Europeans ahead in $10bn race for jets
With European fighters surging ahead of the American jets in the hotly-contested race to bag the gigantic $10.4 billion project to supply 126 medium multi-role fighter aircraft.
By TNN | Updated:
NEW DELHI: With European fighters surging ahead of the American jets in the hotly-contested race to bag the gigantic $10.4 billion project to supply 126 medium multi-role fighter aircraft (MMRCA), India has now virtually shortlisted or “down-selected’ ’ two out of the six contenders in the fray.
Sources said Eurofighter Typhoon (backed by UK, Germany , Spain and Italy) and French Rafale are the ones most likely to figure in the shortlist of the jets that have met the technical requirements , even though US has been hard-selling its F/A-18 ‘Super Hornet’ and F-16 ‘Falcon’ jets. The other two are the Swedish Gripen and Russian MiG-35 .
Though there was no official word from the defence ministry, sources said the sealed commercial bids of the shortlisted aviation majors will now be opened for the final negotiations to select the eventual winner in this “mother of all defence deals” .
Under the project, 18 jets will be bought off-the-shelf , while 108 will be manufactured in India by HAL after transfer of technology. IAF, on its part, had submitted its flight evaluation trials and staff evaluation reports to MoD a year ago after evaluating the six fighters on as many as 643 technical attributes during the gruelling field trials. This will be the first time that India will take into account “life-cycle costs’ ’ — the cost of operating the jets over a 40-year period, with 6,000 flying hours — rather than just pitching for the lowest bidder.
Sources said Eurofighter Typhoon (backed by UK, Germany , Spain and Italy) and French Rafale are the ones most likely to figure in the shortlist of the jets that have met the technical requirements , even though US has been hard-selling its F/A-18 ‘Super Hornet’ and F-16 ‘Falcon’ jets. The other two are the Swedish Gripen and Russian MiG-35 .
Though there was no official word from the defence ministry, sources said the sealed commercial bids of the shortlisted aviation majors will now be opened for the final negotiations to select the eventual winner in this “mother of all defence deals” .
Under the project, 18 jets will be bought off-the-shelf , while 108 will be manufactured in India by HAL after transfer of technology. IAF, on its part, had submitted its flight evaluation trials and staff evaluation reports to MoD a year ago after evaluating the six fighters on as many as 643 technical attributes during the gruelling field trials. This will be the first time that India will take into account “life-cycle costs’ ’ — the cost of operating the jets over a 40-year period, with 6,000 flying hours — rather than just pitching for the lowest bidder.
Download
The Economic Times Business News App for the Latest News in Business, Sensex, Stock Market Updates & More.
The Economic Times Business News App for the Latest News in Business, Sensex, Stock Market Updates & More.
Download
The Economic Times News App for Quarterly Results, Latest News in ITR, Business, Share Market, Live Sensex News & More.
The Economic Times News App for Quarterly Results, Latest News in ITR, Business, Share Market, Live Sensex News & More.
ADVERTISEMENT
