, the F-35 has a new kind of vertical-lift system combining a hinged main engine nozzle at the back of the plane that points directly backward until the pilot shifts into hover mode, at which point the nozzle swivels 90 degrees to point down.

Simultaneously, a complicated system of shafts, gears and doors activates to reveal the horizontal lift fan installed in the center of the aircraft just behind the cockpit. Together the fan and nozzle produce more than 40,000 pounds of thrust, enough to lift the nearly 20-ton aircraft straight up off the ground like a gargantuan dragonfly.

The lift fan, devised by Lockheed and DARPA in the early 1980s, was the only workable solution that anyone had come up with to give a plane vertical capability plus supersonic speed and radar-evading stealth, the last of which demands an airplane with a smooth outline and nothing hanging or protruding from it.

But this mix of characteristics came at a price to all three F-35 models, even the two that don’t need to take off vertically. “The STOVL requirements have dictated most if not all of the cardinal design elements for all three aircraft,” said Peter Goon, an analyst with the Air Power Australia think tank.

The addition of a lift fan to the baseline F-35 design started a cascade of problems that made it heavier, slower, more complex, more expensive and more vulnerable to enemy attack — problems that were evident in the 2008 war game set over Taiwan.

Of course Lockheed exec O’Bryan rejected that assessment, claiming the JSF’s stealth, sensors and aerodynamics make it superior to other planes. “It’s not rocket science,” he insisted.

But in many ways the JSF did become rocket science as it grew more complex. The original X-35 from 2001 had the advantage of being strictly a test plane with no need to carry weapons. But the frontline F-35 needs weapons. And to maintain the smooth shape that’s best for avoiding detection by radar, the weapons need to be carried inside internal bomb bays. Bomb bays would normally go along an airplane’s centerline, but the F-35′s center is reserved for the 50-inch-diameter lift fan. Hence Sprey’s claim that STOVL and stealth are incompatible.

To keep down costs all three JSF variants — the Air Force’s basic F-35A, the Marines’ vertical-takeoff F-35B and the Navy F-35C with a bigger wing for at-sea carrier landings — share essentially the same fuselage. And to fit both the F-35B’s lift fan and the bomb bays present in all three models, the “cross-sectional area” of the fuselage has to be “quite a bit bigger than the airplanes we’re replacing,” conceded Lockheed exec Tom Burbage, who retired this year as head of the company’s F-35 efforts.

The extra width violates an important aerospace design principle called the “area rule,” which encourages narrow, cylindrical fuselages for best aerodynamic results. The absence of area rule on the F-35 — again, a knock-on effect of the Marines’ demand for a lift fan — increases drag and consequently decreases acceleration, fuel efficiency and flying range. Thus critics’ assertion that supersonic speed can’t be combined with STOVL and stealth, the latter of which are already incompatible with each other.

“We’re dealing with the laws of physics,” Burbage said in his company’s defense when word got out about the JSF’s performance downgrades.

But the hits kept coming, chipping away at the F-35′s ability to fight. The addition of the lift fan forces the new plane to have just one rearward engine instead of two carried by many other fighters. (Two engines is safer.) The bulky lift fan, fitted into the fuselage just behind the pilot, blocks the rear view from the cockpit — a shortcoming that one F-35 test pilot said would get the new plane “gunned every time.” That is, shot down in any aerial dogfight by enemy fighters you can’t see behind you.

O’Bryan said the JSF’s sensors, including fuselage-mounted video cameras that scan 360 degrees around the plane, more than compensate for the limited rearward view. Critics countered that the video resolution is far worse than the naked eye and completely inadequate for picking up the distant, tiny, minimal contrast dots in the sky that represent deadly fighter threats ready to kill you.

But there are plenty of other problems with the F-35 — some related the airplane’s layout, some stemming from inexperienced subcontractors and still others resulting from poor oversight by a succession of short-tenure government managers whose major contributions were to grow the bureaucracy involved in the F-35′s development.

Lockheed’s F-117 stealth fighter was developed in a breakneck 30 months by a close-knit team of 50 engineers led by an experienced fighter designer named Alan Brown and overseen by seven government employees. Brown said he exercised strict control over the design effort, nixing any proposed feature of the plane that might add cost or delay or detract from its main mission.

The F-35, by contrast, is being designed by some 6,000 engineers led by a rotating contingent of short-tenure managers, with no fewer than 2,000 government workers providing oversight. The sprawling JSF staff, partially a product of the design’s complexity, has also added to that complexity like a bureaucratic feedback loop, as every engineer or manager scrambles to add his or her specialty widget, subsystem or specification to the plane’s already complicated blueprints … and inexperienced leaders allow it.

“The F-35 — that whole thing has gotten away from us as a country,” lamented Brown, now retired.

Many of the JSF’s problems converged in 2004, when Lockheed was forced to admit that the Marines’ F-35B variant was greatly overweight, owing in part to the addition of the lift fan. Ironically, the fan and other vertical-launch gear threatened to make the new plane too heavy to take off vertically.

“The short takeoff/vertical landing variant would need to lose as much as 3,000 pounds to meet performance requirements,” Lockheed manager Robert Elrod revealed in an annual report. Panicked, Lockheed poured more people, time and money (billed to the government) into a redesign effort that eventually shaved off much of the extra weight — basically by removing safety gear and making fuselage parts thinner and less tough.

O’Bryan said the weight reduction ultimately benefited all three F-35 variants. But the redesigned JSF, while somewhat lighter and more maneuverable, is also less durable and less safe to fly. In particular, the elimination of 11 pounds’ worth of valves and fuses made the JSF 25-percent more likely to destroyed when struck by enemy fire , according to Pentagon analysis.

Problems multiplied. Originally meant to cost around $200 billion to develop and buy nearly 2,900 planes expected to make their combat debut as early as 2010, the F-35′s price steadily rose and its entry into service repeatedly slipped to the right. Today the cost to develop and manufacture 2,500 of the new planes — a 400-jet reduction — has ballooned to nearly $400 billion, plus another trillion dollars to maintain over five decades of use.

To help pay for the overruns, between 2007 and 2012 the Pentagon decommissioned nearly 500 existing A-10s, F-15s, F-16s and F/A-18s — 15 percent of the jet fighter fleet — before any F-35s were ready to replace them. The first, bare-bones F-35s with half-complete software and only a few compatible weapons aren’t scheduled to make their combat debut until late 2015, the same year that Boeing is slated to stop making the 1990s-vintage F/A-18E/F, the only other in-production jet fighter being acquired by the Pentagon. (F-15s and F-16s are still being manufactured for foreign customers by Boeing and Lockheed, respectively.)

At the moment the first operational F-35 finally flies its first real-world sortie two years from now, it may truly represent an aerospace monopoly — that is, unless additional orders from the U.S. or abroad extend the F-15, F-16 or F/A-18 assembly lines. The JSF could be openly acknowledged as the worst fighter in the world and, in the worst case, still be the only new fighter available for purchase by the U.S. military.

Instead of revitalizing the Pentagon’s air arsenal as intended, the JSF is eating it — and putting future war strategy at risk. In 2012 an embarrassed Frank Kendall, the Pentagon’s chief weapons buyer, called the F-35 “acquisitions malpractice.”

But Kendall was referring only to the new plane’s delays and cost increases. He didn’t mention the more deadly flaw that had been revealed in Stillion and Perdue’s 2008 air-war simulation: that regardless of when and at what price the F-35 enters service, owing to its vertical-takeoff equipment the new fighter is the aerodynamic equivalent of a lobbed brick, totally outclassed by the latest Russian- and Chinese-made jets.

To add insult to strategic injury, one of the most modern Chinese prototype warplanes might actually be an illicit near-copy of the F-35 — albeit a more intelligent copy that wisely omits the most compromising aspects of the U.S. plane. It’s possible that in some future war, America’s JSFs could be shot down by faster, deadlier, Chinese-made JSF clones.

The F-35 that could have been

At least twice since 2007 Chinese hackers have stolen data on the F-35 from the developers’ poorly-guarded computer servers, potentially including detailed design specifications. Some of the Internet thieves “appear to be tied to the Chinese government and military,” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel claimed.

The September 2012 debut of China’s latest jet fighter prototype, the J-31, seemed to confirm Hagel’s accusation. The new Chinese plane, built by the Shenyang Aircraft Corporation, bears an uncanny external resemblance to the F-35: same twin tail fins, same chiseled nose, same wing shape. “It certainly looks like the Chinese got their hands on some [F-35] airframe data,” said Richard Aboulafia, a vice president at the Teal Group, an arms industry consultancy in Virginia.

But the J-31 lacks many of the features that were included in the F-35 “mainly or entirely because of STOVL,” according to Aviation Weekwriter and fighter expert Bill Sweetman.

Namely, the J-31 does not have a lift fan or even a space for a lift fan. The omission apparently allowed Chinese engineers to optimize the new plane for speed, acceleration, maneuverability and flying range — and to add good pilot visibility and a second rearward engine — instead of having to build the plane around a pretty much useless vertical-takeoff capability that slows it down, limits it to one motor and blocks the pilot’s view.

It could be that China doesn’t know how to build a working lift fan and that’s why they left it off, Aboulafia said. But for a country that has unveiled two different radar-evading stealth warplane prototypes in just the last two years, that seems unlikely. It’s more plausible that China could build a lift fan-equipped plane and has chosen not to.

The F-35 was compromised by, well, compromise. A warplane can be maneuverable like the F-16, tough like the A-10, stealthy like the F-117 or a STOVL model like the Harrier. A plane might even combine some of these qualities, as in the case of Lockheed’s nimble, radar-evading F-22. But it’s unrealistic to expect a single jet design to doeverything with equal aplomb. Most of all, it’s foolish to believe a jet can launch and land vertically — a seriously taxing aerodynamic feat — and also do anything else well.

Jet design like any engineering practice requires disciplined choices. The JSF is the embodiment of ambivalence — a reflection of the government and Lockheed’s inability to say that some things could not or should not be done. “It’s not clear with the F-35 that we had a strong sense of what the top priority was — trying to satisfy the Marines, the Navy or the Air Force,” said Air Force Lt. Col. Dan Ward, an expert in weapons acquisition who has been critical of complex, expensive development efforts.

By contrast, the Chinese J-31 does not appear compromised at all. Surrounded by rivals with powerful air forces — namely India, Russia, Japan and U.S. Pacific Command — and with no grudge-holding Marine Corps to hijack fighter design, it would make sense that China prioritized the air-combat prowess of its new jet over any historical score-settling.

That apparently apolitical approach to (admittedly illicit) warplane design appears to have paid dividends for the Shenyang-made jet. “With no lift fan bay to worry about, the designers have been able to install long weapon bays on the centerline,” Sweetman wrote. The centerline bay helps keep the J-31 skinny and therefore likely fast and maneuverable — in any event, faster and more maneuverable than the F-35, which in a decade’s time could be pretty much the only new U.S. jet the Chinese air force might face in battle.

If Stillion and Perdue’s simulation ever comes true and the U.S. goes to war with China in the air, F-35s dragged down by their lift fans could be knocked out of the sky by Chinese-made F-35 clones that are faster and more maneuverable, because they never had lift fans.

Sprey, the fighter engineer, said he expects the Pentagon to eventually come to terms with the unpleasant truth, that its new universal jet fighter with the foolhardy vertical-takeoff capability could spell the end of an epochal half-century in which America truly dominated the world’s skies. “My prediction is the F-35 will be such an embarrassment it will be cancelled before 500 are built,” he said.

Straus Military Reform Project Director Wheeler advocated replacing the F-35 with upgraded A-10s and F-16s pulled from desert storage plus new Navy F-18s fresh off the Boeing production line. These moves would “reverse the continuing decay in our air forces,” Wheeler claimed.

Ward said any future warplane should have clear and narrow requirements, as opposed to the F-35′s broad, incompatible guidelines. Development timelines should be fast, budgets should be inexpensive, the overall concept should be simple and hardware should be as tiny as possible, Ward recommended. “What you don’t do is hold up complexity as a desirable attribute,” he said.

Sprey warned it could take years of expensive experimentation and a steep learning curve for American aerospace engineers to relearn the principles of sound fighter design that have been lost during the F-35′s emerging monopoly — and that the only way to get there is to fund a series of inexpensive head-to-head competitions based on head-to-head mock dogfights between rival prototypes.

But that investment of time, talent and cost would be better than continuing with an over-budget, past-due warplane that can’t turn, can’t climb and can’t run because it’s hauling around a lift fan that makes Marines feel better about World War II but isn’t actually practical in the present day.

Replacing America’s useless, universal fighter would be a headache, according to Wheeler, but keeping it would be far worse. The F-35, he wrote, “will needlessly spill the blood of far too many of our pilot
Viv S
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Viv S »

arthuro wrote:Here is a critical and well documented analysis that counterbalances the Lockheed Martin and its supporter media offensive that is often copy past on forum with any critical sense:
The article claims that the F-35 cannot hold its own against the J-31 being developed at Shenyang.

Maybe, maybe not. Lets not pretend that the Rafale can do better.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Austin »

arthuro wrote:It seems that there is a bunch of armchair generals that still can't swallow the result of a fair and transparent tender.
Armchair generals can discuss what they want but really speaking the decision is taken at MOD/IAF level and Rafale has Won Fair and Square in perhaps the most exhaustive trails that any Weapon Purchase thats done till date in India .

Not even the competitors have brought it any serious allegation in the fairness of the process or the trials with post result some analyst complaining about the lack of strategic culture in selecting the winner ... but thats a different story and unrelated to MMRCA process.

Frankly speaking I am not against purchase of American Weapon system and recent buys like C-17 or C-130 has been one the best buys IAF has made in this decade.

But the recent peddling in of F-35 for every purchase that IAF is planning to invest in be it MMRCA or FGFA has gone beyond being Amusing to being absolutely Fanatical about it and its no more amusing but irritating to bring in F-35 in the MMRCA discussion every now and then

I wonder if MODS can atleast let the F-35 fanboys be happy on the dedicated F-35 thread out there even though it unrelated to any serious Armed Forces buy but atleast we can have discussion on MMRCA and not about some fighter and comparison when it was not even part of the process.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Pratyush »

The F 35 can be considered as a next gen platform. When contrasted with the MMRCA. Perhaps, post signing of the MMRCA deal the IAF can evaluate the F 35 as a FG combat platform. To enter service from 2020s.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by NRao »

pragnya,

I was only responding to your: "i wish i could see 27 years into the future and predict TODAY so confidently as you did!!".

So, I gave you a means.

The article was an example of how someone else came to the same conclusion based on a totally diff set of data.

You seem to be close, if you feel you have enough info (about say the Canadian situation) go ahead and make a prediction based on what you know. Which is what I did.

So, up to you.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Viv S »

arthuro wrote:-The F35 is much more expensive to buy and operate than the rafale. Even countries traditionally politically close to the US like Canada are considering an open competition with the rafale due to F35 huge price tag.
The F-35 based on most sources of information has a far lower flyaway cost, albeit with higher operating costs.

-There is close to no room for industrial cooperation with the F35 for india
-ToT would be extremely limited for India with the F35 and with no access to source codes
-With no access to source codes and no license build F35, india would become completely dependent from the US.
All true. Counterpoint -

- Given the delay in the contract, the technology isn't going to assimilated before 2020, therefore there being little that can be fed into the Tejas program. ToT isn't there for the heck of it. As far as the AMCA goes, its all but certain that a foreign consultant will brought onto the project, with Lockheed Martin the most likely candidate and Dassault the least likely.

- Rafale has an expected build order of only 225, compared to over 3000 for the F-35. To start with, its upgrades are bound to be pricier, on top of which Dassault will have an absolute monopoly, which its bound to exercise to the fullest extent possible.

- Bombing Libya is all well and good, but there is little to prove that a Rafale loaded with even minimal external stores can ingress highly defended airspace with first-rate ground and airborne surveillance systems networked into a very modern C4I system, reinforced by 4.5G as well as 5G fighters.

It seems that there is a bunch of armchair generals that still can't swallow the result of a fair and transparent tender.
The result so far, is two years of negotiations with no end in sight.

Its not over before the ink dries on the signed contract. Until that day, this debate will remain alive.

Besides the LCA Mk2, mk3 whatever is just dreaming at this stage. Just look at facts and how long it took to bring the regular LCA which is not even operational in large numbers despite being designed as a cheap, simple, lightweight fighter. For this reason future standards do not look very credible. Furthermore the LCA is a very small, lightweight fighter and it is very limited "by design" in terms of range and carrying capabilities.
The Rafale will be delivered no earlier than 2017. And a HAL built Rafale no earlier than 2020. The LCA program took time because it was the first attempt at developing a fighter since 1960, with all the infrastructure and technical competence having to be built up from scratch. The Tejas Mk2 development will hardly face the same restrictions.

As for the 'light' design, both of the India's primary adversaries share long borders with it, unlike the NATO forces that have significant expeditionary tasks. All the same, the bulk of the IAF's fleet i.e. the Sukhois are designed for long range operations, so most contingencies are catered for.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by NRao »

It seems that there is a bunch of armchair generals that still can't swallow the result of a fair and transparent tender.
To be clear, the trials were related to technologies - which, yes, it was won fair and square.

The introduction of F-35 came in as a cost effective alternative. IF Dassault in its infinite wisdom had sold the Rafale for $10 billion there would be no talk of a F-35 as an alternative.

The cost that Dassualt seems to be asking for is ridiculous. Not worth it. But, who knows what will happen. My bet is that GoI pay for it and Indian kids in 2040 will work to feed french kids.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Viv S »

Austin wrote:I wonder if MODS can atleast let the F-35 fanboys be happy on the dedicated F-35 thread out there even though it unrelated to any serious Armed Forces buy but atleast we can have discussion on MMRCA and not about some fighter and comparison when it was not even part of the process.
It almost 2014. No contract has been signed or is even on the verge of being signed.

The contract estimates have jumped from $6.5 billion originally, to $10 billion, then to $12 billion and now well past $15 billion.

Meanwhile France has cut its future Rafale orders by 60%.

I fail to see how a plan B is not relevant to the Rafale acquisition.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by Austin »

Thats because there is no Plan B as IAF puts it.

Contract will get signed as and when both parties think its done and its not the first time we are seeing delays and MMRCA is by far the biggest deal till date so it will be delayed even trails were long and exhaustive.

So if F-35 is plan B why not bring in J-20 , J-21 , PAK-FA and cancel the MMRCA and fund the AMCA in this debate.

When we bought M2K we were were the first country after france to buy it and so was Mig-29 so if we are buying the Rafale its not the first time we are doing so.

I am not sure why we are discussing F-35 in this thread ......unless there is some official statement to cancel the present MMRCA and opt for Plan B which includes F-35 ,I see no merit in discussing F-35 but I leave that for MODS to decide.

MODS need to give direction on this thread is what I feel , there is a dedicated thread on F-35 which practically is pointless but it still exist.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by NRao »

I am not sure why we are discussing F-35 in this thread
Because we are idle.

IF Goi and Dassault came to a conclusion in a day, we would not.
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Re: Raffy wins - Go Katrina!

Post by NRao »

But, I do like the idea of closing the FGFA (and perhaps even the MMRCA) and devoting all the funds to the AMCA.
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