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http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-09-23/news/34040655_1_mirage-2000-iaf-officials-iaf-sources

IAF to procure two second-hand Mirage-2000 aircraft

Sep 23, 2012

Indian Air Force is planning to buy two second-hand Mirage 2000 combat aircraft to make up for the losses suffered by it in crashes earlier this year.

IAF, which has signed a deal with France for upgradation of 51 Mirage 2000 aircraft, lost two of these planes in crashes in February and March after which its fleet was reduced to 49.

"We are planning to procure these aircraft from the French or some other Air Force which still operates these aircraft in its inventory as the production line of Mirages was shut down a few years ago," IAF officials said here.

They said if Defence Ministry approves this proposal, the IAF would buy the two second-hand Mirages and put them for upgrades to the Mirage-2000-5 standards.

Under the $ 2.3 billion upgrade deal with France, the Mirages of the IAF will be upgraded to the '-5' standards.

The first two aircraft are already in France for upgradation under the supervision of an IAF team and work is progressing, they said.

The remaining aircraft would be upgraded at HAL facilities in India with the help of French officials in next ten years.

IAF operates three squadrons of Mirages and all of them are deployed at the Maharajpur air base.

Post their upgradation, IAF sources said there was a possibility of one squadron of the combat aircraft being deployed at some other base also.

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vivekman · Member Joined: 26 Dec 2006 Posts: 1897 Location: BOM

shivendrashukla · Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2012 3:08 pm Post subject:

Not really. Technology does not change as fast as IT tech changes. Every new tech has a gestation period of atleast a decade before they are mass produced. Moreover, not all can afford to maintain hi-tech eqpts. Specially countries like India. We would have a mix of high end (T-50), medium end (Su-30, Mirage 2K, MiG 29UPG) and fairly low end (Jaguars, MiG 27, Tejas) to meet our requirements.

Cheers
Shivendra

sumantra · Member Joined: 28 Oct 2007 Posts: 4685 Location: New Delhi

Shivendra: the Tu-22Ms? Of course, the Jaguars would be nuclear-capable.
Cheers, Sumantra.

shivendrashukla · Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2012 9:52 pm Post subject:

Aseem · Member Joined: 15 Dec 2006 Posts: 2841 Location: YYZ

shivendrashukla · Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2012 10:57 pm Post subject:

Aseem, IAF uses Jaguars are Deep-penetration strike aircraft. It can fly fast and it can fly low. By low I mean really low. Upto a couple of hundred feet high. So much so that there have been quite a few number of accidents in IAF where the fast flying Jags have flown into electricity wires. It is most stable there and hence it cannot dog fight or maneuver itself if caught in a dog fight with any interceptors. Hence it is always accompanied along with a MR fighter or an interceptor to protect its tail. Now the question is why we use Jags? Because it can carry enormous amount of armaments economically.

Hope this helps.

Cheers
Shivendra