By: Vivek Raghuvanshi
NEW DELHI — India's single-engine fighter program, worth
$12 billion, is unlikely to be "decided before 2019," analysts and
officials say, even as the Indian Air Force has decided to hold flight tests of
Lockheed's F-16 Block 70 and Sweden's Gripen-E, the two aircraft competing in
the program.
Restricted expressions of interests were sent through
Indian embassies to "some overseas participants" to take part in the
program in October last year to elicit responses to produce single-engine
fighter aircraft in India. Lockheed Martin offered to shift the assembly line
of its F-16 Block 70, and Sweden offered to build the Gripen-E aircraft in
India with technology transfer.
The F-16 fighter aircraft did not come up for discussion
during last month's summit talks on June 26 between Indian Prime Minister
Narendra Modi and U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington, said a Ministry of
Defence official without commenting on the outcome of the talks.
However, analysts and officials are skeptical whether the
program would come to an early decision. Some analysts even say the F-16 will
never be bought by the Indian Air Force, or IAF.
"There isn't now even the slightest IAF interest in
the F-16 Block 70 or any other variant," said Bharat Karnad, professor of
national security studies at Centre for Policy Research.
When asked about the outcome of the flight trials the IAF
will conduct, Karnad said, "Nothing, it will take time and delay any
decision to beyond the 2019 election. Thereafter, the medium multirole combat
aircraft, or MMRCA, metrics will still apply, and the F-16 will be
rejected."
The F-16 and Gripen were both rejected after flight trials
during the 2007 MMRCA tender, which was finally scrapped in 2014, leading to
the outright purchase of France's Rafale fighter aircraft worth $8.8 billion
that was inked last year.
An IAF official said that this time, only limited flight
trials of the F-16 and Gripen will take place, which will be restricted to the
upgraded components that were not in the 2007 MMRCA tender.
Daljit Singh, a retired IAF air marshal and defense
analyst said, "The F-16 and Gripen fielded during the MMRCA selection did
not have all the systems that the IAF would look for in single-engine fighters.
AESA radars and EW systems have recently been integrated on the F-16 Block 70
and Gripen E, and they would be required to be evaluated."
"There isn't now even the slightest IAF interest in the F-16 Block 70 or any other variant," said Bharat Karnad, professor of national security studies at Centre for Policy Research.
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