Sukhoi vs Eurofighter as IAF 'takes on' RAF

Steyr

NEW DELHI:

Top-notch fighters and other aircraft from India and UK will match their combat skills in the `Indra-Dhanush' joint exercise at Kalaikunda airbase in West Bengal later this month.

While the British Royal Air Force will deploy their spanking new Eurofighter jets for the exercise slated to begin from October 20, the IAF fleet will be led by the `air dominance' Sukhoi-30MKI fighters.

"The exercise will be held in an AWACS (airborne warning and control systems) environment, with air defence being a major thrust area. We will be fielding different types of our fighters," said a senior official.

Both the Indian and British forces are also expected to use their mid-air refuelling aircraft, like the IL-78 and VC-10 tankers, during the combat manoeuvres.

"The aim of the joint exercise is to learn from each other and enhance mutual operational understanding. With every exercise, IAF has gained valuable experience and gained respect as a highly-professional and motivated force," the official added.

The exercise comes at a time when the $10.4 billion project to acquire 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) for IAF is in the final stages of selection process.

Apart from Eurofighter, the other five contenders in the hotly-contested race to bag the lucrative MMRCA project are the F/A-18 `Super Hornet' and F-16 `Falcon' (both US), Gripen (Swedish), Rafale (French) and MiG-35 (Russian).

A major Indo-UK defence deal has been the `Hawk' AJT (advanced jet trainer) project. As reported earlier, India is going in for another 57 Hawks as a "follow-on" order to the ongoing Rs 8,000 crore AJT project, finalised in March 2004 with BAE Systems, under which IAF is already getting 66 Hawks.

tac foley

British aerospace industry will do anything to 'curry' favour with the Indian government.

tac

oglaigh

Wonder if the typhoons will be "neutered" like the USAF F-15s were a few years back.

helimachoptor

oglaigh wrote: »

Wonder if the typhoons will be "neutered" like the USAF F-15s were a few years back.

What did they do?

Steyr

helimachoptor wrote: »

What did they do?

The IAF SU-30K's pretty much went through USAF F-15C's for a shortcut, The USAF underestimated the Indian Air Force and as a result were "out skilled". The F-15C's suffered a 90% defeat rate in direct combat exercises. USAF Top Brass went as far in an Official US Mil Magazine as to say these exercises "provide a reality check for those who had assumed unquestioned US air superiority."


In exercise "Cope Thunder" a flight of four USAF F-15C's were put against a mixed bag of 10-12 Mirage 2000, MIG-27 and MIG-29s in offensive and defensive counter air scenarios.

The most formidable IAF aircraft to tackle the Eagles were the IAF's MIG-21 Bison and the SU-30K.

After all this happened this ended up paving the way for the IAF to take part in USAF/Multinational Red Flag Exercises and RAF/IAF Exercises "Indra Dhanush".

OS119

Steyr wrote: »

The IAF SU-30K's pretty much went through USAF F-15C's for a shortcut, The USAF underestimated the Indian Air Force and as a result were "out skilled". The F-15C's suffered a 90% defeat rate in direct combat exercises. USAF Top Brass went as far in an Official US Mil Magazine as to say these exercises "provide a reality check for those who had assumed unquestioned US air superiority."

its also been reported that it was a complete stitch-up to strongarm the DoD into buying more F-22A's - the story being that the US side of the exercise used older, non-EASA radar equipped F-15C's, had no AWACS support and were armed only with WVR missiles, not the normal load of radar guided jobs - effectively a deliberately 'fake' result designed from the outset to say 'look, we've been slapped by brown people, we need more F-22A's'. they weren't counting on the USAF to get a monsterously bruised ego and to run to the papers to salve their public image and blab that it was a complete pile of ****e in the first place, and somewhat spoiling the intended effect.