IAF Mirage 2000 upgrade: Scam of Biblical Proportions

[janon]

just prove ur point man...........

where is mirage 2000 better than mig-29 k

just name one parameter...............except a to g role where it is.

anything else??

no

so why does upgrade cost the price of a new mig-29k??its a simple question 


i really doubt it

airframe is same and so are engines

mirages wee sourced between 1985 and 88

now tell me how is it possible that aircraft will have life of 50 years even after upgrades??

its impossible 
@janon
do u know the ew suite of upgraded mirage 2000 or jammers??
i know only of rdy-2 radar and mig-29k zhuk me is better than it

i am interested in a discussion but pls give objective analysis of whats in upgraded mirage 2000??

I'll try again. EVEN IF (And that's a big if) the mig-29k is cheaper and better than the upgraded mirages, the cost of inducting them will include a lot more costs than simply the flyaway cost. Monetarily the cost of all the logistics and maintainence depots and all that, and intangibly the cost of training and gainin experience with a new platform. Given all those costs, it would be simpler and cheaper to upgrade the jets they already have.

 

[he-man]

Please read my response again. Flyaway cost is only one small portion of the cost of ownership of a platform. If is was as easy as looking at price of jets and their capabilities, anybody with an intenet connection could decide the nature of the IAF fleet. Things are not so simplistic. Please understand all the associated costs, compared to which aquisition costs pale into insignificance. Training, logistics, spares, maintainence depots, not to mention the wealth of tactics and doctrines that have been developed over decades - do you expect the IAF to throw all that away because the flyaway cost of a mig-29k is cheaper?

I repeat - things are not so simplistic and trite.

why was mig-29 upgade to upg standard deal was signed for only 950 million??

for 63 aircraft

and i have also started a thread on mig-29k avionics and it is a very very good machine 

I'll try again. EVEN IF (And that's a big if) the mig-29k is cheaper and better than the upgraded mirages, the cost of inducting them will include a lot more costs than simply the flyaway cost. Monetarily the cost of all the logistics and maintainence depots and all that, and intangibly the cost of training and gainin experience with a new platform. Given all those costs, it would be simpler and cheaper to upgrade the jets they already have.

i understand we had to upgrade these but what if rafale mlu costs like 60-70 million per aircraft or even more??then what?

the problem is we have signed a deal for mig 29 upgradation to upg standard for only 950 million!!!
63 aircraft

 

[janon]

why was mig-29 upgade to upg standard deal was signed for only 950 million??

for 63 aircraft

and i have also started a thread on mig-29k avionics and it is a very very good machine

Because french stuff is ussually more expensive than russian ones, and also a lot more reliable and maintainance friendly.

Again - no matter how good a machine mig-29k is, the cost of inducting it will be a lot higher than the flyaway cost that appears on paper. So upgrading the jets we already have makes eminent sense, especially given how much the piltos and ground crews love it.

 

[he-man]

Because french stuff is ussually more expensive than russian ones, and also a lot more reliable and maintainance friendly.

Again - no matter how good a machine mig-29k is, the cost of inducting it will be a lot higher than the flyaway cost that appears on paper. So upgrading the jets we already have makes eminent sense, especially given how much the piltos and ground crews love it.

that is fine but i am really not sold on mirage 2000 capability,,,,,,,,,,,,nope

it was a bad planning

we should have upgraded at least 10 years ago

 

[janon]

i understand we had to upgrade these but what if rafale mlu costs like 60-70 million per aircraft or even more??then what?

the problem is we have signed a deal for mig 29 upgradation to upg standard for only 950 million!!!
63 aircraft

Now you are asking the right questions. The rafale upgrades will, in all probability, be done in India, which is why we are opting for deep ToT at this stage with the purchase. We did not purchase the mirage-2k line lock, stock and barrel when we had a chance. If we had done that, we could have upgraded the mirages ourselves, just like we upgraded the jaguars remarkably well by ourselves, after manufacturing them ourselves. That is why manufacturing ToT is so important, it saves money later.

 

[he-man]

the other thing is their remaining life will be max 15 years

couldn't we have used lca instead of this.................in almo

Now you are asking the right questions. The rafale upgrades will, in all probability, be done in India, which is why we are opting for deep ToT at this stage with the purchase. We did not purchase the mirage-2k line lock, stock and barrel when we had a chance. If we had done that, we could have upgraded the mirages ourselves, just like we upgraded the jaguars remarkably well by ourselves, after manufacturing them ourselves. That is why manufacturing ToT is so important, it saves money later.

the same thing comes out.................poor shitty planning

by the way jag's are just useless even after upgrades,,just like mig-21
they should be scraped 

Because french stuff is ussually more expensive than russian ones, and also a lot more reliable and maintainance friendly.

Again - no matter how good a machine mig-29k is, the cost of inducting it will be a lot higher than the flyaway cost that appears on paper. So upgrading the jets we already have makes eminent sense, especially given how much the piltos and ground crews love it.

the thing here is that most of the mig-29k electronics,jammers etc are not russian!!
only zhuk-me is russian,,rest of the stuff is from israel,italy,ukraine

 

[janon]

the other thing is their remaining life will be max 15 years

couldn't we have used lca instead of this.................in almo



the same thing comes out.................poor shitty planning

by the way jag's are just useless even after upgrades,,just like mig-21
they should be scraped 


the thing here is that most of the mig-29k electronics,jammers etc are not russian!!
only zhuk-me is russian,,rest of the stuff is from israel,italy,ukraine

1) I already provided you links to demonstrate that the remaining life is 20-25 years. Sometimes I wonder whether you are really listening, or I am talking to a brick wall. Once your claims have been shown to be incorrect, you ought to stop making those claims. There is such a thing as integrity.

2) The jags are definitely not useless. The air vice marshal of the IAF, in responding to an article by Bharat Karnad a couple of days back, was all praise for the upgraded jags. I will take his word for it. Anyway that is tangential to the issue at hand; the point was that if we can manufacture it ourselves, we will be able to upgrade them ourselves.

3) The aircraft itself is Russian. Which is why it is cheap to aquire, but will cost a bomb to maintain, not to mention low availability rates. On the other hand mirages have been very cheap and easy to use and maintain, and the availability has been stellar. That is why the IAF is taking lifecycle costs into account these days, instead of aquisition cost.

 

[President]

Folks this is an old news but the data in the article holds.

51 mirage 2000 upgrade has cost us roughly 40 million dollars each......................cost of a brand new mig-29k

please read the article carefully and tell whether it smells of corruption or not

a single engine fighter of 80's with limited payload capability and a mediocre radar is all we get even after upgrade




the article itself----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NEW DELHI: Should India have simply gone in for new fighters rather than upgrading its 51 Mirage-2000s at an exorbitant cost? This question came to the fore once again on Monday with defence minister AK Antony telling Parliament that the upgrade cost for each jet was Rs 167 crore.

This when the last lot of the French-origin Mirage-2000s - their induction began in the mid-1980s - contracted by India in 2000 cost just Rs 133 crore apiece. However, Antony, in a written reply to Lok Sabha, said, "Applying an escalation of 3.5% per annum as per the pricing policy review committee, to the contracted cost of the year 2000, it works out to be Rs 195 crore at 2011 levels. Thus, the upgrade has been undertaken at 85% of the aircraft's escalated cost."

However, the Rs 167-crore figure does not give the full picture. The overall upgrade programme of the Mirage-2000s is pegged at Rs 17,547 crore, with the first two fighters being upgraded in France and the rest (49) by Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL) under transfer of technology (ToT). If this figure is taken into account, then each Mirage upgrade will cost Rs 344 crore.

India has inked two separate contracts in the upgrade programme, which kicked off last year with the help of French companies Dassault Aviation (aircraft manufacturer) and Thales (weapons systems integrator).

In July 2011, the upgrade programme was finalized at Rs 10,947 crore, which included both the French and HAL work-shares. Then, early last year, the second contract worth around Rs 6,600 crore for 490 advanced fire-and-forget MICA (interception and aerial combat missiles) systems to arm the fighters was finalized with French armament major MBDA. The overall upgrade package may even cross the Rs 20,000 crore-mark over the decade it will take to complete it, as earlier reported by TOI.

However, both MoD and IAF - down to just 34 fighter squadrons when over 44 are required to deter both Pakistan and China - maintain the upgrade will ensure the multi-role Mirages become "virtually new fighters" that will "remain current and potent" for over two decades more.

"Mirages have performed superbly since induction. IAF is going in for new acquisitions, which take a long time in our circumstances, as well as upgrades to retain its combat readiness," said an official.

Holding major upgrade decisions are "suitably negotiated" in a competitive environment, Antony admitted, "However, this (Mirage) upgrade programme also includes fitment of advanced multi-mode target radar, reconfigured glass cockpit and advance avionics, state-of-the-art electronic warfare system and capability to launch advanced missiles."

Even as it progressively inducts 272 Sukhoi-30MKIs contracted for Rs 55,717 crore, IAF is also undertaking upgrade of its 63 MiG-29s at a cost of $964 million deal inked with Russia in March, 2008.

The force is also heavily banking upon the almost $20 billion MMRCA (medium multi-role combat aircraft) project to acquire 126 French Rafale fighters from Dassault, the final commercial negotiations for which are now in progress.
High cost of Mirage-2000 upgrade raises eyebrows - Times Of India

maintaince and upgrades always costs more than the original cost..this is a marketing trick..when you buy a new machine, if you get a spare part for that machine..that will cost 7-9 times the cost used in the original machine..

 

[he-man]

1) I already provided you links to demonstrate that the remaining life is 20-25 years. Sometimes I wonder whether you are really listening, or I am talking to a brick wall. Once your claims have been shown to be incorrect, you ought to stop making those claims. There is such a thing as integrity.

2) The jags are definitely not useless. The air vice marshal of the IAF, in responding to an article by Bharat Karnad a couple of days back, was all praise for the upgraded jags. I will take his word for it. Anyway that is tangential to the issue at hand; the point was that if we can manufacture it ourselves, we will be able to upgrade them ourselves.

3) The aircraft itself is Russian. Which is why it is cheap to aquire, but will cost a bomb to maintain, not to mention low availability rates. On the other hand mirages have been very cheap and easy to use and maintain, and the availability has been stellar. That is why the IAF is taking lifecycle costs into account these days, instead of aquisition cost.

i also answered politely that if aircrafts were acquired in 1985-88 does it mean they will have total life of 50+ years without body change??

please think

 

[duhastmish]

They say Russian are asking too much for maintain acne where we all know mki has almost zilch maintenance cost compare to jaguars mirage etc. and biggest stupidity I hear by people is story of medium and heavy fighter when we know Russian fighter cost less are way more manuverable and weight is just a dumb found reason. India need to invest during development if we want some European fighters. That's the only way to learn about mechanics and engineering.
Although I highly doubt European will give an iota of their advance technology during tot. 
Only reason IAF was inclined because of pilots training and know how of this fighter. But we should have bargained more and got even Arab mirage when they are up for sale in market. For nearly peanuts.

 

[he-man]

They say Russian are asking too much for maintain acne where we all know mki has almost zilch maintenance cost compare to jaguars mirage etc. and biggest stupidity I hear by people is story of medium and heavy fighter when we know Russian fighter cost less are way more manuverable and weight is just a dumb found reason. India need to invest during development if we want some European fighters. That's the only way to learn about mechanics and engineering.
Although I highly doubt European will give an iota of their advance technology during tot.

as u can see ppl are conveniently justifying 40 million per plane upgrade cost!!!

and they are calling be asshole

 

[SpArK]

Extending the life and opting for newer jet like MIG-35 or Grippen would have been great for future.

M2K upgrades are indeed damn costly.Upgrade of jags was like replacing the stock music system with a newer one in a maruti 800. Even after the upgrades, they can never be a honda brio or a swift.

The reason they say is IAF's affinity for them, not an excuse for such a costly expenditure for public.

 

[janon]

i also answered politely that if aircrafts were acquired in 1985-88 does it mean they will have total life of 50+ years without body change??

please think

No, I don't think you answered that previously. Anyway, there are enough links to substantiate the fact that they will serve for at least another two decades:

High cost of Mirage-2000 upgrade raises eyebrows - Times Of India

The Tribune, Chandigarh, India - Main News

the upgrade will ensure the multi-role Mirages become "virtually new fighters" that will "remain current and potent" for over two decades more.

Modernisation of the Indian Air Force | Asian Defence News Articles | Defence Review Asia

The improvements include new avionics, radars, mission computers, glass cockpits, helmet-mounted displays, electronic warfare suites, weapon delivery and precision-targeting systems, which will bring the fleet to Mirage 2000-5 standards and extend the service life by 20 years.

There are enough links if you google. If the upgraded mig 29s can serve for 40 years, why can't the mirages serve for 50? That's the advantage of western platforms, they don't wear out like the Russian ones. They are usually built to last, which is why they cost more, unlike soviet stuff which were mass produced cheaply, but cost a lot to maintain, and had to be scrapped.

 

[duhastmish]

Dear this why India is lagging behind because they don't see their problem. They don't deserve the Russia when we realise as a nation we never stood with them. Another problem is Top official don't look at pocket and state of country they just want fancy toys.
Mirage is amazing machine but how can some nano and alto based country buy a Ferrari.

 

[he-man]

Extending the life and opting for newer jet like MIG-35 or Grippen would have been great for future.

M2K upgrades are indeed damn costly.Upgrade of jags was like replacing the stock music system with a newer one in a maruti 800. Even after the upgrades, they can never be a honda brio or a swift.

The reason they say is IAF's affinity for them, not an excuse for such a costly expenditure for public.

thanks for the support man

ppl don't understand that we should have planned for the future not wasted money on these birds.
anyway the upgrade will take 7 years so why not sign new deal for some other aircraft

this is foolish