More years ago than I would like to remember, I was with colleagues at Brazil’s Latin American Aerospace and Defence (LAAD) expo in Rio de Janeiro when one of us coined a joke that would be repeated burlesque-style for years.
“When is the RfP for the Indian fighter tender going to be released?” was the question.
The answer: “They are telling people in New Delhi that it is going to be Friday. The difficulty is that no one knows which Friday they mean.”
The RfP was the official starting pistol for the Medium-MultiRole Combat Aircraft (M-MRCA) tender that the Indian Air Force (IAF) released. A contest that began unofficially around 2005, it was going to be the largest export fighter aircraft sale in any of our lifetimes—an original buy of 126 units plus options for 63 more.
The aircraft that participated in the tender were Boeing’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, Dassault’s Rafale, the Eurofighter Typhoon, Saab’s JAS-39E/F Gripen, the Mikoyan MiG-35, and Lockheed Martin’s F-16.
The follow-on buys being predicted after these initial acquisitions and the need of the IAF to replace older aircraft in the future had some long-term projections of the program ending up at close to 300 jets.
But after almost seven years of an endless selection process and two years of fruitless deliberations on localized production of the eventual winner, the Dassault Rafale, India’s government exited the process and bought 36 Rafales off-the-shelf from the production line in Bordeaux, France.
The Road to the F-21
That process ran roughly from 2005 to 2014, but with the purchase of only 36 aircraft, the IAF still needed 100+ of something else.
Enter the second problem. Rafale is not a cheap aircraft to acquire, and when the fixed, one-time costs of all the ground support and other equipment were added in, the total bill for these 36 aircraft stood at about US $9 billion.
In 2018, several years after the decision was made, then-Indian Air Force chief, Air Chief Marshal Birender Singh Dhanoa, was under fire for the cost of the deal and stated simply, “the earlier deal for 126 medium multirole combat aircraft reached an impasse during negotiations that were launched in 2007 but scrapped 10 years later. We had three options: wait for something good to happen, withdraw the global tender and start over again, or do an emergency purchase. We did an emergency purchase.”
However, the “emergency purchase” was for 90 aircraft less than the originally planned first acquisitions, and the 36 Rafale buy consumed $9 billion of the maximum $12 billion allotted for the program. More money would have to be authorized, and another tender would have to be issued.
M-MRCA 2.0
Predictably, even though this 2.0, second attempt at running the tender—this time for only 114 fighters—started as limited to low-price, single-engine aircraft only, it ended up with every single competitor from the first tender now bidding and even some additional new entries. The “Medium” in the title of the program seems to have very little meaning when the range of competitors now in the mix starts with the small, single-engine Gripen E/F at the bottom of the range and the outsized Sukhoi Su-35 and F-15EX at the top.
F-15EX Eagle II Fighter from Boeing.
It is a small wonder that more than one Indian defense publication has described this re-run of the first tender as a “circus.” And like the previous tender, the actual start date for the competition is still a mystery, with projections on the issuance of the RFP for this year – two decades after the albeit informal start of the first tender.
Enter the F-21 Fighter for India
At the center ring, one of the few aircraft the IAF could afford in this circumstance is the “re-badged” version of the F-16V Block 70/72, which Lockheed Martin (LM) is now designating as the “F-21.”
The aircraft has numerous improvements over the UAE F-16E/F Block 60 – some of which are incorporated into the Block 70/72 design—but the F-21 configuration proposed for India has additional features that meet a long list of requirements by the IAF, from RCS reduction to internal cooling to radar performance.
One of the many “India only” requirements is that the aircraft accommodates both types of air-to-air refueling methods. An LM spokesman briefing the design at India’s 2018 DefExpo explained this feature: “Now the really cool thing—the Indian Air Force airplanes, from a refueling perspective will be bisexual—you can refuel either via boom or via probe and drogue.”
A U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft sits parked on flight line at MacDill Air Force Base, Sept. 8, 2021. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Lauren Cobin).
“And the reason why that’s important from a coalition inter-operability perspective—you can take fuel from anybody. You could stay airborne indefinitely. I can pick up gas from any of the tankers out there—I don’t care what they are. That’s a unique capability—nobody else has that. Anything that either has a boom or a basket—I can take gas from in this airplane.”
Who would have thought it? An aircraft with a DEI-certified refueling system before many people even used the now-discredited term.
Rolex Mentality
But those US defense executives who have spent much time in India will tell you that the unique refuelling setup is not the real reason the F-16 for India became the F-21. “Part of it is the ‘Rolex mentality,’” said a colleague with many years of experience in-country. “India is one of those places where if you attach a higher model number to a particular product, people will just automatically assume it is better.”
“But the other reason,” he continued, “is because it’s India. Pakistan has operated F-16s for decades. There are no small number of people who will tell you that a weapon system used by Pakistan is never going to be purchased by India unless you find a way to call it something else.”
Whether there is any hope for any of these aircraft—including the “F-21”—to be purchased by India is probably a long shot. In 2018, the IAF’s current squadron strength level was down to 31 against a sanctioned number of 42, and two more squadrons were set to retire in 2019.
Maj. Garrett Schmitz, pilot for the F-16 Viper Demonstration Team, performs aerial maneuvers with an F-16 Fighting Falcon at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va., May 16, 2019. Air Combat Command pilots must complete rigorous training and receive certification from four levels of U.S. Air Force leadership before they can earn the title of Demonstration Team Commander. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Marcus M. Bullock)
Buying that many new fighters may not only be unaffordable, but India’s sclerotic procurement processes (some even refer to it as “hopeless”) have no chance of organizing localized production of whatever the IAF decides to acquire in the current day.
Many years ago, during the first M-MRCA tender I remember speaking to a long-time Russian colleague who worked for Mikoyan. We were both at the Berlin Air Show because the Indian contract was such a hot issue, and that year, India was the “partner nation” for the show organizers. Indian companies filled up almost an entire expo hall at the Berlin expo site.
“This India contract is a nightmare,” he told me. “As India’s longest-running defense industrial partner and supplier of weaponry we feel a real pressure to win this tender. But that is not the whole story. You look at the monumental task that awaits whoever has to set up another production line in India, which the contract will call for and then you suddenly realize something.”
“What is that,” I asked?
“The consequences of winning could be worse than the consequences of losing,” he answered.
For those who do not know—that’s India in a nutshell.
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson is a survivor of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and is now an Expert on Foreign Military Affairs with the Fundacja im. Kazimierza Pułaskiego in Warsaw. He has been a consultant to the Pentagon, several NATO governments and the Australian government in the fields of defense technology and weapon systems design. Over the past 30 years he has resided in and reported from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Brazil, the People’s Republic of China and Australia.
