Really ? We don't have the money to buy the Honeywell's overpriced engines and we are gonna buy 250 Rafales. Granted the Rafales will do us more good than some engines, but still do we have enough money ?
Mirage 2000H, MiG-29UPG, Jaguar DARIN III - Medium Multirole Aircraft of IAF
- Thread starter Ashwin
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Of course India can buy Honeywell's overpriced engines if that's what it really wanted to do. The question is whether it's a pertinent purchasing decision. What's best, upgrade a fleet of aging strike fighters, or acquire a new fleet of state-of-the-art multirole fighters?
I am not arguing against the benefits of having more Rafales, if not letting the Rafales replace the Jaguars altogether. For as great an aircraft the Rafale is, its not cheap. There in lies our problem. With our budgetary constraints I am not sure we can afford 250 Rafales.
If fixing your decade old car is more expensive than buying a new and better car, what would you do?
Just the engine change on Jaguar is over $55M for each jet. And even HAL's cheapest price is $25M for each jet. The DARIN III upgrade cost not included, which could be as much as $12M.
And Rafale's cost will be spread over 2 decades, while the Jaguar's $55M each is expected to be spent over the next 5 years.
Let's put it in perspective. We are buying 200 Rafales at $105M each over 20 years, that's $21B. And 80 Jaguars with full upgrades may cost as much as $67M over 5 years, so that's $5.4B.
So look at the yearly expenditure. $21B over 20 years comes up to $1.05B a year. And $5.4B over 5 years comes up to $1.08B. The Rafale is clearly cheaper. Even more so if DRAL reduces prices by 10-20% by using Indian production facilities, whereas the Jaguar engines will have to be imported from Taiwan.
Also, if the engines are overpriced, it's obvious the spares and services are also going to be overpriced. Since both aircraft are twin engine, it stands to reason that the old Jaguar may very well cost the same as the Rafale in CPFH, especially since the Rafale will have its entire line of spares and serviceability sourced from within India. I wouldn't be surprised if the Jaguar is in fact more expensive now since Honeywell will probably put up anything they want as a sticker price.
And the biggest selling point is not that Rafale is both cheaper to buy and maintain, it's that Rafale will come with a full 50-year service life, extendable to another 30+ years after, whereas the Jaguars only have 15-20 years left in total. So the actual cost, if you calculate it based on LCC per flying hour, puts the Rafale at 2-3 times cheaper than Jaguar.
And when it comes to capability, the Rafale could easily be as much as 4-8 times more capable than the Jaguar. Just 36 Rafales should easily be able to replace all 118 Jaguars. So that same $5.4B meant to reengine Jaguars can instead be spent on getting 36 more Rafales and the IAF will be way better off. In effect, the IAF would have doubled the capability of the entire Jaguar fleet with a measly $5.4B long before the first Jaguar is phased out. And each batch of 36 Rafales after would basically be adding an entire Jaguar fleet.
If the news about the IAF scrapping the new engines & consequently the DARIN - III upgrades for Jaguar is true, it only means that a further order for a 2nd tranche of Rafales is imminent.
PKS has taken a contrarian view to this bit of news. According to him, it's fake news and the MoD will be signing the deal with Honeywell at a re negotiated price , shortly.
This I can agree with. I have difficulties with the 200 figure. We have a situation where a plethora of projects/acquisitions are getting endlessly delayed because of our lack of CAPEX. AWACS project, air-to-air refueller, C295 acquisition, NMRH and so on, and these are all very essential projects. We have to keep in mind that additional Rafales aren't in competition with Jaguars as much as its in competition with other spending priorities.
Perhaps the best course of action will be to order another batch of 36 Rafales. Although ordering in a batch by batch manner adds up ordering costs which could've been avoided by ordering bulk.
Anyway, Modi is visiting France in like 2 days from now. We will get some answers soon hopefully.
India should bite the bullet and go for 114 Rafales in G2G route. Every player in the game is trying to exploit India and all these drama is eventually bleeding IAF one way or other. Su-30 MKI is no magic bullet and should not be ordered just because HAL wants it for it's own selfish reasons. They do not come free and the same money can be better utilized for Rafale even if we get fewer aircrafts.
The Jaguar deal is salvageable. So a re-negotiation is most definitely possible, like the HAL offered deal where we do all the work and they only have to supply the engines.
What about certification? As per you, integration & certification itself costs 2.1 billion USD. You already have the sorry story of MMRCA 1.0 with Dassault & HAL before you. Must we keep piling on the agony?
The 200+ figure is very easily reached.
36 already signed and 36 follow-on, which makes 72. The first 72 followed by 114 from MMRCA with 57 options bring us to 243.
Honestly, our military requirements are significantly less than our potential economic growth over the next 2 decades.
Of course, I meant both. CEMILAC and DGCA can certify the jet, we do not need Honeywell. We know more about the jet than they do anyway.
Don't see the relation. The problems associated with Rafale during MMRCA are not a problem here.
You mean, if Honeywell doesn't integrate those engines to the airframe, they'd be content to let HAL deprive them of revenue and what's more they'd also guarantee the product & it's performance ? That flies in the face of any business logic.
The integration is obviously a rip off, but the engine is also overpriced and spares and support for the engine for the next 20 years will also cost big money. The engine's actually value is less than $3M.
So the choice will end up being either Honeywell gets a contract for the engines without integration or nothing at all.
As for product and performance guarantees, it's not a license production deal, so of course Honeywell has to guarantee it because they have to build and supply the engines themselves.
I would imagine Honeywell taking the stance that sans integration, performance can't be guaranteed. However, The product would be guaranteed.
What're your views on this? @Milspec
Engine guarantee rests with Honeywell. Airframe and aerodynamics by HAL. Especially the DARIN III which will come with FBW.
Honeywell already integrated and certified by buying a Jaguar aircraft and waited long time before it jacked up the prices.
I like to believe Harsha vardhan than the journalist..
Jaguar s need upgrade no matter what, if it has to fly for another 20 years. Darin 3 or I max is sure.
Going back to the original print article, the stand out statement was "“The price quoted by Honeywell and the HAL for ‘re-engining’ is just too high. For the price of two such upgrades, we can get one basic Rafale,” a source said."
Given Rafale is not in contention for Jag replacement as of now, and with MKI's bare cost half of that of a rafale, it can be assumed that the same statement can be reconstituted as “The price quoted by Honeywell and the HAL for ‘re-engining’ is just too high. For the price of a single jag upgrades, we can get one basic MKI,” a source said. IAF has an inventory of close to 130 odd aircrafts, out of which there are 30 odd trainers and 90 ground attack aircrafts.
> With MKI you eliminate the need of trainers, being a two-seat aircraft from the get-go.
> In strike configuration there is no way a Jaguar can even come close to MKI's payload. For it's endurance that is famed upon jaguar has to sacrifice payload, no such case with MKI.
> In range to payload capability, and in payload to agility, MKI will always outperform the Jag.
>Both Jaguar and MKI's use Litening III pods for ground attack instead of radar illumination, so Aesa vs Pesa is a moot point.
>MKI brings more versatility compared to the Jaguar upgrade, either with the F125N or the Adour, as it will have the most compatibility with the weapon systems utilized by the IAF, which jaguars don't.
> Finally Jaguar with any engine or any upgrade across its lifetime will never be able to come close to capabilities of an MKI, but an MKI will practically cover the entire strike mission profile of a Jaguar both in Ground attack as well as a maritime strike role.
Rafale:
All of the above advantages apply to rafales too, while from the price perspective we can have 3 sqdns instead of 6 of MKI,
>Rafales will bring even bigger mission map compared to MKI
>The only place 3 sqdns of Rafales lose out to 6 sqdns of MKI, is the volume of the ordinance delivery which is moot in case of Partial/full air superiority achieved.
>MKI being an active production line will deliver faster than the rafale.
> Rafale's also win over the operating costs over the MKI
So as far as price to value is concerned, Rafales should be right choice, if not MKI's solution I feel would fit right in, it's not as far off as being suggested here.
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FBW on Jaguar is completely useless. It's an aircraft that has such aerodynamic qualities that there is no need for FBW even in ground following flight.
Honeywell is a very well respected organization, it seems like they will grant full product warranty for the subsystem it supplies. It will also either inspect and sign off the HAL's work, but it will ensure not to be tied to a 30-year-old platform on a system level.