The Biggest aviation news of the week! and not 1 post.
By Rajeev Sharma
The visiting United States Secretary of State Hillary, who held the second Indo-US Strategic Dialogue with her Indian counterpart S M Krishna in New Delhi on July 19, failed to give any concrete assurance to India on its concerns about Nuclear Suppliers' Group's recent hardening of ENR (Enrichment and Reprocessing) technology transfer terms ...
KEY EXCERPT:
Clinton is understood to have made a strong pitch for more US military sales to India, especially in the wake of American companies recently losing out in the race for a $ 10.4 billion order by the Indian Air Force for 126 fighter aircraft. She expressed her country's willingness to sell state-of-the-art F 35 warplanes to India at "unbelievable" prices. The Americans are understood to have asked the Indian government to open its purse strings for the Lockheed built fifth generation super stealth F-35 Lightning the basic model of which is being made available to India for $ 65 million apiece. The Indian defence establishment would naturally find the offer too good to be true as much inferior fourth generation French Rafale is priced at $ 85 million and Eurofighter Typhoon (also a fourth generation aircraft) at $ 125 million apiece. The American offer signals American desperation for capturing a big pie of the highly lucrative Indian defence market, especially after two top American fighter aircraft manufacturers - Lockheed (F-16) and Boeing (F-18) - got eliminated in the recent Indian MMRCA deal worth $ 10.4 billion. More clarity would have to emerge on the proposed F 35 Lightning sales to India.
1st we have speculation that the mmrca MIGHT BE DROPPED!? AND NOW THIS!?
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A keen watcher of these developments is Lockheed Martin, whose F-16IN Super Viper was rejected by the IAF. A visiting Lockheed Martin executive told Business Standard that the fifth-generation F-35 Lightening II would become a real option for India if the MMRCA procurement was scrapped.
“We did not offer the F-35 for the MMRCA contract because it exceeded the Indian specifications; the fighter was not yet ready for the kind of flight testing specified in the tender; and because the US government had not yet approved it for release to India to include transfer of technology as specified in the RfP,” said Orville Prins, Lockheed Martin’s Vice President for Business Development.
Six years down the line, these conditions have changed. Prins now points out that, with Lockheed Martin set to build 20 fighters per month, i.e. 240 per year, “we could be in a position to supply India with its first F-35s by 2016, contingent upon many additional factors including US governmental approval that would affect this timing.”
Asked for the cost of the F-35, Lockheed Martin estimates it “in the mid-60s”, i.e. somewhere between $60-70 million for the conventional version of the fighter. This would be the cost of a full-up, operational configuration with all the high-tech sensors that are integrated internally in a 5th generation, stealthy aircraft. Added to this cost would be the added expenses of training, technology transfer (ToT), manufacturing infrastructure, etc, which would significantly raise the overall cost of buying 126 F-35s.
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