Aero India 2011: Fighter deal will be inked in September

If all goes well, the $12 billion medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) deal will be signed by September, according to Chief of Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal PV Naik.

However, he expressed fears that the losers among the six bidders for the deal might throw a spanner in the works.

The six bidders for the Indian Air Force (IAF)’s order for 126 fourth generation fighter jets  are American Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet, F-16 Super Viper from Lockheed Martin, Gripen Next Generation (NG) from Sweden’s Saab, European consortium EADS’ Eurofighter Typhoon, French Rafale from Dassault Aviation and the Russian MiG-35.

“In two to four weeks, the commercial negotiation committee (CNC) would begin talks and I hope the contract would be signed by September this year,” said Air Chief Naik. The decision on its commercial negotiation would be made in a couple of weeks.

Calling it a complicated deal involving evaluation of 600 test points in each of the six aircraft, he said: “I would like to patent the flight evaluation process of this deal, as it was the finest and was done so properly by my personnel. But after we submitted the report to the ministry of defence in July last year, there have been so many queries on technical details that a lot of education had to be done. I hope the CNC will start talks in a week or two, unless dissatisfied vendors put a spoke in the wheel, when it will take more time.”