India, France Ink Rafale Deal, First Fighter Jets To Arrive In 2019

India and France have inked Euro 7.8 billion deal to purchase 36 Rafale fighters, the first fighters are expected to arrive in 36 months from today.

French Defense Mininster Jean Yves Drain who is in New Delhi and his Indian counterpart Manohar Parrikar signed the deal Friday. 

India’s cabinet had okayed the contract signing yesterday. The deal for 36 Rafale fighters is the biggest ever single country deal for France topping off 24 aircraft each to Egypt and Qatar. Heavily customised for India, it will get 14 India-specific enhancements.

The Indian deal is expected to remove French state subsidies for the Rafale program in the form of French MoD orders and create some 7000 jobs.

The French fighter will be fitted with the 150-km range Meteor missile which is is a Beyond Visual Range missile providing a no-escape zone three times greater than that of a competing missile such as the American AMRAAM missile. The Meteor can hit farther and with greater effectiveness than missiles in the arsenal of Pakistani or Chinese air forces.

The French will also guarantee performance-based logistics support which means that 75 per cent of the fleet will be airworthy at any given time. This a first ever for India where the air-worthiness is part of the purchase agreement

In comparison, the airworthiness of IAF’s f Sukhoi Su30 fleet is around 50 per cent and efforts are being made to increase it to 65%.

India negotiated hard over the price and terms. The French had made an opening offer of Euro 12 billion in May last year when the negotiations began.