India all set to buy 36 Dassault Rafales

[evhest]

India is set to buy 36 Dassault Rafale fighter aircraft, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi announced on Friday 10 April during a visit to France. The announcement comes after a long and difficiult negotiation process which initially revolved around 126 Rafales. The Indians have requested 36 Rafales in fly-away condition as soon as possible, it emerged in Paris.

More is here at Airheadsfly.com.

[SquAdmin]

So... in fly away condition means ex French Air Force? And will they be replaced?

[michel N]

In fly-away condition probably means: build by Dassault. So not by Hindustan, which wants to build them

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[evhest]

It is now said this deal comes on top of the planned deal of 126 Rafales, and those negotiations continue. Personally I think there's something more at play here, or it's at least politics and economics played out via the media.

[Sud-Ouest]

The answer here (Le Monde) : http://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/ ... _3234.html

Outre cette commande « sur étagère » d'appareils fabriqués en France, Paris et New Delhi se sont « engagés » à poursuivre leurs négociations pour la construction d'avions Rafale en Inde.

So 36 rafales built in France while negotiations on the 'old' contract are finalized.

[ehusmann]

If I remember correctly, the 126 deal was to be Air Force only, with possibly a follow on deal for the Indian Navy later. In that light, the 126 was probably never going to be the final number and so 36 'extra' is not that much extra if the Navy variant might become part of the 126 deal now (or perhaps already of these 36?).
And if you ask me, India could use many more than 126+36 anyway....

Erwin

[Le Addeur noir]

It is now said this deal comes on top of the planned deal of 126 Rafales, and those negotiations continue. Personally I think there's something more at play here, or it's at least politics and economics played out via the media.

Avions Marcel Dassault have raised several issues about quality control about the proposed licence build of Rafales by HAL, so these 36 airplanes would side step this until a later date.

[Sud-Ouest]

Le Addeur noir is correct.

The Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) negotiations concentrated on 126 Rafales + 63 optional. Of these the first 18 would be built in France and the rest was to be assembled/license built in India. The main discussion point was that India wanted Dassault to be responsible/accountable for the Rafales that were assembled/built in India. Dassault in turn said that they cannot be responsible for the entire supply chain in India. They have been trying to come up with a solution for this over the last few years and it was recently reported that Dassault and HAL accepted some sort of joint responsibility. Since the MMRCA deal is not yet finalized, and the Indian Air Force is in dire need of new jets, this 'small' order seems to be an ideal solution as there is no tender, which means that Dassault could start preparations immediately after the contract is signed. This effectively closes the gap in terms of having to wait for the first deliveries and the Indian government shows that they are willing to commit to this program, 3 years after the Rafale was selected for 'exclusive negotiations'. Besides the Rafale deal, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also signed other agreements such as the construction of nuclear power plants by Areva. Negotiations for this contract started back in 2009 and were also stalled because of concerns about accountability.

An overview of all the agreements signed by Narendra Modi in Paris can be found here: http://www.narendramodi.in/list-of-agre ... pril-2015/