Appeals to authority without evidence go nowhere "obviously someone in the IAF..."...the reality on the other hand speaks otherwise. That the IAF just sent out a wide ranging RFI to avoid CAG censure over single vendor trials, ending up with a menagerie of aircraft in different classes and capabilities. The MiG-35 for instance, another paper plane, got in exactly the same way. In an ideal world, the RFP would be only between the three premier fighters, the EF, Rafale and SH.And as regards trials, sure, lets see an actual Gripen NG do the trials.raj-ji wrote: If the Gripen is mediocre, why was it one of the 6 chosen for the MMRCA? Obviously someone in the IAF thought this was a good fighter. All prelim. reports say that the Gripen faired well in the trials.
Rhetoric, and not even worth the bandwidth you wasted on the post. Of course nobody knows for "sure", but everyone knows reasonably well what their capabilities are. Do you? Clearly not, because if you had, you wouldnt be making such dubious statements about "unique" and "myth" and what not, after having misinterpreted what I said to begin with. The Chinese currently field Su-27SKs and Su-30MK variants. And are also inducting homegrown upgraded Flankers. These come with significant advantages over single engined fighters in the Mirage 2000/F-16 class, of which the Gripen is but a next generation follow on. The Flankers offer first class aerodynamics performance even with a decent combat load without compromising it with add on fuel tanks, and suffering as heavily in terms of wingloading and other key parameters as the smaller aircraft. They also have a whopping 1 Meter radar aperture array, which even with an earlier generation Mechanical scanned array, if iteratively improved, as on the Eurofighter ECR-90, can match and exceed AESAs on smaller fighters. The Gripen/MiG-35 have nose cones a third smaller and rely on power generation driven by a single powerplant. In short, with the Su-27 platform, the Chinese have a very capable system which can serve them for decades to come, and is likely, once they start manufacturing engines, to be improved even further. Not are its ancillary systems standing still. The PRC has also a long history of credible propulsion advances and assistance from the Russians in seeker technology. Their air to air missile capabilities are also steadily increasing. In short, relying on the Gripen NG against a fleet of Flankers is folly at best, and a disaster in the worst case scenario. What we need are fighters able to fight into enemy territory and defeat layered air defenses, not ones which run a ragged attrition based campaign.As for the capabilities of the Panda's fighters, does any one know for sure that it could stand up the Gripen NG? No, one of the benefits of creating something unique, the myth of these fighters could be more valuable than their capabilities, this was used considerably during the cold war.
If this, if that..whose interests are being served here? What does India gain from becoming anybodys biggest client and being dependent, when it has its own LCA MK2 program going on and which can offer most of the capabilities this in development Gripen NG claims it will offer.
If India is SAAB's biggest client, that will mean a great deal of influence on the Gripen program, not a bad place to be.
Disingenuous at best. India already has a variety of systems on order with all these companies & has already given them orders and received offsets in turn which can be driven by these firms which have far larger economies of scale. What benefit to India to tie itself to Swedish apron strings when that country itself is struggling to keep the Gripen alive. India is best served going for a product where it does not have to do the heavy lifting in terms of either finances or technology, and gets better industrial advantage than what SAAB can provideDo you think you will get this kind of influence with Boeing, Dassault or EADS?
If India needed cheap fighters, it would not have floated the MMRCA with a $10B plus budget, and no, there are no "top aircraft" and bottom feeders in the IAF inventory, as when war comes, all have to do their bit. And only somebody without an understanding of the IAF ORBAT would believe that the MKIs being the top aircraft would mean the rest could be less capable.This would not be the top aircraft in the inventory, the IAF has the MKIs for that. Again a lot to be said for having a relatively inexpensive fighter, that's capable, cheap and easy to operate with quick turn around times. And at the minimum, sharing the same engine as the LCA.
The Jaguar, MiG-27 pilots who will now go to the MMRCA will be asked to do a fair share of heavy lifting as well, which means the aircraft has to be every bit as capable as the MKI and even provide other capabilities which the MKI does not. At $10 Billion plus, it better do so.
Its not about points of view or whatever, but the fact that your Gripen claims so far have holes big enough to steer a battleship through.Everyone has a different point of view, so lets agree to disagree.
