While final negotiations between Dassault and the MoD are still to take place, it appears that the size of mega deal could be above Rs 75,000 crore.
The Rafale fighter aircraft built by France’s Dassault Aviation has emerged the lowest bidder in the contest to sell the Indian Air Force (IAF) 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft. According to sources in the defence ministry, the Rafale has emerged marginally cheaper than its rival fighter, the Typhoon, fielded by a four-nation consortium, Eurofighter.
In reaching this conclusion, the IAF has calculated the Rafale would be cheaper than the Typhoon to buy, manufacture and fly over its entire four-decade service life. No prices have been made available, but MoD sources say the Rafale would cost some Rs 25 crore less than the Typhoon apiece.
The ministry did not respond to phone calls, an email and an SMS request for official confirmation.
However, Dassault sources confirm the ministry has informed the company that it has emerged the lowest bidder. Dassault remains unwilling to share details of its winning bid. A ministry committee, the Contract Negotiation Committee or CNC, will now engage with Dassault to hammer down the price before signing a contract.
The ministry had initially budgeted Rs 42,000 crore as the total cost of the 126-fighter contract. Ministry sources say India will, in fact, pay substantially more than that. The final deal size is subject to negotiations, and could go up to Rs 75,000 crore.
Dassault will be required to supply 18 “made-in-France” Rafales in three-four years. After that, manufacturing will progressively shift to Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, Bangalore, which will build a new manufacturing line for the Rafale.
The Indian contract is a lifeline to the beleaguered French company, which has so far failed to sell a single Rafale fighter abroad.
The French air force and navy have cut down their initially projected requirement of 336 fighters; so far, they have ordered just 180 Rafales. In a TV interview last month, France’s Defence Minister, Gerard Longuet, declared the Rafale production line would shut down if no foreign orders were forthcoming.
India will be the foreign buyer that resuscitates that production line. Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya had declared its interest in buying Rafales, but was overtaken by history. Ironically, the Rafale flew sorties against Gaddafi’s militia during the Libyan civil war last year. Brazil was earlier on the verge of ordering 36 Rafales, but new Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff does not share the pro-Dassault enthusiasm of her predecessor Luiz Inacio de Silva.
The Rafale will eventually equip six squadrons of the IAF, each authorised 21 fighters. It is a delta-wing fighter with canards, which make it highly manoeuvrable and also allow it to land at speeds as low as 200 kmph. This makes it suitable for aircraft carrier operations, a key advantage over the Typhoon.
The fighter needs just 1,300-1,400 feet of runway to get airborne, an advantage in operating from air bases close to the border. Two Snecma M88 engines power the Rafale, allowing it to “supercruise” or fly at supersonic speeds without using afterburners. A key system is the Thales Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar, which is still under development. The Indian contract demands transfer of technology for the AESA radar.
The order of 126 Rafales caters only to the IAF’s requirement. The Indian Navy, too, has expressed interest in the Rafale (amongst several other fighters) for its aircraft carrier fleet. While the INS Vikramaditya (formerly, the Russian Gorshkov) will deploy MiG-29K fighters, the under-construction Indigenous Aircraft Carrier, with another vessel to follow, will also require carrier-borne fighters. A naval version of the indigenous Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) is close to flying. However, there is likely to be an additional requirement for heavy fighters like the Rafale for the naval fleet. Experts have forecast India would eventually acquire about 200 medium multi-role combat aircraft.
The IAF evaluated six fighters for this massive contract -- Boeing’s F/A-18 Super Hornet; Lockheed Martin’s F-16IN Super Viper; the Russian MiG-35; the Swedish Gripen NG; the Rafale and the Typhoon. After flight trials in 2010 and early 2011, the Rafale and the Typhoon were shortlisted in April 2011. Commercial bids from Dassault Aviation and Eurofighter GmbH were opened in November 2011. The IAF’s evaluation and selection processes have won widespread acclaim from aviation watchers worldwide.
President Sarkozy has learned of India’s selection of the Rafale with a view to the Indian air force acquiring 126 fighter planes.
France welcomes the Indian government’s decision to select the French plane and enter into exclusive negotiations with Dassault. This announcement comes following a very high-level, fair and transparent competition between two European finalists. The Rafale was selected thanks to the competitiveness of its total cost over the aircraft’s lifetime, after being shortlisted in April 2011 on the basis of its top-level operational qualities.
Negotiation of the contract will begin very shortly, with the French authorities’ full support. It will include major technology transfers guaranteed by the French state.
The implementation of the Rafale project will illustrate the depth and breadth of the strategic partnership between France and India.
NEW DELHI: After losing out to the French Dassault Rafale the India's biggest-ever military contract for supplying 126 combat aircraft, European EADS today said it was disappointed over the development but respected the Defence Ministry's decision.
India today issued a letter to French defence major Dassault informing it that it was the lowest bidder in the tender and would be offered the multi-billion dollar contract for 126 Medium-Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA).
"Although this is not yet a contract signature and contract negotiations are still ahead, we are disappointed. However, we respect the decision of the Indian defence Ministry," EADS Cassidian -- the makers of the Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft said in a release.
The company said that with the Eurofighter Typhoon, it had offered the most modern combat aircraft available to the IAF.
"Based on the Indian Government feedback, we will now carefully analyse and evaluate this situation together with our European partner companies and their respective governments," it said.
Eurofighter Typhoon is manufactured by a four-nation consortium including the UK, Germany, Spain and Italy and all four governments were backing the bid in the Indian tender.
NEW DELHI: French company Dassault Rafale today bagged India's biggest-ever contract for supplying 126 combat aircraft for the air force, edging out European competitor EADS in the multi-billion dollar deal.
The French firm was declared as the lowest bidder, according to which it will get the contract under India's defence procurement procedure, sources said.
"The French firm Dassault Rafale has emerged as the L-1 (lowest bidder) and cheaper than its european rival EADS (maker of Eurofighter) in the tender and will be offered to supply the aircraft to the IAF," the source said.
They said the representatives of Dassault here were informed about the development in the morning and further negotiations on price will be held with them in the next 10-15 days.
The contract will be signed only in the next fiscal. According to the Request for Proposal (RFP), the winner of the contract will have to supply 18 of the 126 aircraft to the IAF in 36 months from its facilities and the remaining would be produced at HAL facilities in Bangalore.
Six companies including American F-16 and F-18, Russian MiG 35, Swedish Saab Gripen alongwith Eurofighter and Dassault Rafale were in the race in the beginning.
But in April last year, the defence ministry shortlisted Dassault and EADS, evicting the American, Russian and Swedish bids.
The process was started with the issuing of a global tender in 2007 after which all the six contenders were subjected to extensive field evaluation trails by the Indian Air Force at several locations across the globe.
After bagging a Euro 1.47 billion (Rs 9,600 crore) contract for upgrading the Indian Air Force’s fleet of 51 Mirage-2000 fighters, French defence electronics giant, Thales, is now an 800-pound gorilla on the Indian defence scene. And its Indian partner, Samtel Display Systems (SDS), is emerging as a company to watch as it swoops alongside Thales onto India’s burgeoning aerospace market.
Thales’ offset liability from the Mirage upgrade contract amounts to Rs 441 million Euro (Rs 3000 crore). That induces Thales to source from SDS a significant share of the avionics (aviation-electronics) for upgrading the Mirage-2000. SDS, with whom Thales has a joint venture company, Samtel Thales Avionics, is poised to meet that requirement. SDS already supplies Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), India’s sole aircraft manufacturer, with cockpit displays (multi-function displays, or MFDs) for the Sukhoi-30MKI fighters that are built at HAL’s Nashik plant. The Ghaziabad-based company is also competing to build avionics for the IAF’s forthcoming Sukhoi-30 MKI upgrade.
And if the Rafale fighter --- built by Dassault with a large avionics component from Thales --- is chosen by the MoD as the IAF’s new medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA), SDS could benefit enormously from another wave of offset-driven orders for display systems and other avionics in the 126 MMRCA.
“We are looking at a turnover growth from Rs 60 crore in 2011-12, to about Rs 500 crore in 2015-16,” Puneet Kaura, Executive Director of SDS, told Business Standard.Samtel Thales Avionics (Thales 26%; Samtel 74%), which was incorporated in 2008, is Thales’ only joint venture in India. The French company is currently setting up another JV with Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) for manufacturing radar components.
“Thales wants to build on our maturing relationship to make us a major supply source for avionics. They are looking at India very seriously, given the size of the deals they have signed or are contemplating,” says Puneet Kaura.
Thales shares Kaura’s optimism. Eric Lenseigne, who heads Thales India, says that India is a key market, both in defence and in the civilian areas of transportation, signalling, communications and automatic fare collection systems. Thales fare collection systems are installed on the Delhi Metro.
“We are keen on growing our joint venture in India, Samtel Thales Avionics. Samtel has key capabilities, and the capability to grow. We do not rule out their becoming a part of our global supply chain… provided they develop the way that we would like them to develop,” says Lenseigne.
So far, SDS’s key technological breakthroughs, such as the Su-30MKI displays, have been achieved indigenously. But now, as it progresses to cutting edge avionics the company requires technology infusion. For this, Samtel Thales Avionics, is a key vehicle.
An example of the futuristic avionics that SDS hopes to supply is the Infra Red Search and Track (IRST) System, which is standard kit in the Rafale as well as the Eurofighter Typhoon. This passive sensor detects enemy aircraft at ranges of 60-70 kilometres through the heat (infrared) that they emit. Unlike a fighter’s airborne radar, which gives away one’s own position by emitting an electronic beam, an IRST is entirely stealthy since it emits nothing.
Thales plans to offer the IRST to the IAF on a “Buy and Make (Indian)” basis. This category of procurement (specified in the Defence Procurement Procedure of 2011, or DPP-2011) requires an Indian partner to absorb critical, high-end technologies and develop capabilities within India. Thales has told the IAF that Samtel Thales Avionics would do 50% of the design and development work in India.
Both Samtel and Thales tell Business Standard that they will enhance Thales’ share of the
JV, if the foreign direct investment (FDI) limit is raised from the current 26%. “If the
FDI cap is raised to 49%, we have agreed that Thales’ holding in the JV will go up to 49%, while we will come down to 51% This is not a written agreement, but we have an understanding,” says Kaura.
Pilots at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., have started to test fly the F-35 Lightning II fighter at night, Lockheed Martin announced Thursday.
Flown by company test pilot Mark Ward, aircraft AF-6, which is an F-35A conventional takeoff and landing variant, took off at 17:05 on Wednesday afternoon and landed a little after sunset. The jet flew for a little more than an hour.
The sortie consisted of basic straight-in approaches, Lockheed’s press release said.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the country at Eglin AFB, Fla., Marine Maj. Joseph “O.D.” Bachmann flew the 33rd Fighter Wing’s third F-35B to the seaside base on Jan. 19. The addition of the short takeoff vertical landing fighter brings the total number of F-35s at the Florida base to nine. Two B-models and six F-35As were delivered earlier.
