Commercial negotiations for the purchase of 26 Rafale M fighters for the Navy are set to begin as a French delegation arrives in India. The Dassault Aviation-built omni-role fighter aircraft beat the American Boeing-built F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet. Besides other tests the aircraft were also tested on the navy’s Shore Based Test Facility (SBTF), which simulates INS Vikramaditya in Dabolim, Goa. The navy wants to procure 22 single-seat fighters and four twin-seater trainer variants of the potent fighter jet.
The deal, which may cost as much as Rs 50,000 crore, will be signed after a government is formed at New Delhi. France has already submitted a detailed bid to India in December last year. India intends to finalise the government-to-government deal this financial year. The trouble lies in the delivery schedule of the advanced and much-wanted 4.5-generation fighter jet.
Dassault Aviation, as of March this year, faced a production backlog of 211 aircraft, of which 141 are for France and the remaining 70 are for foreign customers. The French aviation giant is currently struggling to maintain a 3-fighters per month production target. Even if Dassault maintains this optimistic production rate, the aircraft are unlikely to reach Indian Navy’s Top Guns for another six years after signing of the contract.
Rafale and India
36 Rafale fighters are already in service of the Indian Air Force (IAF) and represent the cutting edge of the IAF’s fighter fleet. The aircraft is seen as the frontrunner of the much-delayed Multi-Role Fighter Aircraft (MRFA) competition for 114 fighters. If the Rafale comes on top again in this competition, then most of the aircraft will be made in India at Dassault Reliance Aviation Limited (DRAL) in Nagpur in Maharashtra. DRAL would likely be the regional Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul centre for not only Indian but Rafales of neighbouring nations such as Indonesia, Qatar and UAE. The Rafale will compete with F-15EX Eagle II, Eurofighter Typhoon, F-21 (A variant of F-16), MiG-35, Saab Gripen and the Sukhoi-35.
The Navy And The Rafale
Before the Indian Air Force shared visuals of Sukhois escorting Rafales, the Indian Navy’s stealth ship INS Kolkata was the first contact between the Indian armed forces and its advanced lethal bird of prey. The Rafale was designed for a navy that is similar in size to ours. The aircraft was designed for the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle with a length of 261.5 meters is half a meter shorter than the INS Vikrant, from which the Indian Rafales will operate from. Both these ships also have very similar displacement.
India also wants to integrate Indian weapons on the Rafale, such a modification will also apply to the navy’s fighters. The French Navy was the first service to get the Rafale, even before the French Air Force. The fighters have taken to the air from the deck of the Charles De Gaulle to strike the Taliban and ISIS. Besides Indian and French carriers the aircraft can also operate from American super-carriers.
India is also working on its own deck-based fighter known as the Twin- Engined Deck-Based Fighter (TEDBF), the currently under-development fighter is expected to be in production by 2031 and will be similar to the Rafale.
Dhruv Yadav
