The Mig-35 may turn out to be Old wine in a new bottle!!Sure it’s got 3-D thrust vectoring,but does it offer anything over the other competitors-it’s radar & most systems still exist only on paper & won’t enter Russian service anytime soon,if they ever do.To make matters worse,the Russians have been acting too pricey & truant
with India with cost escalations & delays in a number of programmes like the SU-30 & Admiral Gorshkov carrier.
The 2 main Eurojets are easily the newest aircraft in this competition & both were designed to counter the Flanker-that makes these aircraft attractive in themselves esp given that India’s neighbour to the North operates the 2nd largest fleet of Flankers.The delay in awarding this contract may actually work to the advantage of the Rafale/EF-2000 given that they won’t need hurry on development of new radars,it’s IR sensors or the Meteor missile.Don’t know how it panned out in reality,but the IAF was impressed with the Typhoon’s agility in a joint Indo-UK exercise last month.The Europeans being short of customers are also more likely to be flexible on transfer of technology.
An American system is almost certain if the Indo-US Nuclear deal goes through.
In terms of sheer capability (once all the upgrades come through) the Rafale and the Typhoon are ahead of the pack, but wouldn’t a Typh/Rafale purchase basically bring in another airframe that is not just equal but better than the MKI? Instead of going for a ‘hi/lo’ mix they would have a ‘hi/hi+’ mix, with (say) the Typhoon being the hi+.