November 2011 Archives

Switzerland has reportedly made the first move to become the fifth country outside Sweden to acquire the Saab Gripen fighter. If export sales were dogfight kills, the Gripen would now be an ace. [Update: Counting the Gripen sale to the UK Empire Test Pilot School, Switzerland is actually the sixth export customer. The foreign air force operators are the Czech Republic, Hungary, South Africa and Thailand.]

The news is still based on unnamed sources within the federal council, but the reports from both Swiss and French media (including the Dassault-owned Le Figaro newspaper) are unanimous: the Gripen has been selected.

That means the Dassault Rafale can add another country to its list of export rejections. The Eurofighter Typhoon was also considered in the final selection process. The Boeing F/A-18E/F also was once offered to Switzerland, but it was withdrawn by US officials from the competition two years ago.

UPDATE: Saab has now confirmed the Gripen's victory. Here's the statement:

Saab is both proud and delighted that Gripen has been chosen as the Swiss Air Force's future multirole fighter aircraft.

"The Swiss type-selection confirms that Saab is a market-leader in the defence and security industry and that Gripen is a world-class fighter system that provides the best value for money", says Håkan Buskhe, President and CEO Saab.

The Gripen programme will create a long-term partnership between Switzerland and Sweden. Saab assures Switzerland a long-term strategic industrial co-operation aimed at creating sustainable high tech jobs, transferring technology and generating export business.

Saab stands prepared to start negotiations and await the next steps of the process. 

UPDATE 2: The Federal Council has issued a statement. According to Google translator, here's what they said:

"With the Gripen, the Federal Council decided on a fighter aircraft that meets the military requirements, but also medium and long term for the VBS and the army is affordable because it is much cheaper not only in procurement than the other two planes but also in operating costs. The decision for the Gripen offers a guarantee that a high-performance combat aircraft can be obtained, without compromising other areas of the army and the necessary equipment."

New photos have appeared showing the wingless full-scale radar cross section model of Japan's Mitsubishi ATD-X Shinshin (or, 心神, which Google somehow translates to "Mind and Body" -- can any Japanese speakers explain how "Shinshin" translates into two different words?).

These photos were snapped surreptitiously (see the "no camera" sign in front of the model!) at the Japan Aerospace 2008 exhibit. The ATD-X is a demonstrator scheduled to fly in 2014, possibly leading to a Japanese-built stealth fighter entering service after 2020.

Yang Wei is credited by Chinese media for designing the JF-17, J-20 and the flight control system of the J-10. At the Dubai Air Show, Yang briefed journalists and industry members on the capabilities of the JF-17. It's a rare opportunity to hear Yang describe his work in English.

A Boeing F-15C is rated for a 9,000h service life. An F-15E was designed with an 8,000h rating, which the USAF has already extended to 12,000h. Both types are supposed to be retired from USAF service by around 2030.

Don't bet on it.

With production of the Lockheed Martin F-22 capped at 187 fighters, and F-35 deliveries delayed and slowed, the US Air Force is investigating how much longer it can preserve the fleet of 414 F-15C/Ds fighters and F-15Es fighter-bombers.

The goals are to double the lifetime of the F-15C to 18,000h and quadruple the service life of the F-15E to 32,000h, Boeing told Flightglobal yesterday. At the 32,000h rating, the F-15E would essentially be in perpetual operational service -- the Boeing B-52H of its era.

An F-15C has already entered a four-year cycle of fatigue testing, with an F-15E soon to follow. It was only four years ago that an F-15C disintegrated in flight due to a poorly manufactured longeron. The fatigue tests will discover if the airframe has any other hidden weaknesses that need to be fixed.

If the F-15 fleet is to serve for decades to come, its aging analogue systems will also need a refresh. The US Air Force has already funded a new digital core processor and an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar. Now, the USAF is looking to upgrade the self-defence systems with an digital suite. The Eagle passive/active weapon survivability system (EPAWSS) could be launched in 2013.

The USAF still appears to have no interest in the stealthy aspects of the Boeing F-15 Silent Eagle concept, including the canted tails, radar absorbent material treatments and conformal weapons carriage.

As promised, here is the video showing first flight earlier today of the Sukhoi T-50-3 -- the third prototype to emerge under the PAK-FA programme. Note the absence of a pitot tube on the nose, a first in the PAK-FA programme so far.

In one of the more perplexing turns we've witnessed on the defence beat, the US Air Force has apparently dismissed the Hawker Beechcraft AT-6 from consideration for the light air support (LAS) programme several months after receiving the company's bid and only days before a scheduled contract award. And we don't know why. Beechcraft says the USAF letter provided no basis for the decision. The USAF declined to comment on the status of either the AT-6 or the Embraer/Sierra Nevada bid based on the Super Tucano until after contract award in late November or early December.

But what really stands out is this statement from Beechcraft: "With our partners Lockheed Martin, CMC Esterline, Pratt & Whitney Canada, L-3 WESCAM and CAE, [we] have invested more than $100 million preparing to meet the Air Force's specific requirements."

More than [gulp!] $100 million? A couple of points to consider:

First, that's quite an investment to win a contract for 15 turboprop-powered light attack aircraft that will be transferred to the Afghanistan air force. Sure, there could be a follow-on order for 20 aircraft to serve as trainers for USAF instructors, and other deals could follow (if the Senate can overcome its serious objections to such an aircraft). But the break-even point for this class of aircraft on a $100 million non-recurring bill must be very high.

Second, is that really how much it costs to win relatively small order for military aircraft these days? That sounds like KC-X money!

Russian-language spotter pages are reporting the first sighting of the third Sukhoi PAK-FA prototype at the Siberian flight test centre in Komsomolsk-on-Amur. As soon as pictures become available, we will post them.

The T-50-3 prototype is reportedly scheduled for first flight by the end of 2011. It follows the maiden of sorties of T-50-2 in February and T-50-1 in January 2010.

The third prototype is understood to carry the PAK-FA's active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar. T-50-2 is an avionics and mission systems test aircraft, and T-50-1 is dedicated to flight sciences testing. 

Sukhoi has already completed more than 100 flights of the PAK-FA prototypes in less than 22 months of flight testing, including a chequered appearance at Moscow's MAKS air show in August where T-50-2 had an engine blow-out on take-off.

This was then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on 6 January:

The Marine Corps' short take-off and vertical-landing (STOVL) variant is experiencing significant testing problems.  These issues may lead to a redesign of the aircraft's structure and propulsion, changes that could add yet more weight and more cost to an aircraft that has little capacity to absorb more of either.  

As a result, I am placing the STOVL variant on the equivalent of a two-year probation.  If we cannot fix this variant during this time frame and get it back on track in terms of performance, cost and schedule, then I believe it should be canceled.

The F-35B is back in the news again this morning. Flightglobal exclusively reports that tiny cracks have been discovered on three of the F-35B flight test aircraft, which prevent vertical landings until they are fixed. The cracking problem had been anticipated years ago, and a redesigned actuator support beam associated with the lift fan system was already installed on the last F-35B test aircraft during final assembly.

In the broad scheme of things, discovering hairline cracks in a part that has already been redesigned is not a "show-stopper" kind of problem. On the other hand, the F-35B is less than half-way through a loosely-defined, two-year probation where every new glitch raises the question: Is this enough excuse to trip Gates' cancellation threat?

The cracking problem is the first technical issue exclusive to the F-35B since Gates issued his cancellation threat. Two other groundings in March and August were caused by electrical and power system faults common to all three variants. In fact, the F-35B had behaved relatively well all year, recovering flight test sorties lost during a disastrous 2010. Gates' concerns about a costly structural and propulsion system redesign proved invalid. The structural problem was fixed with an isolated redesign of the F-35B's aluminium-alloy 496 bulkhead. Three of the propulsion system glitches are already fixed and the remaining two problems should be eliminated by February. The shipboard vertical landings in October consumed eight more days than the scheduled 10-day minimum, but otherwise appeared to raise no show-stopping problems that at least we know about.

And, yet, the elusive terms of the F-35B's probationary status and the uncertainty of the US military's budget situation will keep us guessing about the STOVL variant's future. The Department of Defense has never clarified how the F-35B succeeds or fails the terms of probation. 

There is only one other DoD weapon system that was officially placed on a "probationary" status. That was the Boeing C-17. The airlifter is now considered a model programme, but in 1994 it was inarguably in even worse shape than the F-35B is today, having a wing dramatically fail ultimate load test and test crews barely surviving several near-crashes. But the DoD took a very different approach to the C-17's probation. The terms of success and failure were stated specifically. The USAF and Boeing knew exactly what needed to be done to lift the programme out of probation, and they did.

Tiny cracks in the actuator support beam may become a small footnote in the final story of the F-35B's success or failure, but the unspoken terms of probation means we don't know that for sure. It seems a strange way of doing business. Even a convicted criminal is allowed that basic knowledge.

The UAE is to the Arab world what George Harrison was to The Beatles: Usually quiet, but always worth listening to when they do have something to say. Despite all of Dubai's commercial bluster, weapons decisions get made in the richer, neighbouring emirate of Abu Dhabi. And Abu Dhabi almost never speaks about their weapons systems.

But now comes a seemingly routine news report -- innocuous headline: "Mohammed bin Zayed tours Dubai Airshow 2011" --by the UAE's official news agency. It carriers a bombshell of a statement attributed to Crown Prince Mohammed:

"Thanks to French President Sarkozy, France could not have done more diplomatically or politically to secure the Rafale deal. Bi-lateral relations have never been stronger and his constant personal intervention in this process has sustained Dassault at the forefront of our considerations. Regrettably Dassault seems unaware that all the diplomatic and political will in the World cannot overcome uncompetitive and unworkable commercial terms."

Surely, Sarkozy's re-election campaign will send the Crown Prince a "thank you" note for throwing Dassault under the proverbial bus.

If Dassault still doubted the UAE's message after the Eurofighter Typhoon suddenly emerged on Saturday as a competitor, the Crown Prince apparently wanted to make the point as clearly as possible.  

So what happens now?

Eurofighter still might be playing the role of useful bargaining chip in the UAE's campaign to extract a better price from Dassault. Eurofighter's bid is being led by the UK. If the UAE's goal is to hedge against a US monopoly of its weapons invenstory, the UK may be a questionable partner. Dassault knows that and may be prepared to stake perhaps its future as a fighter aircraft manufacturer on that bet.

Dassault's track record on fighter deals is not comforting. In eight international competitions over the last decade, it has four losses (Netherlands, South Korea, Singapore and Morocco), one indecision (Brazil) and three still in competition (UAE, India and Switzerland). In both South Korea and Morocco, the Rafale enjoyed being perceived as the favourite but lost anyway.

Mohammed's statement may indicate that Dassault has not learned the lesson from the Morocco fiasco. It emerged after the Lockheed Martin was selected that the US offered 36 F-16s for less than $2 billion, while Dassault's bid proposed 18 Rafales for $3.2 billion. Talk about "uncompetitive and unworkable".

Turkey wants to build a next generation fighter, too.

The Ministry of Defense awarded a contract to Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) in August to complete an 18-month feasibility study on producing a new fighter and trainer called TFX after 2023.

In the crush of Dubai Air Show events, we managed to arrange a roughly 5-minute long interview about the TFX study with Ali Yilmaz Guldogan, TAI's vice president of strategy and cooperation programmes.

The study has to answer a lot of questions. These include: Will the fighter have one engine or two? Canted tails or vertical? TAI still doesn't know, but the study will determine, Guldogan said. The study also is tackling industrial issues. Will Turkey lead development by itself, or join a development programme with South Korea, Brazil or another country? In early 2013, TAI will submit a report with recommendations to the Ministry of Defense, which will make the final decisions, Guldogan said.

There was no time, alas, to ask Guldogan broader questions. Among them: Why does Turkey think it needs to build its own fighter?

The existence of TFX means Turkey has joined an interesting global trend. It is among several major nations with rising economic and political clout, but are forced to depend for combat aircraft upon the US, Russia and Western Europe. China, India and Japan have already developed their own military and commercial aircraft. Now, South Korea, Brazil and Turkey seem to want to join the club.

We covered South Korea's KF-X programme extensively last month at the Seoul Air Show, which you can read about here. Brazil, meanwhile, announced plans in 2009 to develop a "fifth-generation fighter" in 2025, using technologies transferred from the now-delayed F-X2 fighter contract.

Interestingly, Turkey has been linked as a possible development partner to both South Korea and Brazil. South Korea's Defense Acquisition Programme Administration (DAPA) announced that Turkey is likely to join the KF-X programme next year. Eurofighter, meanwhile, predicted in a fighter market forecast released at the Seoul Air Show that Turkey could partner with Brazil instead.

Whatever Turkey decides to do, the TFX programme represents a remarkable -- and perhaps worrisome -- trend for the giants of the global industry for combat aircraft. Some of these giants may be forgiven, then, for thinking that a few of their most reliable customers are making some bad decisions.

"I think there are a lot of places that are overly ambitious," said Jeff Kohler, Boeing vice president of business development and former chief of the US Defense Security and Cooperation Agency (DSCA). "I don't mean that in the negative way that they can't do it. How many fighter entries are possible? This market is getting smaller and not bigger."

South Korea has budgeted $5 billion to develop a next generation fighter in about 10 years -- a cost projection that some Western industry officials is woefully unrealistic. "This is not a game for the weak of heart," Kohler said. It took US industry 10 years and billions of dollars simply to develop active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, he added.

Paul Oliver, Boeing vice president of business development for the Middle East and Africa, said he believes that such programmes are really attempts by national industries to bring themselves up the value chain in the global aerospace market. The countries do not stand a good chance of making a competitive fighter, he said.

So much for the rampant rumours (well, rampant throughout France anyway) that the UAE's long-delayed fighter contract was a done-deal for the Rafale.

Everything we know about the United Arab Emirates fighter modernisation plans have turned upside down within the first 24h of the Dubai Air Show.

Quick summary: Dassault Rafale still in, Saab Gripen still out, Eurofighter Typhoon made a surprise entrance, Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 60 is now lurking and Boeing throws F-15 Silent Eagle into the mix.

And the UAE Air Force, meanwhile, confirmed it wants to buy a "next generation fighter" after 2018, when the Lockheed F-35 is, possibly, the only fighter of that general description outside of China and Russia still in production.

How did we get here?

The Rafale has been on the UAE's shopping list since the mid-1990s, but somehow the deal keeps sliding to the right -- and now risks evaporating entirely.

Riad Kahwaji, chief executive officer of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis (INEGMA), told The DEW Line that latest manoeuvres are a clear signal: the UAE air force thinks France's price for the Rafale is too high. Major fighter deals are never immune from politics, but this deal is purely political. The UAE is buying the Rafale to balance its reliance on US-made weapons, including its fleet of 80 Lockheed F-16 Block 60s. Perhaps thinking the UAE has no other options, Dassault may have submitted a monopolistic price, Kahwaji said. 

Even after negotiating exclusively with France for more than three years, the UAE has just re-opened the competition. The DEW Line's colleague, Craig Hoyle, broke the story on Flightglobal yesterday that the UAE issued a request for proposals to the Typhoon, setting up a second competition between the same pair of fighters vying for India's medium multi-role aircraft (MMRCA).

But the toll of the prolonged negotiations could be even greater for the Rafale. According to Kahwaji, who is well connected in Abu Dhabi, the UAE has already informed Dassault that the deal has been reduced from 60 fighters, with the balance shifted to a follow-on order of some number of F-16 Block 60s. Northrop Grumman, which supplies the APG-80 agile beam radar for the Block 60, confirmed this strategy today. Northrop told my colleague Greg Waldron that the UAE is considering a follow-on order for the Block 60. We asked Lockheed to confirm, but company officials declined.

That brings us to the last wrinkle in the competition exposed during the last few hours. Boeing now confirms that the UAE Air Force asked the US government in August or September for classified briefings on the capabilities of the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and F-15E. The Eurofighter consortium might reply: So what? The UAE asked the UK government to provide a similar briefing on the Typhoon in October, and it was the only fighter that received an RfP in the last two weeks.

Boeing, however, thinks the UAE may have other ideas for the Super Hornet or Silent Eagle. After all, if the UAE is seeking to balance its reliance on US-made fighters, shifting the final assembly line from Fort Worth, Texas, to St. Louis, Missouri, is not going to do them any favours. Instead, Boeing believes the UAE may be thinking more about the "next generation fighter" requirement.

Lockheed, however, doesn't seem worried. The F-35 is still barred by US export control officials for being sold or even marketed to the UAE, but that restriction will not last forever. Pressed to explain why he still cannot show the UAE so much as a desk model of the F-35, Lockheed vice president of business development replied: "It's coming, it's coming."

All of this can be little consolation to the fighter made in Merignac, France. No one doubts the French have a world-class fighter, but their negotiators have talked their way out of certain victory before. Allowing the UAE sale to slip away may not be devastating to the Rafale, with Brazil, India, Kuwait and Switzerland still in talks with the French. But such a loss would surely be long remembered in the industry as yet another can't-miss deal that only the French could mess up.   

The Lockheed Martin F-35 is the story that won't happen at the Dubai Air Show, which opens Sunday, and we're not entirely sure why.

There is of course no shortage of big headlines at what is now the world's third-largest aerospace event and rising quickly.

It's possible the United Arab Emirates will finally sign a check to buy some number of Dassault Rafales, although the total could be fewer than the stated requirement of 60. We may also hear more about the UAE's postponed deals for large airborne early warning aircraft and advanced jet trainers. Around the region, we will surely ask for updates about Oman's fighter competition, even as we pressure Boeing for more details about the long-delayed possibilty of a major F-15SA order by Saudi Arabia. And the money will continue to flow for helicopter gunships, airlifters and missiles. (Our Middle East procurement round-up feature is here.)

But we can almost guarantee that nothing will be said or written about the F-35. 

This is an omission that never fails to puzzle us. The F-35 story is so ubiquitous we feel sometimes that it haunts us no matter where we travel in the world -- no matter where, that is, except the Middle East, which, by the way, is currently one of the most active markets for new fighters.

The F-35 is clearly wanted in the Middle East. We remember attending a global air chiefs conference at the Dubai Air Show in 2009. With the commanders of the US and French air forces seated in the front row of a fashionable Jumeirah Beach auditorium, the UAE's deputy air force chief explicitly stated the country's hopes to acquire a fifth generation fighter. Images of the Lockheed F-35 and F-22 flashed on the screen behind him.

But the UAE's interest continues to be mysteriously neglected. We expect to find no trace of the F-35 in the exhibit halls of the Dubai Air Show on Sunday. Nor do we expect to bump into representatives of the well-traveled F-35 marketing staffs of Lockheed and the joint programme office. Questions about the F-35 will be greeted by shrugs. If we even see a poster of the F-35, that alone may be cause for a minor headline -- "F-35 sighted in Dubai" -- somewhere in the show's daily newspaper.

Its omission is even more curious in light of the US government's behaviour towards India, where the State Department continues to offer the F-35 for a requirement (delivering 18 fully operational aircraft in 2014) that Lockheed can't possibly meet. The eternally optimistic Marine Corps doesn't expect to receive its first F-35B until 2015 at the earliest.

Two years ago, the unstated excuse for the F-35's absence in Dubai was Israel, which seeks to retain a qualitative military edge in the region. But that does not mean Israel is allowed a monopoly on advanced fighters. The UAE operates the world's most advanced F-16s. Saudi Arabia flies a large fleet of F-15Es, and has been offered more. 

Two months after the 2009 Dubai Air Show, a Lockheed official in Bahrain was quoted by a local reporter saying the F-35 would be offered to Arab governments as soon as Israel signed a contract. Well, that happened one year ago when Israel agreed to buy 19 F-35As. At the moment, negotiations are ongoing over the cost of integrating Israel's unique equipment into the F-35.

But Israel's role does not explain the absence of even a token marketing effort on behalf of the F-35 in Dubai. We've seen a more aggressive sales push by the F-35 programme at arms shows in Brazil, where the F-35 has never been seriously considered to replace that country's aging F-5s, A-4s and Mirage IIIs.

Maybe this year we'll get to the bottom of the story about this non-story. Feel free to share your theories.

Burt Rutan founded Scaled Composites in 1982 and over three decades drove its research into such risky projects as the round-the-world flight of Voyager and the atmosphere-topping climb of SpaceShipOne.

But Rutan retired from Scaled Composites seven months ago, and moved from southern California's Antelope Valley to a lake on the foothills of northern Idaho's Bitterroot Mountains.

Will Scaled Composites, a Northrop Grumman-owned subsidiary since 2007, carry on its founder's unique tolerance for high-risk research, and succeed?

We had the opportunity to interview Rutan last week, and we broached this topic carefully. We asked him what he hopes Scaled Composites becomes after his departure.

"Well I hope they continue what I always strived for and that is to follow some very -- they're basic, common sense stuff," Rutan replied. "If you're doing research, you've got to let the researcher decide what risks to take."

Scaled Composites' management style was modeled on the original "14 Rules" developed by Clarence L. "Kelly" Johnson, who founded Lockheed's Skunk Works in 1943 on the same day -- coincidentally -- Rutan was born. Johnson retired from Skunk Works in 1975 after one of the most accomplished careers in aerospace industry.

We asked Rutan if he thinks the transition at Scaled Composites will be similar to the transition between Johnson and his successor, Ben Rich.

"I hope not," Rutan said. "Kelly had a wonderful, unusual success in getting away with saying 'no' when he felt that it was important to his principles. Ben Rich was a good friend [of mine]. I enjoyed knowing him and chatting with him and so on. But he didn't forcibly say 'no' and he allowed [Skunk Works] to move towards a more normal posture of a non-research company. I think the main deterioration of Skunk Works happened after his watch but there were certainly big changes while he was there."

So how does Scaled Composites avoid that trap?

"I believe that Scaled still has some of that opportunity," Rutan said. "Northrop has structured Scaled to work in an independent way in general to continue their work ethic and their low regulatory environment as a small company. I certainly believe and I certainly hope that Scaled will continue to do that. Creativity and breakthroughs are certainly needed."

It is also true that Scaled Composites still has very talented designers, even though it is widely identified with Rutan. For example, Scaled Composites project manager Corey Bird is the designer of the Symmetry, which is widely credited as the finest general aviation aircraft ever built. Bird's latest design project was known internally at Scaled as "Project Old School", Rutan said, because it was managed in the same style that produced Voyager in the earliest days of the company. Project Old School is known publicly now as the Northrop Grumman Firebird, an optionally manned unmanned air vehicle revealed on this blog earlier this year.

"I had nothing at all to do with the design of that airplane," Rutan said. "It doesn't require Burt Rutan to do phenomenal, good things, and do them efficiently."
 
In fact, Rutan's deteriorating health, which included open heart bypass surgery in 2008, had forced others at Scaled Composites to take the lead on new projects.

"I realized it was a long time ago since I was the chief designer, developer and flight test engineer, and that was on SpaceShipOne, and I had started that design back in 2000," Rutan said.

The designer of SpaceShipTwo was not Rutan, but Jim Tighe, whom Rutan describes as "much more capable technically than I ever was".  

When Embraer partnered with Elbit Systems last year, it was obvious they would need to redesign the Hermes 450 to satisfy the needs of the Brazilian Air Force.

After all, the Hermes 450 was designed for Israel, where 150-200km mission radius from the ground control station is more than enough. But a 200km footprint in Brazil is not a range; its a joke. The Embraer/Elbit collaboration would have to, at minimum, add a beyond-line-of-sight antenna.

But we had no idea how much the Embraer/Elbit collaboration would depart from the baseline design of the Hermes 450.

The image shown above was revealed this morning in Embraer's third quarter earnings presentation. It reveals a very different aircraft than the Hermes 450. We almost confused the Harpias with the Heron, which is of course made by Elbit's rival Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI).

Twenty-one months after first flight at Komsomolsk-on-Amur in Siberia, the Sukhoi T-50 PAK-FA fleet recorded its 100th flight on 3 November.

For perspective, the Lockheed Martin F-35 programme needed 31 months from the first take-off by the AA-1 test aircraft to pass the 100th flight mark.

In that 21-month period, the PAK-FA test fleet has already performed a private air show for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and made its first official public appearance at the MAKS air show near Moscow. The latter event was marred by an engine blow-out on take-off.

Meanwhile, Russia has been busy on the export front. Rosoboronexport signed a deal with India to develop a new single- and twin-seat variant called FGFA. Sukhoi also offered the PAK-FA to South Korea for the F-XIII contract, but the Russia delegation curiously was absent at the Seoul Air Show last month.

The Russian Air Force has announced plans to receive the first production aircraft in 2013, and to introduce the PAK-FA into operational service two years later.

[Photo: Sukhoi]

When the Indian Air Force announces the winner of the medium multi-role combat aircraft contract on 4 November, there will be only two options: A (Dassault Rafale) or B (Eurofighter Typhoon).

But the US government apparently still hopes the Indians will pick option C: the Lockheed Martin F-35.

Two days before the MMRCA bid opening ceremony in New Dehli, the US State Department released a congressionally-mandated report on US-India Security Cooperation with this statement tucked into the penultimate paragraph:

"The U.S. F-16 and F-18 competed, but were not down-selected, in the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) competition in April 2011. Despite this setback, we believe U.S. aircraft, such as the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), to be the best in the world. Should India indicate interest in the JSF, the United States would be prepared to provide information on the JSF and its requirements (infrastructure, security, etc.) to support India's future planning."

It's not the first time India has heard the F-35 soft-sell.

Since 2007, US emissaries from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Lockheed vice president Rob Weiss have reminded India that the F-35 is available to them if they only wait a few more years to replace those aging MiG-21s.

The concept implies that India is missing out on Lockheed's trademarked "fifth-generation" fighter technology by considering only the Rafale and Typhoon. Of course, India has other ideas about how to acquire such technology. The IAF has partnered with Sukhoi to develop the FGFA, which includes one- and two-seat versions of the Russian PAK-FA. The Ministry of Defense has also launched the advanced medium combat aircraft (AMCA) programme, which seeks to develop a stealthy fighter in the class of the F-35, Rafale and Typhoon.

Given India's weapons procurement history, which included a 23-year development cycle for the Hindustan Aeronautics Tejas light combat aircraft, the prospects for the successful, timely delivery of the FGFA and AMCA can be debated.

If US officials could dream, the perfect scenario would perhaps unfold like this: The IAF official opens the Rafale and Typhoon bids on 4 November, and instantly passes out from sticker-shock. After the official is revived with a nasal blast of cumin powder, the MMRCA acquisition process is put back on hold. The next two or three years pass uneventfully, and finally the IAF decides to buy the F-35 sole-source as the only available fighter on the market possessing a combination of stealth and sensor fusion.

It's time for India to place its bets, and so can you. What do you think will happen:

a) IAF buys Rafale
b) IAF buys Eurofighter
c) IAF immediately or eventually suspends MMRCA and selects F-35
d) none of the above. 

(PHOTO)

Plot: F-16 fighter pilot/mom forgot her coffee mug at home. Luckily, her dishwasher can transform into a 9g-maneouvring aerial robot, who somehow engages mom's F-16 in a non-shooting dogfight. Mom/fighter pilot's small daughter -- a deceptively robust sort who requires no pressure suit or life support while carried around at altitude by a flying robot/dishwasher -- is the hero, finally delivering the aforementioned abandoned coffee mug to mom/fighter pilot after both, er, vehicles land.

That's apparently how you sell dishwashers in Turkey. Or maybe it was about the F-16 source codes Turkey wants so dearly. 

 (H/T @combataircraft, @RAeSTimR)