Shortlisting is not complete ,
Air-Marshal told Force Magazine in June interview-
- Evaluation is over, report to be submitted to the GoI by end of next month
- Cannot state how things will move or unfold thereafter
- IAF had certain basic parameters on which they tested the aircraft. Some were very good on certain parameters while some did better on other parameters. Now, they will need to draw a mean line across all off them. Given this, there is no certainty whether there will be any down-selection of fighters or not. There may be, there may not be.
- the most important aspects for the IAF are design, airframe, capability, base price and life cycle cost.
- GoI may take upto 6 months to study the report after which it will ask the participating companies to submit their tenders. Only then will the exact cost of each machine be known, both base price as well as life cycle costs.
- Following it, Commercial Negotiation Committee (CNC) will meet and these negotiations should carry on for some time.
Eurofighter will be the biggest surprise, if at all it gets selected for short-list .