Posted on 06/28/2010 10:26:49 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
US defence major Lockheed Martin today said it will offer its latest fifth generation F-35 fighters to meet Indian Navy's requirements for carrier-based combat aircraft.
"We have received the Request for Information (RFI) from the Navy seeking information about the F-35 aircraft, which are capable of taking off from aircraft carriers. We are going to offer our aircraft to them," Lockheed Martin Vice President Orville Prins said here.
He said presentations had been given to the Indian Navy about both the 'B'and 'C' versions of the aircraft in the recent past.
The B version the F-35 is a short take-off and vertical landing aircraft and the C version is an aircraft carrier-based version.
The Navy, which will acquire the under-construction Indigenous Aircraft Carrier around 2015, is likely to build another larger-size carrier and is looking to procure fighter aircraft for
(Excerpt) Read more at ptinews.com ...
Nothing against the Indians but maybe it is time to start planning on a F-36.
I think that the progress of the F-35 has been astounding.
What i hope is that they are learning about modern probs regarding COST when the Black Ops reveal their next Fighter, fighter/bomber projects
Here in CA.........there are Billboards.....they basically say, "Here is what the F35 looks like to the enemy"......and the billboard is all clouds. Love it.
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It has.
I had the impression that we are crippling our air force.
Let me make sure I understand our arm sales. The Russians are still somewhat of an adversary. The Indians are partnered with the Russians to buy and build many of the Russian fighters, including the T-50. Therefore, we want to sell the Indians our so state of the art it's still in development F-35?
The Indo-Russian partnership on the T-50 appears to be less of a JV and more of a ‘preferred client’ thing with the Indians mainly contributing funds. Given the rather volatile exchanges over a number of recent Russian purchases, there’s no guarantee that things will sail smoothly. So the US and LM are not too wrong in trying to dangle a carrot.
Whether the Indian military and government will fall for it is another thing. It appears unlikely that the Indian Navy would be allowed to purchase the F-35 which is considerably more expensive than the Rafale, Super Hornet or even the proposed Sea Gripen. Not to forget the currently in service Mig-29K. So any decision is expected to take at least 4-5 years.
However we may not go that far if the USN or Royal Navy decide to bail out or cut their purchases.
Selling F-35s to the Indians would be a gold mine for LM. India doesn’t have the aerospace tech to license assemble( or even maintain) these aircrafts. Just the post sale support contracts would be worth 10s of billions.
Here comes the Chicom troll again. How can you have technology to license build when you don’t get it from manufacturers. Unless if you are from the PRC, where espionage is the norm.
And even the glorious PLA is so bad at it that their air force doesn’t want anything to do with their ripped off J-11s.
Assemble from imported parts not build. I don’t rate the Indian Areospace industry to be able to assemble under license the F-35 at this stage.
You know, if the Indians wind up operating the PAK-AF/T-50 (still sounds like a flying tank to me -- gotta dent Pooty with a misnomer on this a/c), and the US, British, Australians, and Japanese are operating F-35's, and we've got the F-22 on top of that, the Chinese are going to be having a very large yard sale on J-11's and J-17's if they can't get their ripped-off 5th Gen design together (which I suspect is actually a stolen F-22 design).
They're all over the place with these various aircraft projects, from updating 60's (actually 50's, in the case of the MiG-21) designs to trying to do Gen 5 stuff. How can they unify an aerospace effort and make intelligent value choices with all that going on? They're going to wind up driving 21st-century Brewster Buffaloes.
Not that that exactly slays me personally ....
Sure India is still on the learning curve but most international aerospace companies trust them to trade their wares unlike the Chicoms.
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