sancho
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If IAF awards this mmrca to F18SH/RAFAEL OR TYPHOON IAF will be too top heavey with twin engines fighters by 2020 ie 80% of a 640 fleet will be 2 engines and far too expensive to operate maintain etc.
Hi Storm Force, the problem here is that this is your conclusion, but take a closer look at the decisions IAF/MoD made and you will see that they see it different.
The initial MRCA competition had focused on light weight single engine fighters mainly and by all what we know, the Mirage 2000 and Gripen C/Ds had the best chances. However, this is MMRCA and if IAF/MoD didn't wanted more twin engine fighters, they wouldn't had let the Rafale, EF and F18SH joined the competition. Also look at the later decisions too! More Su 30 MKIs although we know they are expensive to maintain and most of the new order will only arrive besides MMRCAs. That means if there were any problem with funding the twin engine fighters, IAF/MoD could have gone for more MMRCAs, which could be single engine fighters, or at least more cost-effective twin engine fighters.
But that's still not all, the recent reports about 250-300 heavy class Pak Fa / FGFA and also the medium class twin engine AMCA that could possibly come clearly says, that there is no problem in funding twin engine fighters, or a special focus on single engine fighters.
Gripen NG is a good fighter, but without any orders yet, no political, or industrial advantages for India and by beeing close in capability to LCA, it doesn't even offer our forces clear advantages.