India Could Become Largest Rafale Operator by 2040 with Potential 114 Jets Under MRFA and 31 More Rafale M, Predicts Dassault

India could become a global leader in Rafale fighter jet operation by 2040, potentially surpassing even France, according to projections by Dassault Aviation. This ambitious forecast comes as India steadily expands its Rafale fleet, with the Indian Air Force (IAF) already operating 36 jets and the Indian Navy set to acquire 26 Rafale M naval variants.

Dassault, the French aerospace manufacturer, believes India's Rafale numbers could swell to 176 if the IAF selects the jet for its 114-aircraft Multi-Role Fighter Aircraft (MRFA) competition. The company has offered to manufacture Rafales in India, sweetening the deal with technology transfer and local job creation.

Adding to this, Dassault anticipates further demand from the Indian Navy, potentially for 31 additional Rafale Ms. This would bring India's total to over 200 Rafales, eclipsing the French Navy's current fleet of 46 and potentially even the French Air Force's 185 jets.

This surge in Indian interest follows a period where the Rafale struggled to gain international traction. Despite its advanced capabilities, high costs deterred potential buyers. However, India's 2012 decision to purchase 36 Rafales marked a turning point, boosting the jet's global profile and leading to subsequent orders from countries like the UAE.

Dassault emphasizes the Rafale's versatility and weapon carrying capacity, including Meteor beyond-visual-range missiles, SCALP long-range standoff missiles, and Exocet anti-ship missiles. These capabilities are seen as crucial for India to counter regional threats and maintain air superiority.

While the Rafale's high price tag has drawn criticism, Indian Air Force officials maintain that the jet's advanced weaponry and performance justify the cost. They highlight the Rafale's ability to counter threats like Pakistan's AMRAAM missiles and provide India with a long-range strike capability.

The potential expansion of India's Rafale fleet underscores the country's growing defence needs and its ambition to become a major regional power. With Dassault's commitment to local production and technology sharing, the Rafale program could also contribute significantly to India's domestic aerospace industry.

 

[sanket]

Subject to If Dassault Manufatures Rafale with complete Eco-system & with Indian pvt players with ToT as per MRFA .

 

[Satya Dev]

I think like they ended the MMRCA circus by ordering 2 sqdns of Rafales, IAF will end this MRFA circus by ordering 1 or 2 sqdns more and then start a new FGFA circus!

 

[NSR]

France, Dassault, Safran, and Thales all know that India is between a rock and a hard place, and Indian Air Force does not want any Russian or USA fighters.
So France/Dassault are sitting on Mt. Everest and expecting contracts for more Rafales without any kinds of TOTs, or local assemblies or upgrade skills transfers, or local maintenance TOTs to India, etc

Personally, I felt that we should have ordered 36 additional Rafales right before they delivered the 36th fighter and make do with them and their Meteor missiles while we developed our own fighters and long range BVRAAMs to be on our own.

Long time passed and India and its IAF is in real sorry shape to dictate any terms, except receiving them.

Incompetence in planning and execution at the best.

Addendum -

Remember that new Rafales with F4 configurations will not be less than $250 millions per fighter and that is 114*$250 millions is equivalent to $28.5 billions.
And then for TOT it will ask an arm and a leg, if it at all gives it for real.
And it will add another bundle if India insists local production for which India needs to pay for machines and tools for workshop and training of Neanderthaals in HAL.
And Remember the Mirage-2000 upgrade fiasco and how France made it so expensive.
And without TOTs, India needs to pay for spares and maintenances.
And then India needs to give another arm and leg for all the armaments the France will push on India.

And, finally, even if we order MRFA Rafale in a year or two, then we will not even see the first one by 2029 or 2030 as Dassault refuses to set up an assembly facility and transfer TOTs to hasten the productions.

So going for any MRFA fighter is not such an easy story, and India should keep pushing on with its own fighters developments and productions.

 

[PARTHAJIT JANA]

France, Dassault, Safran, and Thales all know that India is between a rock and a hard place, and Indian Air Force does not want any Russian or USA fighters.
So France/Dassault are sitting on Mt. Everest and expecting contracts for more Rafales without any kinds of TOTs, or local assemblies or upgrade skills transfers, or local maintenance TOTs to India, etc

Personally, I felt that we should have ordered 36 additional Rafales right before they delivered the 36th fighter and make do with them and their Meteor missiles while we developed our own fighters and long range BVRAAMs to be on our own.

Long time passed and India and its IAF is in real sorry shape to dictate any terms, except receiving them.

Incompetence in planning and execution at the best.

Addendum -

Remember that new Rafales with F4 configurations will not be less than $250 millions per fighter and that is 114*$250 millions is equivalent to $28.5 billions.
And then for TOT it will ask an arm and a leg, if it at all gives it for real.
And it will add another bundle if India insists local production for which India needs to pay for machines and tools for workshop and training of Neanderthaals in HAL.
And Remember the Mirage-2000 upgrade fiasco and how France made it so expensive.
And without TOTs, India needs to pay for spares and maintenances.
And then India needs to give another arm and leg for all the armaments the France will push on India.

And, finally, even if we order MRFA Rafale in a year or two, then we will not even see the first one by 2029 or 2030 as Dassault refuses to set up an assembly facility and transfer TOTs to hasten the productions.

So going for any MRFA fighter is not such an easy story, and India should keep pushing on with its own fighters developments and productions.

Let us wait for 6 months and let the deliveries of mk1a be stable. Many of govt insecurities about tejas will be cleared.

More mk1as and huge no of mk2 is the answer to all our problems.

 

[Ranjeet Singh]

Yes we should select Rafale but with upgrades like Mac 2.5 speed powered by two 98 KN engines, MUMT capable and can fire, ASTRA, AIM, BrahMos NG series of missiles !

 

[Anant]

Yes we should select Rafale but with upgrades like Mac 2.5 speed powered by two 98 KN engines, MUMT capable and can fire, ASTRA, AIM, BrahMos NG series of missiles !

Get laser weapons and space fighting capability too? Probably a warp ring too? I mean, if we are only going to throw requirements here, then why not?

 

[shekhar]

That's the reason why TEDBF is delaying, to give order to France

 

[Anant]

Let us wait for 6 months and let the deliveries of mk1a be stable. Many of govt insecurities about tejas will be cleared.

More mk1as and huge no of mk2 is the answer to all our problems.

Yeah... won't happen. Tejas deliveries may stabilise a few years in the future, but that assumes deliveries are consistent and HAL can get its act together.

In any case, MRFA is a quantitative necessity due to simple math. The level of scaling up that would be required to get the IAF up to 42 squadrons and replace the Jaguar, MiG-29, and Mirage 2000s will not be possible.

As such, without MRFA, the IAF won't hit 42 squadrons until well into the 2040s, and by then, you'll have the replacements for the Su-30MKI, Rafale, and any Tejas Mk 1s left coming up. In that scenario, 42 squadrons would be a pipe dream until the 2060s.

With the 6 squadrons under MRFA, we can push that whole thing ahead by 7-8 years. More importantly, that will allow us to maintain a sizeable force throughout the transition period of the 2050s (as the Su-30MKI, Rafale, and Tejas Mk 1s retire).

 

[abhinav srivastava]

France doesn't want to share tech.

 

[desigandu]

Some thoughts -
1. India needs MRFA given our delays and fleet depletion and obsolescence…2. Rafales are capable multiple role fighters with more enhancements coming…3. India already operates Rafales and hopefully RafalesMs arrive before 2030, so MRO, spares, training, logistics, some local ecosystem in place…4. Rafales are expensive and TOT/offsets are poor…5. Given Dassault order books even if we sign a deal in 2026, the earliest fly away planes (maybe 18) will not arrive before 2030…And any domestic assembly will not be in place before 2033-2035…6. By 2030 Pakistan will operate stealth fighters and China may have 500-1000 stealth fighters, while we will have none…

So where does that leave us, while Tejas 1As, 2s, and AMCAs are delayed with limited scope for acceleration…Russian weapons are geopolitically a problem…US is unreliable and there are strings attached…

Let us scrap MRFA, pour billions into domestic programs including high thrust engine, kaveri2s, standing up a private sector player as the 2nd fighter player with HAL, accelerate and solve GE404, and assemble GE414 by 2028: start scale production of Tejas 2 by 2030 and AMCA by 2035, approve TEDBF by 2025 and start production by 2032…As insurance buy 24-36 F-35As from the Americans by 2030, even if they come with strings attached…

 

[Akshat]

Let us wait for 6 months and let the deliveries of mk1a be stable. Many of govt insecurities about tejas will be cleared.

More mk1as and huge no of mk2 is the answer to all our problems.

Selling HAL and demolishing DRDO is the right answer.

 

[Akshat]

Let us wait for 6 months and let the deliveries of mk1a be stable. Many of govt insecurities about tejas will be cleared.

More mk1as and huge no of mk2 is the answer to all our problems.

We have been waiting for 4 decades. No more waiting.

 

[kurtwallis wallis]

Subject to If Dassault Manufatures Rafale with complete Eco-system & with Indian pvt players with ToT as per MRFA .

It will costs IAF $340 millions usd per Rafale F4.2 jet manufactured locally in India!! Better to select F16 Blk72 on MRFA for Tatas-LM plant in India; and next pursue SU75 co-developments by jv HAL-Sukhoi next...

 

[Sunny]

If capability dictates the priorities of MRFA then Rafale is the ideal choice. If cost dictates the priorities then Gripen. Though many may question Gripens capability, in air to air combat equipped with Meteor missiles it will be more than a match for any 4th gen fighter with our adversary.

 

[Superpower Bharat]

Selling HAL and demolishing DRDO is the right answer.

Very good dicision... Better sell the country... Let Dassault, LM, Boeing... Etc will run this country....

 

[kurtwallis wallis]

I am telling again and again here that, Rafale will costs 280 millions usd direct France deliveries per unit jet; and even upto 340 millions usd per unit of India manufactured jets. Just make USA happy and get cheapest western jets of F16 Blk72 with Tatas-LM plant in India- and pursue SU75 co-developments with Russia-HAL jv next...

 

[Akshat]

Very good dicision... Better sell the country... Let Dassault, LM, Boeing... Etc will run this country....

India is not limited to HAL and DRDO. They represent the worst of us, if anything.

 

[Sandeep]

India will not order anymore Rafale jets after the naval rafale jets because the imports are too expensive and there are limits on the ToT, local manufacturing and indigenous consent they would allow.

The other alternative is to allow dassault to manufacture 100% of the jet in India with indigenous content but no ToT or IPR. This will give us the capability which is more important than simply owning 40-80% of a jet which by itself is useless as we would never be given 100% of the technology and we wouldn’t be able to reverse engineer the rest of the critical technology like with the engines, jet’s computer and codes, software and other critical technology and equipment. This deal will still be expensive but cheaper than the other option of importing it.

That is why the only option is to just buy the naval rafale jets and focus on our indigenous capabilities and technology. HAL needs to focus entirely on developing Tejas MK2, AMCA and TEDBF which are all very crucial. For Tejas MK2 and AMCA the developing part is complete and now they need to develop the prototypes so we can start flying the jets as soon as possible. Currently with the TEDBF it is still under development and as it’s for the carrier it is more complex to design but we managed to retrieve a lot of data from the NLCA.

Currently we need to improve our manufacturing process and capabilities as it’s taking to long. The only solution is that once HAL develops the Tejas MK2, AMCA and TEDBF prototypes and the military are happy with it then they should issue a license to several private companies to set up multiple production lines and manufacture 100% of the jets in bulk but with 100% of indigenous content/raw materials. HAL should only manufacture some of the critical and classified technology like the jets computer and engines etc which will lower the amount that HAL needs to focus on and manufacture. The government can recoup the development costs by charging the standard 5% royalty charge as it will still be cheaper if the private sector manufacture the jets other than HAL.

 

[sanket]

It will costs IAF $340 millions usd per Rafale F4.2 jet manufactured locally in India!! Better to select F16 Blk72 on MRFA for Tatas-LM plant in India; and next pursue SU75 co-developments by jv HAL-Sukhoi next...

F-16 is parkistan chaap jet which was shot down by Mig-21, F-16 is reached its upgrade no further room, its design is very vintage. Bharat want Fighter jet for next 40 to 50 years with Latest design, so keep it with u Samuel Dawson