Nutuk please note that this is a classic case of south Asian defence reporting I.E. utter crap.
If you read the headline it blares "INDIA TO GET F-35!!!" but in reality tucked away in the bottom it says IF India purchases the F-16 for the MRCA then they would position India to get "technologies from the f-35 in the future"
then y does it say iaf shuold the project
US wants India's fighter jet order, dangles F-35 carrot
The U.S. government would need to approve any sale of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to India. US is an unreliable friend , though it is a friend . Indians , particularly Scientific community ,Millitary and partiotic groups do not trust US . Good example is Nuke deal , which is almost dead , because of senseless strings attached to achieve US's unspoken goal is to curtail India's nuclear power by a trap . It is better to keep away from US , an unreliable friend .
Vishal Thapar / CNN-IBN
Published on Thursday , July 19, 2007 at 08:55 in Nation section
Tags: US, India
New Delhi: Unmatched stealth and super cruise - the Indian Air Force got a glimpse of the future of air combat in an American presentation on its next-generation fighter, the F-35, on Tuesday.
There were indications that the US is willing to share this new weapon with India, but it's clearly a carrot for giving the older F-16 a leg up in the Indian tender for 126 fighter aircraft.
Says Lockheed Martin's Royce Caplinger, "Beyond the RFP that's on the horizon, the F-35 too could play a role, sometime in the future."
The Americans are raising the bar for the competition in the Indian arms bazaar. They are making offers which are difficult to resist. India is being told that it can have the new generation stealth fighter for the price of an F-16.
"Think one to one and I am serious when I say this," says Caplinger.
So, the F-16 is now being sold as the transition to a fifth generation fighter, which has no parallel among the competition. And affordability is the key to this sales pitch.
The price is about $50 million apiece at current prices. The Americans promise that the F-35 will take India into a different league.
"It's a game changer, in every sense of the word," says Caplinger.
The Joint Strike Aircraft will be operationalised only by 2014. The first of India's 126 fighters of an earlier generation will only start arriving by then.
So, the signal that the F-35 would be available is bound to raise an Indian dilemma: Is India investing over Rs 40,000 crore in fighters which will be rendered obsolete by a similarly-priced aircraft?
IntelliBriefs: US wants India's fighter jet order, dangles F-35 carrot
i couldnt find the proper link but this is wat the air chief had to say abt the offer
“We cannot buy JSF,” Air Chief Marshall Shashindra Pal Tyagi told reporters as he outlined India’s ambitious modernization plan. “We would rather have most of the stuff done here.”
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But that long list of countries that already have divvied up work on the project is exactly why — after looking closely at the program — India isn’t interested, Tyagi said. Indian officials have made it clear that they want a key development role in the aircraft they buy, along with the ability to build 90 percent of the jet in India.
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Although interest in JSF is scant, Tyagi said he was attracted to Indian participation in Russia’s drive to develop a fifth-generation fighter jet, an endeavor that would allow Indian engineers to play a key early role in the program. New Delhi, however, is waiting on Russia, which has the lead on the effort.