MMRCA 2.0 - Updates and Discussions

What is your favorite for MMRCA 2.0 ?

  • F-35 Blk 4

    Votes: 28 12.3%
  • Rafale F4

    Votes: 180 78.9%
  • Eurofighter Typhoon T3

    Votes: 3 1.3%
  • Gripen E/F

    Votes: 6 2.6%
  • F-16 B70

    Votes: 1 0.4%
  • F-18 SH

    Votes: 10 4.4%
  • F-15EX

    Votes: 7 3.1%
  • Mig-35

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    228
Any western plane is going to be more expensive,
Best is to focus on Tejas 1A and make them operational and produced in numbers
Yes for the price.
But what about efficiency? If the price was the main point, China would have sold hundreds of J10/JF17
 
Its not the money. It was never the money. Its just that IAF and babudom cannot decide what they want. Throw in Make in India and its even harder negotiation. I guess we should get the ToT which these countries are comfortable in giving for our order size and then reverse engineer the shit out of the planes.

That's incorrect. The IAF have spelt out their requirements over two decades ago. They wanted the LCA, a more capable single engine fighter and a twin engine fighter. This request is from the 90s and none of it has materialized as they wanted it to, save for the MKI. If you recall, they wanted an AJT all the way since the early 80s and they got it only in the mid 2000s.

The problem for them is they are not part of the acquisition process, they need to go through the MoD. And the MoF have a veto over the MoD's process. So most tenders are held hostage by the MoF. Without an MoF go-ahead, the MoD cannot do much either. And the MoF is held hostage by the current finances of the country, which is not good.

Well, the finances of the country are obviously better than last year and the year before that, but the finances are not growing fast enough that we can give the armed forces everything they need. And it gets worse because the Chinese can afford everything that they need. So every time the Chinese come out with something new, it stresses out our budget even more because we will need something as good better to counter the Chinese, and it could be an unplanned purchase. This is what you call an arms race. And we are losing, badly.

Overall, there's nothing wrong with the actual requirements of the armed forces. In the 4 years of Modi, we have signed up for plenty of stuff beyond our means.
 
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Reactions: Ironhide
i am only saying is either get all 126 rafales and bring lca to 4.5 gen or get all jas39. and concentrate on amca. why?? because you need tot. in any case u r not getting tot for f16 deal.
Most ToT you can get is from the F16 deal and none other.

I think this open treatment is to get More ToT after lockheed martin and Raytheon were not keen on parting some of the newer technology and to avoid single vendor situation which invalidates the RFI.
 
Efficiency wise Tejas would be the best one there are many advantages which other planes do not have.
a) Building the plane builds up INDIAN INDUSTRIAL BASE for AEROSPACE.
b) No more total dependency on other countries for fighter planes (read France, Russia or USA)
c) We can develop and use our own avionics and weapons at no extra cost (we spent nearly 1 billion dollars on just customisation of Rafales for India specific weapons)
d) Can be tailor made for our usage and specific requirements
e) The cost of using, maintaining will be at least 50% of Rafale and effectivity wise much more effective than Mirage 2000 (said by the pilots testing Tejas who have a lot of experience flying Mirage 2000)

Thus at cost at which India procured 36 Rafales we would in a way purchase at least 72 Tejas (just the flyway costs) The cost of building base, and cost of tailoring to India-specific weapons is saved in a way, Or basically the cost saved in India specific weapons can be utlised for buidling quality bases. In a way considering the package what we paid for 36 rafales (minus the weapons) we could easily take almost 4 times the nos of planes including performance based logistics ..

This is efficiency... Lets understand few things, In event of War with China, neither Rafale nor Tejas can hit targets in Guangzhou, just Su-30 MKI can. So in terms of targeting China, Rafale is a dud,. In Western sector Rafale can do well because Pakistan is smaller country, and since its small country even tejas can hit targets in Lahore or Islamabad. So Tejas can handle the role too.
Rafale can carry more load and has better range, but just because it has better range, we wont go to Afghanistan to hit some targets there, So Rafale can hit targets in Islamabad, so can Tejas, and for one mission you might need say 4 Rafales and for the same load we might need 6 Tejas, and this becomes more efficient use of assets, Do remember that France still flies Mirage 2000 almost twice more than Rafale because flying Mirage 2000 is much more cost effective than flying Rafale.
So yes its efficient. What makes you feel China is not selling. They are selling. By the way, China has produced more J-10 than Rafale,, so from 2002 to 2018 thats 16 years they produced about 400 J-10. On other hand since 1986 to now that is about 32 years (twice more than the production time of J-10) France produced less than 180 Rafales. Talk about efficiency ...
J-10 16 years approx 400 planes
Rafale 32 years approx 180 planes.
Need I say more?

In the economic sense there are buyers and sellers. Sellers being America, Russia, France, GB/Germany , China etc and there are buyers Middle east buyers, Asian buyers, south American buyers ..
The Middle east buyers have money and can afford any plane, thus anything from F-35 to Su-35 is possible, they are purchasing Rafale and Eurofighters because F-35 is not offered to them. They also have a lot of F-16s
The South American buyers, they are not in active conflicts and so they do not prefer to spend so much on defence, thus they go for planes what are cheap, Venezuela wants to be out of American influence so they purchase Su-30 , Brazil wants to be a super power of South America, so they wanted to get a good plane, cheap to use and fly and yet capable, Thus Gripen became the obvious choice, Brazil does not desire to attack Mexico or the USA. Asian buyer also like good planes Thailand has territorial conflicts but not going to escalate. They also are good friends with USA to they buy American, and also buy Gripen which was cheaply avaialble as compared to Rafale, They need short range planes and Gripen suffices. Indonesia is group of Islands and protection of these islands is critically important, the aggressor here are the Chinese. The Indonesians are not in good terms with USA, The Eurocanards are expensive or short ranged and hence the obvious choice comes the Russian MiG-29 and Su-30/35. Malaysians are also buying Russian planes for same reason. African countries they have small conflicts and even few MiG-29 end up being superior. So in a way, Chinese J-10 has few markets like Pakistan only, but even Pakistan cannot afford to buy a lot, but on other hand J-17 becomes the right alternative for many small countries which really dont require credible air power just enough to help their territorial claim. So these countries will be Bangladesh, Sri lanka, Maldives, Afghanistan and African countries and China is selling these.
So China prefers to export J-17 because there is good market for these where the likes of even MiG-29 become too expensive. J-10 will end up being a little cheap than Gripen, and those who consider J-10 might spend a bit more and go for Gripen.
I guess now you know why Rafale does not get into numbers right? Or you are still ignorant?


Yes for the price.
But what about efficiency? If the price was the main point, China would have sold hundreds of J10/JF17
 
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Reactions: Angel Eyes
Efficiency wise Tejas would be the best one there are many advantages which other planes do not have.
a) Building the plane builds up INDIAN INDUSTRIAL BASE for AEROSPACE.
b) No more total dependency on other countries for fighter planes (read France, Russia or USA)
c) We can develop and use our own avionics and weapons at no extra cost (we spent nearly 1 billion dollars on just customisation of Rafales for India specific weapons)
d) Can be tailor made for our usage and specific requirements
e) The cost of using, maintaining will be at least 50% of Rafale and effectivity wise much more effective than Mirage 2000 (said by the pilots testing Tejas who have a lot of experience flying Mirage 2000)

Thus at cost at which India procured 36 Rafales we would in a way purchase at least 72 Tejas (just the flyway costs) The cost of building base, and cost of tailoring to India-specific weapons is saved in a way, Or basically the cost saved in India specific weapons can be utlised for buidling quality bases. In a way considering the package what we paid for 36 rafales (minus the weapons) we could easily take almost 4 times the nos of planes including performance based logistics ..

This is efficiency... Lets understand few things, In event of War with China, neither Rafale nor Tejas can hit targets in Guangzhou, just Su-30 MKI can. So in terms of targeting China, Rafale is a dud,. In Western sector Rafale can do well because Pakistan is smaller country, and since its small country even tejas can hit targets in Lahore or Islamabad. So Tejas can handle the role too.
Rafale can carry more load and has better range, but just because it has better range, we wont go to Afghanistan to hit some targets there, So Rafale can hit targets in Islamabad, so can Tejas, and for one mission you might need say 4 Rafales and for the same load we might need 6 Tejas, and this becomes more efficient use of assets, Do remember that France still flies Mirage 2000 almost twice more than Rafale because flying Mirage 2000 is much more cost effective than flying Rafale.
So yes its efficient. What makes you feel China is not selling. They are selling. By the way, China has produced more J-10 than Rafale,, so from 2002 to 2018 thats 16 years they produced about 400 J-10. On other hand since 1986 to now that is about 32 years (twice more than the production time of J-10) France produced less than 180 Rafales. Talk about efficiency ...
J-10 16 years approx 400 planes
Rafale 32 years approx 180 planes.
Need I say more?

In the economic sense there are buyers and sellers. Sellers being America, Russia, France, GB/Germany , China etc and there are buyers Middle east buyers, Asian buyers, south American buyers ..
The Middle east buyers have money and can afford any plane, thus anything from F-35 to Su-35 is possible, they are purchasing Rafale and Eurofighters because F-35 is not offered to them. They also have a lot of F-16s
The South American buyers, they are not in active conflicts and so they do not prefer to spend so much on defence, thus they go for planes what are cheap, Venezuela wants to be out of American influence so they purchase Su-30 , Brazil wants to be a super power of South America, so they wanted to get a good plane, cheap to use and fly and yet capable, Thus Gripen became the obvious choice, Brazil does not desire to attack Mexico or the USA. Asian buyer also like good planes Thailand has territorial conflicts but not going to escalate. They also are good friends with USA to they buy American, and also buy Gripen which was cheaply avaialble as compared to Rafale, They need short range planes and Gripen suffices. Indonesia is group of Islands and protection of these islands is critically important, the aggressor here are the Chinese. The Indonesians are not in good terms with USA, The Eurocanards are expensive or short ranged and hence the obvious choice comes the Russian MiG-29 and Su-30/35. Malaysians are also buying Russian planes for same reason. African countries they have small conflicts and even few MiG-29 end up being superior. So in a way, Chinese J-10 has few markets like Pakistan only, but even Pakistan cannot afford to buy a lot, but on other hand J-17 becomes the right alternative for many small countries which really dont require credible air power just enough to help their territorial claim. So these countries will be Bangladesh, Sri lanka, Maldives, Afghanistan and African countries and China is selling these.
So China prefers to export J-17 because there is good market for these where the likes of even MiG-29 become too expensive. J-10 will end up being a little cheap than Gripen, and those who consider J-10 might spend a bit more and go for Gripen.
I guess now you know why Rafale does not get into numbers right? Or you are still ignorant?
You can be sure indian politics need a strong weapon industry, and are doing all their best to do so.
But :
- after 30+ years of dev, Tejas is not FOC so far. No indigenous engine. No indigenous serial radar. Are the FBW purely indian ?
- I have a great doubt about the real capacity of Tejas vs a 40+ years old Mirage 2000. But why not (but even in this case, 40+ years between the two...)
- You can't compare a point defense Tejas with only very short range in air to ground mission and a Rafale. As you can't compare a Rafale with a SU30. They are all playing in a very dedicated league.

So OK, you probably can have 72+ Tejas for the price of 36 Rafale, but they are not able to to the same mission. In 2019 with rafale you will have the capacity to send 2 SCALP deep inside China or Pak. It will never be the case of Tejas.

I think there is a market in Africa for Tejas, J10, JF17 (or Gripen).... but China has far more influence in Africa than india...
 
Efficiency wise Tejas would be the best one there are many advantages which other planes do not have.
a) Building the plane builds up INDIAN INDUSTRIAL BASE for AEROSPACE.
b) No more total dependency on other countries for fighter planes (read France, Russia or USA)
c) We can develop and use our own avionics and weapons at no extra cost (we spent nearly 1 billion dollars on just customisation of Rafales for India specific weapons)
d) Can be tailor made for our usage and specific requirements
e) The cost of using, maintaining will be at least 50% of Rafale and effectivity wise much more effective than Mirage 2000 (said by the pilots testing Tejas who have a lot of experience flying Mirage 2000)

Thus at cost at which India procured 36 Rafales we would in a way purchase at least 72 Tejas (just the flyway costs) The cost of building base, and cost of tailoring to India-specific weapons is saved in a way, Or basically the cost saved in India specific weapons can be utlised for buidling quality bases. In a way considering the package what we paid for 36 rafales (minus the weapons) we could easily take almost 4 times the nos of planes including performance based logistics ..

This is efficiency... Lets understand few things, In event of War with China, neither Rafale nor Tejas can hit targets in Guangzhou, just Su-30 MKI can. So in terms of targeting China, Rafale is a dud,. In Western sector Rafale can do well because Pakistan is smaller country, and since its small country even tejas can hit targets in Lahore or Islamabad. So Tejas can handle the role too.
Rafale can carry more load and has better range, but just because it has better range, we wont go to Afghanistan to hit some targets there, So Rafale can hit targets in Islamabad, so can Tejas, and for one mission you might need say 4 Rafales and for the same load we might need 6 Tejas, and this becomes more efficient use of assets, Do remember that France still flies Mirage 2000 almost twice more than Rafale because flying Mirage 2000 is much more cost effective than flying Rafale.
So yes its efficient. What makes you feel China is not selling. They are selling. By the way, China has produced more J-10 than Rafale,, so from 2002 to 2018 thats 16 years they produced about 400 J-10. On other hand since 1986 to now that is about 32 years (twice more than the production time of J-10) France produced less than 180 Rafales. Talk about efficiency ...
J-10 16 years approx 400 planes
Rafale 32 years approx 180 planes.
Need I say more?

In the economic sense there are buyers and sellers. Sellers being America, Russia, France, GB/Germany , China etc and there are buyers Middle east buyers, Asian buyers, south American buyers ..
The Middle east buyers have money and can afford any plane, thus anything from F-35 to Su-35 is possible, they are purchasing Rafale and Eurofighters because F-35 is not offered to them. They also have a lot of F-16s
The South American buyers, they are not in active conflicts and so they do not prefer to spend so much on defence, thus they go for planes what are cheap, Venezuela wants to be out of American influence so they purchase Su-30 , Brazil wants to be a super power of South America, so they wanted to get a good plane, cheap to use and fly and yet capable, Thus Gripen became the obvious choice, Brazil does not desire to attack Mexico or the USA. Asian buyer also like good planes Thailand has territorial conflicts but not going to escalate. They also are good friends with USA to they buy American, and also buy Gripen which was cheaply avaialble as compared to Rafale, They need short range planes and Gripen suffices. Indonesia is group of Islands and protection of these islands is critically important, the aggressor here are the Chinese. The Indonesians are not in good terms with USA, The Eurocanards are expensive or short ranged and hence the obvious choice comes the Russian MiG-29 and Su-30/35. Malaysians are also buying Russian planes for same reason. African countries they have small conflicts and even few MiG-29 end up being superior. So in a way, Chinese J-10 has few markets like Pakistan only, but even Pakistan cannot afford to buy a lot, but on other hand J-17 becomes the right alternative for many small countries which really dont require credible air power just enough to help their territorial claim. So these countries will be Bangladesh, Sri lanka, Maldives, Afghanistan and African countries and China is selling these.
So China prefers to export J-17 because there is good market for these where the likes of even MiG-29 become too expensive. J-10 will end up being a little cheap than Gripen, and those who consider J-10 might spend a bit more and go for Gripen.
I guess now you know why Rafale does not get into numbers right? Or you are still ignorant?
That sums up everything
 
Do remember that France still flies Mirage 2000 almost twice more than Rafale because flying Mirage 2000 is much more cost effective than flying Rafale.
No it's not.

The maintenance CPFH for the Mirage 2000 in 2014 was about 9400 €. For the Rafale, it was about 10900 €. Despite being a heavier, twin-engine design, it was only about 16% more expensive. This money is recouped by needing to fly less aircraft in operation thanks to the Rafale's larger payload capacity (a flight of three Mirages will cost 28200 € per flight hour, a flight of two Rafales will only cost 21800 € per flight hour), and operationally the Rafale's greater endurance means that they can spend more of their flight time on theater instead of making trips to the tanker. (The Mirage 2000 needs to refuel nearly twice as often as the Rafale). The money factor tilts even more in the Rafale's balance once you consider the increased safety of two engines, meaning less attrition caused by bird strikes. The Rafale also has a higher "quota" of yearly flight hours than the Mirage 2000 in the ADLA -- 250 fh/year instead of 200 for the Mirage.

There's a reason the Mirage 2000 are kept for short and simple missions like peace-time interceptions and that they've been shuffled to the lower-intensity Sahel theater instead of the Levant theater where it's all Rafale.
 
MoD asks IAF to issue request for information for $15-billion order before DefExpo
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has asked the Indian Air Force (IAF) to send out the request for information (RfI) for a $15-billion order for 100 fighter aircraft before the DefExpo starting April 11 in Chennai.
By: Huma Siddiqui | New Delhi | Updated: April 3, 2018 4:42 PM

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iaf1.jpg
Rafale has already sold 36 aircraft to the IAF and is hoping to increase that order size as well as ensure commonality of fleet with the Indian Navy’s requirement of 57 aircraft.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has asked the Indian Air Force (IAF) to send out the request for information (RfI) for a $15-billion order for 100 fighter aircraft before the DefExpo starting April 11 in Chennai.

Speaking to FE, an official said, “The MoD is keen that generic RfI is out before the DefExpo – this means there will be no specific mention of single- or twin-engine aircraft requirements. And, all types of fighters that participated in medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) tender of 2007 would be eligible for consideration again.”

Explaining the procedure of issuing the RfI, former deputy Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Nirdosh Tyagi, who had been directly involved with the MMRCA process, told FE, “The defence procurement procedure-16 clearly states that RfI is not a commitment for procurement. An RfI is not structured as a rigid document, unlike an RfP. The nature of information to be sought through an RfI is clearly stated in the DPP-16. Fighter procurement has been on the list of the IAF for long. If there is requirement to issue an RfI expeditiously, I am sure the IAF will be able to do so.”

Boeing Company’s F-18 Super Hornet, Lockheed Martin’s F-16 and Swedish Gripen, which had earlier lost out in field trials, would have upgraded their offerings by now to meet the qualitative requirements to be issued by the IAF shortly. French firm Dassault Aviation’s Rafale, the Eurofighter Typhoon and Russian Mikoyan’s MiG-35 aircraft are also potential contenders under the new requirements.

Rafale has already sold 36 aircraft to the IAF and is hoping to increase that order size as well as ensure commonality of fleet with the Indian Navy’s requirement of 57 aircraft.

US aerospace giant Lockheed Martin, reportedly wants to shift F-16 production line to India. Indian Navy could look at its latest fighter machines – F-35B short takeoff/vertical landing (STOVL) variant and F-35C carrier variant. In 2017, the company had tied up with Tata Advanced Systems as its local partner and currently is in talks with several other companies to build up the supplier network.

Boeing Company, which has been pushing its F-18 Super Hornet for both the IAF and the Indian Navy, is expected to announce a tie-up with Hindustan Aeronautics and Mahindra Group during the DefExpo later this month.

Swedish Gripen has offered to build planes in India in collaboration with local companies as part of the Make in India and Skill India initiatives.

In spite of the sanctioned strength of 42 combat squadrons required by the IAF, this has drastically come down to 31 at present. It would plummet further over the next decade despite addition of some Rafales and Light combat aircraft. There is requirement of at least 200 more fighter aircraft to maintain minimal squadron strength and capability.

MoD asks IAF to issue request for information for $15-billion order before DefExpo
 
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You are right, we need strong weapons Industry, and we need to develop and build it ourselves, We cannot be a superpower using imported weapons. The best way to develop weapons and industry is to first develop military doctrine. Base on the how we are going to use the troops we develop weapons for INDIA-SPECIFIC need. Rafale was developed for France specific needs wasn't it? Or did the French steal the ECA design?
Tejas was a very ambitious project to start with, it was to be coming together of many things, Design, Avionics, engines, weapons etc. Then India conducted the fateful nuclear testing and the development of Ttejas stalled. As most people know there were many components of Tejas that were being imported and there was sudden embargo on the same. Thus whatever the plan was to import few components that suddenly changed. Kaveri engine saga is another documented one. After the embargo was lifted, GoI thought its best to use American Engine for Tejas.,
Also we have our imported Air force which was never really supportive of the project,

Now to compare somethings here, Tejas is Indian design which India produced after a long time and without experience so delays were expected. Even after all the hurdles, India still managed to get the plane flying and though it does not have FOC, it is still being flown to develop tactics. We have LSP already in production, so FOC is matter of time. But then just to compare the saga of Mirage 4000, did it reach production? How many of those were operational. So Mirage 4000 is a failure. So a company which has developed and built planes failed in project !! As compared to that HAL is doing a good job.

Engine, being developed and the French have been paid to certify it, Radar, we prefer Israeli Radar which we have JV for.

Surely there is a delay and when one is making anything new there would be delays due to lack of knowledge and experience, but when Dassault fails on Mirage 4000 ufff.. Would you call Super Etendard family a success?

When a plane is in combat there is no dedicated league, For example, if a Jaguar is going on strike role, the enemy won't be sending a plane which has the same weight class or same role. So the stupidity of the league, its best the french keep it for covering their shortcomings.
Medium weight etc does not play significance when in combat. It's not a carrier we are operating from, If you had said about Medium weight for a carrier plane, that becomes significant, as there are limitations on the carrier, for a land-based plane there are no limitations of weight.
We can use Tejas how we want to, and when it Pakistan we can conduct the same missions.

"Deep Inside China" is not a term that should be associated with Rafale, as I said Rafale cannot even hit Guangzhou from Indian bases. it does not have the legs nor does Tejas, but when its facing Pakistan the advantages of Rafales end up being diuted. So in a nutshell, When it comes to Pakistan the range is good enough for all three Tejas Rafale or Su-30, when it comes to China both Rafale and Tejas fall short. So in a way Rafale and Tejas will have same strengths and weaknesses when it comes about hitting targets in China or Pakistan,

BTW if Required SCALP/Storm Shadow can be qualified on Tejas if required. So just for firing SCALP we do not need to use Rafales. And by the way, we have our own Brahmos and future Brahmos NG and Nirbhay cruise missile in the future with better range and be sure that Tejas can do that too. Technically there is nothing much that Rafale can offer that we would not be covered with except the "Medium weight" as required by IAF.


You can be sure indian politics need a strong weapon industry, and are doing all their best to do so.
But :
- after 30+ years of dev, Tejas is not FOC so far. No indigenous engine. No indigenous serial radar. Are the FBW purely indian ?
- I have a great doubt about the real capacity of Tejas vs a 40+ years old Mirage 2000. But why not (but even in this case, 40+ years between the two...)
- You can't compare a point defense Tejas with only very short range in air to ground mission and a Rafale. As you can't compare a Rafale with a SU30. They are all playing in a very dedicated league.

So OK, you probably can have 72+ Tejas for the price of 36 Rafale, but they are not able to to the same mission. In 2019 with rafale you will have the capacity to send 2 SCALP deep inside China or Pak. It will never be the case of Tejas.

I think there is a market in Africa for Tejas, J10, JF17 (or Gripen).... but China has far more influence in Africa than india...
 
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Reactions: Angel Eyes
It is nice, earlier the French members were quoting Rafale figures less than 9000$ and those of Mirage about 5000$.
Rafale has an advantage of higher payload, but has Rafale in recent times used its entire payload operationally? I dont think so, On other hand Mirage 2000 carries lower payload and in a way uses more percentage of its payload as compared to Rafale and that too at lower cost.

BTW some links suggest that the cost per flying hour of Rafale are more than 15K please have a review of that

No it's not.

The maintenance CPFH for the Mirage 2000 in 2014 was about 9400 €. For the Rafale, it was about 10900 €. Despite being a heavier, twin-engine design, it was only about 16% more expensive. This money is recouped by needing to fly less aircraft in operation thanks to the Rafale's larger payload capacity (a flight of three Mirages will cost 28200 € per flight hour, a flight of two Rafales will only cost 21800 € per flight hour), and operationally the Rafale's greater endurance means that they can spend more of their flight time on theater instead of making trips to the tanker. (The Mirage 2000 needs to refuel nearly twice as often as the Rafale). The money factor tilts even more in the Rafale's balance once you consider the increased safety of two engines, meaning less attrition caused by bird strikes. The Rafale also has a higher "quota" of yearly flight hours than the Mirage 2000 in the ADLA -- 250 fh/year instead of 200 for the Mirage.

There's a reason the Mirage 2000 are kept for short and simple missions like peace-time interceptions and that they've been shuffled to the lower-intensity Sahel theater instead of the Levant theater where it's all Rafale.
 
Or did the French steal the ECA design?
Another pure Smestarz quote :unsure:

When you see the result during 1986 Farnborough show between Rafale and ECA..... You cleraly show that the french plane has only in common with ECA : 2 delta wings, one tail, 2 engines.... And the french plane flew much better (even the english recongnized it !)
 
It is nice, earlier the French members were quoting Rafale figures less than 9000$ and those of Mirage about 5000$.
Rafale has an advantage of higher payload, but has Rafale in recent times used its entire payload operationally? I dont think so, On other hand Mirage 2000 carries lower payload and in a way uses more percentage of its payload as compared to Rafale and that too at lower cost.

BTW some links suggest that the cost per flying hour of Rafale are more than 15K please have a review of that
No I was quoting 10000 for the Rafale and 8000 for the Mirage, In 2014 the upgrade show 10900 for the Rafale and 9400 for the Mirage. The gap is closing because the Mirage is an oldest aircraft compare to the Rafale.
And yes Rafale is used at a load close to the maximum because it carry a lot of drop tank (6 t) to increase its persistance in combat zone.
 
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This will be another Rafale vs Eurofighter competition then and Rafale will win EASILY.

F-18,F-16 and Gripen unable to offer TOT, MiG-35 is too basic. Eurofighter just isn’t an option

Don’t understand what the point is in revisiting this circus, it only adds time and makes Indian procurement system look even more useless.

ONLY justifiable reason would’ve been if they had pooled IAF and IN fighter requirements but they haven’t even done that