By Gulshan Luthra, IANS
Paris: The weeklong biennial Paris Air Show is over, and so it appears is the long wait for an Indian Air Force (IAF) tender for 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCAs).
IAF chief Air Chief Marshal Fali Homi Major, who attended the air show with senior defence ministry officers, has been quoted by representatives of half a dozen aircraft suppliers as telling them that the request for proposals (RFP) should come within a couple of months.
This has prompted the suppliers to rev up their engines and thoughts on how to compete to be the number one – technically and financially.
There are indications that the MoD’s defence acquisition committee (DAC) could clear the RFP at its meeting in New Delhi on Friday.
“The longest wait seems to be over,” said Torkel Patterson, president of Raytheon International, which does not make aircraft but provides cutting edge technology from missiles and bombs to the highly sophisticated Advanced Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar that could provide the decisive edge in the choice of aircraft and its electronics and armaments package.
When the air show began June 18, suppliers were still wondering about the RFP, and one journal even wrote that it was coming on a Friday but did not specify which Friday. Now, with the DAC meeting Friday, that question could be answered.
Questioned about the RFP, Major’s predecessors had used the word “shortly” so often that it had lost all meaning. It was only after Indian Defence Minister A.K. Antony stated last fortnight that it was indeed around the corner that the adrenalin started flowing all over again.
After all, it will be the single biggest military aviation order of the 21st century up to now, touching anything from $6-9 billion.
The IAF has been starved of modern jets, and according to a survey published in the India Strategic defence magazine recently, India needs to spend at least $35 billion over 15-20 years in the military aviation sector to make up for the paralysis in acquisitions after the Rajiv Gandhi government lost power in 1989.
The figure also includes the requirements of aircraft and helicopters for the Indian Army and the Indian Navy, which have suffered equally due to the very same paralysis.
For instance, the army did not have adequate number of shells for its 155mm Bofors guns during the 1999 Kargil war and these had to be imported at short notice for the effective engagement of the Pakistani troops.
As for the combat jets, Major told the aircraft manufacturers that the deal would be purely on merit, considering both the technology and the price.
The RFP, defined by the Air Staff Requirements (ASR) set by a panel headed by the IAF vice chief, would clearly indicate what the IAF wants for its next generation of aircraft. After the bids are submitted, another panel headed by the IAF deputy chief will make the selection.
The key, Major told this writer, lies in the technology.
“We want the best available now, and the best that can be incorporated into a platform during its estimated life of 40 years,” he added.
In saying this, he echoed his predecessor Air Chief Marshal S.P. Tyagi, who said that the IAF must overcome the late start by acquiring the technology of today and tomorrow and not of yesterday and today.
All the aircraft manufacturers in the fray, Sweden’s Gripen, the US Boeing (F-18 Super Hornet) and Lockheed Martin (F-16), France’s Dassault (Rafale), Russia’s MiG-35 and an European consortium (Eurofighter), have offered to meet the IAF requirements with state-of-the-art technology and timely supplies.
The transfer of technology (ToT) for indigenous manufacture will be part of the deal, as will be well-defined periodic avionics upgrades.
Gripen International, which claims to have the lowest initial acquisition and life-cycle costs, has decided to provide more thrust to the engine that powers its single-engine aircraft.
Gripen’s vice president for sales and marketing, Tony Ogilvy, said that instead of the GE-404 engine that currently powers the aircraft, it will now install, with appropriate modifications, the GE-414 engine that powers the twin-engine F-18.
The MiG-35 has been making impressive displays at various air shows, including at Farnborough, Bangalore and now Paris. It is also being equipped with the AESA radar that will aid pilots in very long-range detection of hostile targets in the air and on the surface.
The United Arab Emirates was the first outside the US to acquire AESA technology for the 80 F-16 Desert Falcons it bought in 2004. Northrop Grumman had developed this system and the company announced further improvements in it at the Paris Air Show.
Raytheon, which says it has a better system now being fitted on the US Navy’s F-18s, is configuring its AESA for F-16 and Gripen as well, should the IAF decide in its favour.
“It is the age of sensors and beyond-the-visual-range (BVR) engagement,” said Raytheon’s Patterson, adding that his company will supply cutting-edge technology to the Indian armed forces, subject of course to the US government that has to clear all foreign military sales.
According to Chris Chadwick, Boeing’s vice president and general manager for global strike systems that is responsible for the company’s sales to India, the F-18 was “unbeatable”.
“We will study RFP once it is out and come up with the best package,” he maintained.
Lockheed Martin, on the other hand, has described the F-16 as a “time-tested machine” and one that was the workhorse of the US Air Force.
India is in everybody’s sights. It is the IAF that will power the balance sheets of some of these aviation giants.
(Gulshan Luthra is a defence analyst. He can be reached at [email protected])