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A propos du T 50 (qui serait proposé 70 millions de dollars pièce à la vente en 2015-2019), j’ai eu l’occasion d’en parler récemment avec le patron français d’un fournisseurs de composants stratégiques pour l’aéronautique militaire. Si les Russes ont encore, pour le moment, un retard en matière d’avionique, ils sont sans conteste, aujourd’hui, le numéro un mondial en matière de conception et de fabrication de structures d’avion de combat. En outre, leurs missiles de combat aérien devancent en performances, en général, celles des fabricants étasuniens, français ou allemands. L’Inde ne pouvait choisir meilleur partenariat.

U.S. May Sweeten Indian Jet Bid

Could Release More Tech To Woo New Delhi


By DEFENSE NEWS STAFF 


31 January 2011

U.S. officials may offer better avionics performance as part of the F-16 and F/A-18 fighters vying for India’s $10 billion competition for 126 new combat jets, sources said, capping a week that also saw the Pentagon’s acquisition chief open the door to an Indian pur­chase of the F-35 Lightning II com­bat aircraft.

The moves come just before the Feb. 9-15 Aero India 2011, South Asia’s premier airshow, where the world’s leading combat aircraft makers will show off their wares in their bid to win the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) contest.

Sources said the modified bids would allow the U.S. jets to offer better radar range and electronic­warfare performance. U.S. con­tractors are prohibited from prom­ising any more capabilities than what the government allows them to release.

Indian officials, however, realize U.S. systems have greater capabil­ities than what is being officially offered, and want the bar raised.

In contrast, European MMRCA competitors have pledged to fully share their technologies with Indi­an industry.

Aside from Boeing’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and Lockheed Mar­tin’s F-16IN Super Viper, competi­tors include Dassault’s Rafale, Eurofighter’s Typhoon, Mikoyan’s MiG-35 and Saab’s JAS-39 Gripen. The planes will be at Bangalore, along with sizeable delegations of each of the competing nations.

As Washington mulls technology transfer to India, Pentagon acquisi­tion chief Ashton Carter indicated a willingness to allow India at some point to acquire the F-35, a stealthy jet long reserved for America’s clos­est allies.

“There is nothing on our side, no principle which bars that on our side, Indian participation in the Joint Strike Fighter,” Carter told an audience Jan. 26 at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

The F-35 is not a contender for the MMRCA competition, which was launched in 2004, but might vie for some future contract.

But Indian officials have long expressed interest in the short takeoff and vertical landing vari­ant of JSF for their aircraft carri­ers, although U.S. officials have historically been publicly non­committal about India’s role on the program given their nascent arms relationship “Right now, they’re focused on these aircraft which are top-of-the­line fourth-gen fighters,” Carter said.

Together, the F-35 and MMRCA developments show how U.S. offi­cials are flexing as they — and others around the world — pur­sue India’s growing more than $ 100 billion defense market.

Last year, India’s long-time strategic partner Russia nailed down two major aerospace deals, agreeing to co-develop and buy a new airlifter and a stealthy fighter. But it’s Washington that has been moving most dramatically. Starting in the George W. Bush administra­tion, Washington has wooed India as a strategic partner, sealing a ma­jor nuclear cooperation deal in 2008, and selling an array of weapons that includes missiles, the C-17 and C-130 airlifters and the P-8 maritime patrol jet.

When U.S. President Barack Obama visited India in November, he called the country a world pow­er and pledged U.S. support to help India win a seat on the Unit­ed Nations Security Council.

And just last week, the U.S. lift­ed a 12-year-old ban on the export of dual-use technology to two In­dian design labs.

Although Carter said Washington has “been very forthcoming and forward-leaning with respect to technology transfer and industrial participation,” U.S. officials con­tinue to think through how to bal­ance appropriate controls against greater openness.

“What will be crucial for the In­dians is the level of technology transfer the U.S. is prepared to of­fer on Joint Strike Fighter, partic­ularly given Delhi recently got into bed with the Russians to build a fifth-generation fighter of their own,” said one defense industry executive in London.

The executive noted that India is asking bidders for 50 percent offsets, high levels of technology transfer and local assembly in the competition for the MMRCA pro­gram.

“It will be interesting to see how the U.S. would manage those kind of expectations with the F-35,” he said.

The centrality of technology transfer was underscored by a U.S. diplomatic cable obtained by Wik­iLeaks. Written last February, it de­scribed a conversation between Indian National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon and U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.

“In order to kick the relationship into a different gear,” the U.S. needed “to be seen to be sharing technology,” the cable quoted Menon as saying.

Ultimately, India wants to help create advanced arms, not merely buy them, said Brigadier Bhupesh Kumar Jain, the Indian defense at­tache to the United States.

India is changing its procure­ment process — among other things, allowing more flexibility in offset deals — so that it can buy from more countries, Jain said Jan. 24 at the ComDef West conference in San Diego.

“It is less interested in a buyer­seller relationship and instead wants joint development. That’s where it’s moving,” he said. 

Sharing Technology 

The news about the F-35 arrives as the U.S. Commerce Department formally lifts its export ban on dual­use items to India’s Defence Re­search and Development Organiza­tion and the Indian Space Research Organization. Washington levied the sanctions as part of its response to India’s 1998 nuclear tests.

Indian officials hailed the Jan. 26 move, which implements an agree­ment forged during Obama’s No­vember visit to New Delhi. A senior Indian Ministry of Defence official said ending the ban would pave the way for the joint development of ad­vanced air defense systems.

But Indian analysts were dubious. “While lifting restrictions now may result in a template for future collaborative research-and-devel­opment projects, it is unlikely many such joint ventures will hap­pen any time soon,” said Bharat Karnad, a professor of national se­curity studies at the Center for Pol­icy Research in New Delhi. “Be­sides, these projects, if and when they are realized, will not be cut­ting-edge stuff because of residual mutual distrust.” Carter said Defense Secretary Robert Gates is committed to re­forming export controls to help build international partnerships.

“That also will be an important factor in U.S.-India relationships,” he said Jan. 26.

Rand Corp. analyst Benjamin Lambeth said the United States could work out ways to share at least some F-35 technology, citing accords reached to facilitate arms sales to Singapore and Israel.

“It is imperative for the U.S. gov­ernment to apply all the creative imagination it can to find some mu­tually satisfactory way of squaring the circle so that India can get what it needs,” Lambeth said. 

Naval Interest? 

In a follow-up e-mail to Carter’s comments, Pentagon spokes­woman Cheryl Irwin stressed that the idea of Indian F-35s remains simply that — an idea.

“If, at some point down the road, India were interested in purchasing JSF from us, then we would engage the Indians in an open, transparent manner at that time. But this would obviously be something that the In­dian government would have to de­cide it wanted or needed,” Irwin wrote.

Sources said India will eventually need to replace its Harrier jump jets that fly from aircraft carriers.

Among the MMRCA contenders, the Rafale and F-18 already operate from carrier decks, while Saab has touted a navalized version of its Gripen, but using them would re­quire future Indian ships to be equipped with catapults and arrest­ing gear.

India has also acquired Russian MiG-29Ks to meet their naval re­quirements.

Indian officials were initially non­committal in reaction to Carter’s statement.

“It is for the Indian Air Force to choose if they wish to have F-35,” a senior Indian defense ministry offi­cial said.

An Indian Air Force source added the service “cannot make a judg­ment unless F-35 is a part of Indo­U.S. air exercises where Indian fighter pilots can have firsthand flight operations experiences. Therefore, the IAF cannot make any judgment now.” 

MMRCA and Beyond 

As for the MMRCA competition, Carter touted the F-16IN and F/A-18E/F as the most technologically advanced of the rivals, as well as the cheapest to operate.

He also made a pitch on diplo­matic grounds, saying the purchase of a U.S. plane “would give addi­tional momentum to the relation­ship” between India and the United States.

But he said that India’s MMRCA choice would likely come down to technology transfer and industrial participation.

The London defense industry executive said the front-runners appear to be Typhoon, Rafale and the F-18.

“At the end of the day, it will be a political decision about who wins, but if F-18 is not emerging as the fa­vored solution, then maybe the U.S. would like to see the program move to the right with the F-35 as the bait,” he said.

Russian officials declined to com­ment, but a source in the state­owned United Aircraft Corporation said manufacturers do not feel threatened by the U.S. advances to India because Russia has nothing to offer in the arms market segments where the States are active. This in­cludes light fifth-generation fighters, like F-35.

“Also, we had signed the agree­ment with the Indians last year to work on the T-50 heavy fifth-gener­ation fighters, in which New Delhi will procure up to 300 aircraft,” the official said. “This contract will keep us loaded with work for an­other 20 to 30 years.” Analyst Ashley Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment, Washington, D.C., said India would eventually need an advanced air-superiority fighter to replace the Sukhoi Su-30MKI, a role that neither MMRCA nor the F-35 could fill. He said the emergence of the Chinese Chengdu J-20 jet may lead India to accelerate its plans to buy or develop a fifth­generation fighter.

Rand’s Lambeth said India has al­ready committed to the Sukhoi Per­spektivny Aviatsionny Kompleks-Frontovoy Aviatsii (PAK-FA) stealth fighter, which flew early last year.

But he said that if the Russian air­craft stumbles, there may be an op­portunity for the F-35.

“It would behoove the U.S. gov­ernment to let it be known that the aircraft would be available, espe­cially if the PAK-FA encounters de­velopmental trouble,” he said.

Tellis urged India to move ahead with its MMRCA program, then quickly shift its attention to re­placing its Mirage 2000 and MiG-21, the middle- and low-end air-su­periority fighters, with fifth-gener­ation aircraft.

“Because of the transitions that are taking place in air warfare to­day, the steady shift toward stealth airplanes, this is not time for the Indian state to be pouring enormous amounts of money into buying expensive fourth-genera­tion aircraft,” Tellis said. “Instead, what the Indian state ought to be buying is the cheapest, effective fourth-generation aircraft it can buy to populate the middle while it actually starts aggressively plan­ning for the transition toward stealth airframes.”