It has been long since Lockheed has been saying it will make F-16 in India but this until now according to Lockheed will only be possible if India selected F-16 block 70/72 as winner of the multi-billion dollar MMCRA-II (CLICK HERE FOR LINK TO MMRCA-II POST). Also Lockheed few months ago declared that it will not make the jets in India but will be shifting its production line to Texas instead and blamed that India was not doing work fast enough and it was taking too much time (it was a move done to strong arm the govt to favour the f-16 in my opinion but it failed miserably).
Now yesterday it was declared that Lockheed has now signed a pack with TATA ADVANCED SYSTEMS to produce F-16 block 70/72 which is the most advanced version of jet in India and this comes a week ahead of PM Narendra Modi's visit to US. Though the condition still remains that for this to happen India must select F-16 as winner of MMRCA-II.
Currently there are two contenders in MMRCA-II which are SAAB GRIPEN E & LOCKHEED MARTIN F-16 BLOCK 70/72.I have done comparison and given my views on both in my post link to which is below.
F-16 block 70/72 VS SAAB GRIPEN E - MMRCA II JET RACE
IAF is to hold fast-tracked testing of both jets soon. Only after trial will IAF select a fighter to be made in India and the number of fighters which will be made will be about 120-150 jets and the number can go as high as 200 (which is unlikely but still a chance).
What if air force selects sab gripen...will gripen start its production in India??
ReplyDeleteyes , saab will build an entirely new line for India.
DeleteBoth cases would be stupid. The ONLY good point for India would be to play the clock until Tejas Mk1A is fielded which may not be too long, have Dassault teaming with HAL to have the same stealth features on Tejas Mk1A that Rafale has and publicly announce that definitive Tejas Mk1A outcompetes them and moreover, is stealth for just a little more than... half the price while, at the same time, Rafale being also stealth and about the same price F-16V or Gripen-E while much more capable, err, sorry Saab/BAe and LockMart, you're not competitive.
ReplyDeleteHuge snub, maybe it could even be advertised by making the competition public, maybe even having the F-35 additionally competing and using Tejas Mk1A and Rafale used as references...
Actually, it can be used to promote India on the global fighter market and as everything has been made to have Dassault settling in India and become bi-national, it could be really funny with both Tejas and Rafale suddenly disappearing from L-band radars while other can't. F-35 could even be shown grounded after a cyber attack against ALIS, it's logistical system.
If any of both MMRCA-II is selected, it'll ruin any export potential for Tejas as they'll present it as just a way to artificially maintain domestic industry with the destructive argument : "why do you think despite they've got it, they ordered 200 of our aircraft?".
Moreover, Tejas Mk1A with the 98kN M88/Kaveri has enormous potential! It's even lighter than Gripen-C with more thrust than Gripen-E and 30% more wing area! M88/Kaveri will make more room inside for fuel and systems and payload will be higher than Gripen-E while if additional fuel is needed, conformal tanks will do it. And it's already STOBAR-OK
Did I mentioned that Gripen-E is nothing else than BAe P.106 project created to compete... Mirage-2000 or... F-16?
US/Brits are just trying to get rid of assembly lines for out-dated designs while BAe is teaming with Mitsubishi and Saab with TAI to do some mini F-22 while LockMart are stuck with the crappy F-35 and will likely resume F-22, thus, they don't have access to more efficient active stealth Dassault has and that Tejas can share, in other terms, both Tejas and Rafale are likely to go on in the next decades when things like F-16, Gripen or Typhoon are dead ends. You already have Austria and Spain trying to get rid of their Typhoons in south America while France orders 45 more Rafales and, by teaming with the nEUROn combat drone or using the Aldebaran trimaran space launcher to be able to strike anywhere on Earth, the full potential is far to be reached!