For an indigenous light combat aircraft (LCA) disparaged by the Indian Air Force brass as “overweight”, “underpowered”, “obsolete”, “a three-legged cheetah” and, in technical terms, as a plane that “cannot fly without telemetry, pull more than 6G or an angle-of-attack (AoA) greater than 20 degrees” and “with an air intake that starves the engine”, is supposedly afflicted with “53 identified shortfalls”, and fails to meet the “minimum air staff requirements (ASRs)”, the Tejas, entirely unreported by the Indian media, performed phenomenally well at the recent Bahrain International Air Show. It has silenced the naysayers. The minimum that this success ought to do is get the government to reconsider the deal with France, because the fact is Tejas’ future will be inversely affected by the Rafale deal. If one is up, the other is out. The LCA’s composites-built airframe and small size enhance its stealth features, translating into a small radar signature and the greatest difficulty for enemy aircraft to detect it. Bahrain proved that fighting quality. There can be no complaints.
Price-wise, India is willing to pay only $7 billion, France expects $11 bn. To put these figures in perspective, the Rafale programme was originally pegged at $10 bn for 126 aircraft, including transfer of technology (ToT). So how come, after reducing the demand for Rafales by two-thirds and deducting 18 per cent of the cost as value of ToT, the new price tag exceeds the original cost by a billion dollars? Worse, Paris is disinclined to offer sovereign guarantee regarding the delivery timeline and spares supply but is prepared to provide a letter from President Francois Hollande, which is worth nothing. Yet, the defence ministry is reconciled to forking out Rs 63,000 crore for 36 Rafales. This works out to Rs 1,750 crore or nearly $270 million per aircraft — a sum that could fetch three Tejas or two Sukhoi-30 MKIs, rated the best combat aircraft in the world.
15/02/16 Bharat Karnad/Indian Express
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Price-wise, India is willing to pay only $7 billion, France expects $11 bn. To put these figures in perspective, the Rafale programme was originally pegged at $10 bn for 126 aircraft, including transfer of technology (ToT). So how come, after reducing the demand for Rafales by two-thirds and deducting 18 per cent of the cost as value of ToT, the new price tag exceeds the original cost by a billion dollars? Worse, Paris is disinclined to offer sovereign guarantee regarding the delivery timeline and spares supply but is prepared to provide a letter from President Francois Hollande, which is worth nothing. Yet, the defence ministry is reconciled to forking out Rs 63,000 crore for 36 Rafales. This works out to Rs 1,750 crore or nearly $270 million per aircraft — a sum that could fetch three Tejas or two Sukhoi-30 MKIs, rated the best combat aircraft in the world.
15/02/16 Bharat Karnad/Indian Express
