sancho
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Hi Sancho -
I dont see the French lobying hard for Rafale these days, even before while others a pitching too hard, including EF.
Mind that EF is pitching despite getting export customers (confirrmed) are trying level best to catch a deal with us, while French are just not seem to do nothing.
What couldd bee the reason?, are the very confident or they think Brazil is more important than India.
I talked with Benny recently about it too:
http://www.defence.pk/forums/1253019-post3225.html
Generally one can say, those who have the less good product/the less chances, will also make more PR. EF Consortium and Saab are really desperate for a foreign customer, LM just tries the minimum, because they know that they have only limited chances and are concentrating on F35 anyway (which is badly needed!), Boeing for example advertise way less for F18SH, than for other products of them (P8, C17, recently CH47) and Dassault as I said focus mainly on convincing IAF/IN/MoD/GoI and not the public at the moment (womder what Sarkozy will offer when he will arrive in some weeks).
I hope things will change when the Brazilian competition is done and that the French will send their Rafales to Aero India 2011, because they have their carrier here in that time anyway.
Talking of EF consortium, there are rumors that UK sold 24 EFs to Oman for a systemcost of around $93 million each, but it is not confirmed so far and nobody knows if they are new, or used once.
However, that also shows the financial situation of the EF partners, because either they reduce their original orders (what still costs them penalty), or like in this case, try to sell those fighters to other countries. The UK did the same with EFs for Saudi Arabia, most of the Austrian fighters were used German Luftwaffe fighters and they try to sell Greece some EFs too. The fact that the partner countries can't even keep their own orders, should tell us something about fundings for upgrades, or integrations of weapon and techs in future. That's why they need India and why they are pushing so hard!
Imo the GE engine deal for Tejas was the kill for EF in MMRCA, because it would have reduced the costs of EF to produce the engine under licence for both fighters and further developments would have been possible too. Now EF still remains the most expensive fighter, with confirmed delays in the development of T3, limited available weapons and no versions for SFC, or IN.