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After two years of negotiations between the defence top-brass of India and France regarding the upgradation of the Mirage-2000 fighter fleet with the Indian Air Force (IAF), France is keen seal the deal by early next year.
French defence minister, Hervé Morin announced in New Delhi last week that the French President Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy is willing to sign the deal during his visit in early 2009. In fact, due to the apparent pressure from French President to finalize the deal, the French aerospace giant Thales is now aiming at reducing its quoted price by using Indian suppliers and firms for services and components for the upgrade.
As of now, Thales and the IAF have been unable to finalize the price for upgrading the 51 Mirage-2000s of the IAF with new radars, avionics, electronic warfare systems and onboard computers, which will make the aircraft battle worthy for another 15 years. The initial offer by Thales was for $2.9 billion and Thales later came down to $2.1 billion. However, IAF finds that price steep and instead of spending $41 million on each Mirage-2000, IAF would rather buy brand new fighters.
IAF officials feel that the current efforts of the French top brass will finally bring the Mirage-2000 upgradation deal to its fruition. The fact that local firms like Samtel will be involved in the upgradation will assure the maintenance and repair of the upgraded avionics in India. IAF officials added that local firms would also handle “obsolescence management” which involves redesigning avionics cards that need upgrading.
As for Thales, its proposition is to turn the Mirage-2000s in the IAF fleet to Dash-5 levels. This will give the jets multi-role capability with longer-range radars and fire-and-forget missiles, enabling less aircraft to perform a given mission thanks to greater fuel and weapon-delivery capacities. The upgrade will involve providing the Mirage-2000, which was first inducted in mid-1980, a state-of-the-art fly-by-wire digital cockpit and an enhanced weapons-carrying capability.
Under the Thales proposal, the company would deliver the first two aircraft from its facilities in France within 40 months of the signing of the contract, and would simultaneously assist Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in upgrading another two aircraft in India in the same time frame. Thereafter, HAL would upgrade one of the remaining 47 aircraft every month.
The Mirage-2000 will be further enhanced by the integration of new capabilities which includes longer range detection across the spectrum, improved tactical situation awareness, longer range weapon firing against multiple simultaneous targets, weapon stealth and extended operating envelope with the capability to engage ground targets while countering airborne threats. As a result, fewer aircraft while achieving a higher success rate due to greater fuel and weapon-delivery capacities.
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