B3 uses an engine they call Enhanced Engine. It has a thrust of 116KN, so it's most likely the EPE.
MMRCA 2.0 - Updates and Discussions
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B3 uses an engine they call Enhanced Engine. It has a thrust of 116KN, so it's most likely the EPE.
It's unclear if it's still been tested. Plus there's the issue of Vikramaditya as well.
If we buy Rafale, we will likely end up with a partime carrier fighter that can operate only from 1 carrier. And that's the biggest drawback of the Rafale.
I'd much rather have the Rafale than the SH. But reality cannot be questioned.
Saarji, you have murdered facts.
Even the USN doesn't believe the SH is as good as you have stated. They made a desperate decision and ended up with the SH due to money problems after the Cold War. They are not as happy with it as people are led to believe. Which is why they started their own independent project to replace it called the NGAD instead of tagging on to the USAF's projects like they have done with the Hornet and F-35.
And Rafale is way, way cheaper to maintain and operate than the SH. Rafale's LCC is going to be cheaper than the Mirage 2000 for sure, counting inflation, but you won't know that for at least 20 more years, when data will slowly be made public. Even today, after 30 years of operation we are still spending a lot of money to keep the Mirage 2000 viable, whereas the spending on Rafale at 30 years will be negligible. And in 30 years, while Rafale will still continue to get customised electronics, SH will have to be retrofitted with whatever's available, like we are doing with Jaguar today, as long as the US allows it, or we will have to retire it, like we did with Marut. The SH won't even have a customised engine.
Although the new SH engine is good, the aircraft is still bigger and heavier than the Rafale, while also not being modular, plus it uses more fuel to get to the same place, so it's logical that the CPFH of the SH will be greater than the Rafale's while having a much lower availabilty.
Lastly, you haven't considered the benefits of the offsets package with France compared to whatever the Americans provide. The Americans provide no technology transfer and only basic production rights, like airframe and wings, whereas the French have set up a production line for the Falcon jet, and the same line can also assemble Rafale. Plus technology transfers in other areas to DRDO. You can bet the offsets package for the SH, if there is one, will be low quality stuff with no future.
As for Rafale's production, it's one of the best optimised production lines ever created for a fighter jet. It uses the least amount of manpower and delivers at the fastest rate. As long as you place a large enough order, the production can be scaled up, so it's not Dassault's fault that the French govt wants only 200+ Rafales. If the Soviet Union still existed, they would have made 500+. It's extremely cheap considering how advanced it is.
We returned the first 18, and those were only used for training. And they were returned because they couldn't be modified to MKI standards. The initial plan was to upgrade it.
But, no, the deal won't be like MKI. A lease is a totally different deal.
So we will end up with current, about get obsolete version of SH. Anway its still better than Mig29K.
Rafale is a fine aircraft, but problem is how we will manage the initial investment? And how we will tackle USA. USA has already sanctioned Turkey, a NATO country for going s400. We need to give them an offer which they cannot deny, mmrca2 will be that offer .
Personally i prefer another 54 rafale in g2g route and F15EX or Rafale in mmrca2 route.
It's still not clear what's the actual plan. We have to first wait for official confirmation, right now we are relying on tweets. I'm sure the IN is referring to the Block 3. But we don't know if it's newly built Block 3s or the older upgraded version. The lease cost for the new jets will be higher than upgraded ones, but the capability will be more or less the same. So I guess it depends on their long term plans.
YF16 was better, this is why it was chosen by USAF. USN wanted a twin engine, for safety reason, so they used the YF17 prototyp to create the FA18.
SH18 is only marginally better than FA18, despite being heavier.
I recall a comment made on another site when Dassault submitted its response to the Indian Navy's RFI.
Falcon in his tweet, said it's mainly to tap into US MIC and it's diplomatic clout.
For India who don't even order in required numbers even at last minute, leasing numbers when required is a best fit.
The Rafale has effectively two variants, as far as the airframe is concerned: the navy version and the two-seater version. The single-seater land version is essentially a hybrid of two-seater and navy parts.
The Super Hornet has single-seater and two-seater versions. And then there's the Growler, too, though I don't know if it has any structural change compared to its fighter variants.
No, this is a misreading of the situation. None of what Erdogan did is contrary to Turkey's longstanding ambitions. There's nothing extraordinary about Erdogan, he is the normal. The only real difference is that he can no longer coast on a successful economy to maintain his popularity, so he pushed all the other buttons at his disposal. But make no mistake: if he's pushing these buttons to buoy his popularity back up, it's because his foreign policy aligns 100% with the will of the Turkish nation. His successors, when he leaves power, will pursue the same agenda. Just perhaps with more subtlety, but not with less insistence.
There's one point I'd dispute here. Finlandization was a policy based on "don't give them reasons to attack us, but do give them reasons not to attack us". They kept their military as strong as they could support it to be, so as to be too prickly to be worth attacking without putting serious means into it, while the appeasement policy (and giving up on Karelia) was to ensure the Soviet Union would not feel the need to put in serious means.
Not at all. Leaving the integrated command was mostly a way to signal to the USA that they would not get to control France's nuclear deterrence capability, like they succeeded with Britain's. France was still a functional member of the alliance, taking part in joint exercises, participating in joint tenders, etc. And there was a standing agreement to fold back into the integrated command in case of open conflict with the Warsaw Pact.
Well obviously, given that there's no other modern CATOBAR fighter out there. Except for the legacy Hornets and the not-mature-yet F-35C, I suppose.
Every aircraft design is a compromise between various requirements, trying to optimize the various factors (lift, drag, thrust, weight, size, stability, fuel consumption, etc.) depending on the aircraft's purpose. An airliner, a motorglider, and a fighter aircraft all have very different priorities so they all have very different designs. This is basic knowledge, but I put this reminder because it's the source of the F/A-18E/F's problems. You see, it was designed at a time when the US Navy aviation was seriously suffering. Its glamorous star the F-15 had been retired as too expensive to maintain and doctrinally obsolete, its future attack craft the A-12 had been canceled, so it had to make do with the good ol' "legacy" Hornet. They needed a bigger, newer aircraft and they needed to not get it canceled. So the Super Hornet had an additional requirement, not a technical one, but a political one.
And when you select a political requirement as a requirement above technical requirements, do not be surprised if the technical aspects suffer.
In order not to spook the politicians, the new aircraft had to be presented as just being an evolution of the legacy Hornet. That way, it was sold as a variant of an existing aircraft instead of a brand new one, and that made politicians think the costs would be easy to keep under control since it was all existing, proven technologies. Except it was not. Because just taking an aircraft and enlarging it does not actually work. There are aerodynamic phenomenons that do not scale linearly. The Super Hornet suffered from being built as a scaled-up Hornet, leading to all sorts of troubles with store separation, and requiring workarounds that caused it to be less efficient than if it had been a clean-sheet design.
The Super Hornet, notably, suffers from heavy drag that reduces its operational range.
So yes, it does the job well enough for the USN. But that doesn't mean it's the best aircraft it could have been. It's merely satisfactory and increasingly less so as the USN gets ready to the task of deterring and containing China, which due to China's strategy of investing in long-range missiles, is a task that requires more and more range and reach. In the event of a conflict between the USA and China, the USN would have to be able to attack Chinese forces while the carrier groups stay out of range of DF-21 and other threats. The SHornet and the F-35C do not have sufficient range for this scenario, so the USN needs something new.
It’s an aerodynamic mess of epic proportions. Just read few of its problems recently in a reputed aviation magazine.Why the BUTT HURT???
It’s Mustang car of aviation.
PS: Those words describing F18 are not mine but an Australian pilot interviewed by that magazine.
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I don't think we ll buy Mig 29 or additional Su 30 because of Caatsa and also hellfire tweet.. Unreliable Russian weapons with no major diplomatic clout.
We are going to buy second hand F18 as " Lease of block 3"
Stop gap until Tejas mk1A, Mk2, Tedbf & Amca all comes online.
Rafale going to be the tip of spear for nuclear deterrence / short small war scenario s.
I do hope we take advantage of the next tranche of 36 rafales with no ISE / base / training requirements.
@randomradio
We are going to buy second hand F18 as " Lease of block 3"
Stop gap until Tejas mk1A, Mk2, Tedbf & Amca all comes online.
Rafale going to be the tip of spear for nuclear deterrence / short small war scenario s.
I do hope we take advantage of the next tranche of 36 rafales with no ISE / base / training requirements.
@randomradio
Lease is good for quick gain in squadron strength. But wouldn’t that be costlier in long term ?
So what is Rafale? An overpriced escort? Who asks for additional payments for touching her b**b and blowjobs.
Rafale and Gripen E are amongst the most refined fighter jets aerodynamically.
Given the current churn in the global order and our government's focus on Investing heavily in our Infrastructure as a tool to propel the economy, we are going to be hard pressed for funds to buy anything more than another G2G deal for 36 additional Rafale's for the IAF. In the coming years, if either Tejas Mk2 and / or AMCA were to be delayed, India may fall back to order additional Tejas Mk1A's. As far as the IN goes, if our CDS were to convince a 3-4 year delay in the 3rd Carrier, then we might order additional Mig 29K's (around 2 squadrons). But if we were to order either of the 2 contenders, we have 2 options. Dedicate the existing fleet of 42 Mig 29K's to INS Vikramaditya and use the new jets on INS Vikrant. Else we order 57 of these jets and move the entire Mig 29K's to IAF.
Le Rafale et le F-16V donnés favoris pour la modernisation de la force aérienne croate
Rafale and F-16V donated favourites for the modernisation of the Croatian Air Force
On 21 December, the Croatian Prime Minister, Andrej Plenković, issued a press release stating that he had just received from the "inter-agency commission for the procurement of a multi-role fighter aircraft" an in-depth analysis of the four bids received as part of a call for tenders aimed at modernising the country's air forces.
"On the basis of a comprehensive and multi-criteria expert analysis [...], the Commission also unanimously adopted a conclusion on the best offer. The Commission examined two bids for the new aircraft [F-16 Block 70 and Gripen C/D] and two bids for second-hand aircraft [Israel's F3-R Rafale and F-16 Block 30]. All the offers were thoroughly and accurately evaluated in three areas: strategic, capability and financial," the press release explains.
This analysis is now to be submitted to the Defence Committee of the Croatian Parliament. A decision will then be announced by Zagreb and, in the meantime, negotiations for a government-to-government agreement will be launched with a view to finalising the purchase of 12 fighter aircraft by the end of 2021.
For the time being, the contents of this study are classified. However, according to several Croatian newspapers, two aircraft are considered favourites: the F-16 Block 70 "Viper" and the Rafale F3R.
"Unofficial information indicates that it is very likely that the commission recommended the choice between the American F-16 and the French Rafale," the daily Jutarnji List said.
The delivery dates of the aircraft as well as the amount of the contract will obviously be important criteria. According to the figures quoted by the Croatian press, it is assumed that the French offer offers the best value for money since it is 7 billion kuna [930 million euros] for 12 Rafale F3Rs. And, based on the F-16Vs ordered by Bulgaria, the American proposal is evaluated at more than 11 billion kuna [1.46 billion euros].
The strategic area will also be decisive, as the Croatian Prime Minister indicated in his press release. Here Zagreb has two options: to move closer to the United States with the choice of the F-16V or to play the European defence cooperation card. In either case, NATO would be strengthened. But the second option would also strengthen the European pillar of the Alliance. This was the point made by French Armaments Minister Florence Parly during her last visit to Croatia last November.
"We are working together to strengthen Europe's strategic autonomy with the Permanent Structured Cooperation [PSC] and the European Defence Fund [EDF], which have made significant progress thanks to the Croatian Presidency of the European Union. Tomorrow, this strategic relationship could take another decisive step forward: France has submitted [...] a Rafale offer for the renewal of the Croatian fighter aircraft fleet. A project that would provide a framework for cooperation between our two countries and for a stronger Europe of defence", Mrs Parly said.
In any case, according to the Dnevno news website, Croatian military analyst Jan Ivanjek seems to be leaning in favour of the French offer, all the more so since it is based on the delivery of 12 Rafale F3Rs, i.e. the latest standard of the aircraft proposed by Dassault Aviation.
"There is a lot of talk about the Rafale, because with the F-16 Block 70, it is the most advanced aircraft available" and "it is being offered to Croatia in its most powerful version", Mr. Ivanjek noted. These are "two excellent aircraft, but the Rafale has greater capabilities in terms of tactical and technical characteristics", he continued.
"I will not speculate on what the commission has recommended, nor on what decision the government will take. But given what is proposed, Croatia is likely to face a dilemma between the Rafale F3R and the F-16 Viper," the Croatian military analyst concluded.
That said, on the French side, the equation is likely to become more complicated for the French Air & Space Force, which will have to do without 12 of its Rafale F3Rs when the contract with Greece is signed [which should be the case in January 2021... once the Greek Court of Auditors has given its green light].
"All we want is obviously delivery dates for these aircraft that will allow the French Air Force to sustain this effort," explained General François Lecointre, the French Chief of Staff for the Armed Forces [CEMA], last October. "Therefore, either these two prospects are linked in time, and at that moment, the effort will be sustainable, or we will be unable to do so, at the risk of significant gaps in operational and organic terms," he added.
I translated this article because the final choice will be made between two MRFA competitors.
Removing Erdogan and replacing him with a more compliant leadership is the US goal for Turkey though.
US: Biden hints at interference in 2023 Turkish polls
Democratic presidential front-runner says if elected this November he will seek regime change in Turkey - Anadolu Agency
www.aa.com.tr
Yeah, Turkey is going to remain assertive under a new leadership, but their belligerence will likely stop with a new leadership. Erdogan is working on the fringes of tolerance after all.