Arms Peddlers Still Persisting On Sale Of Vintage Rejected F-21 To Indian Air Force
Lockheed Martin and its peddlers will not give in so easily. Their F-16 was outright rejected technically by the IAF around 10 years back. In spite of the rejection, they are ready to believe that IAF will be fooled by their statement that a new variant of its iconic F-16 single-engine fighter, the F21 will now be competing in India’s 2019 tender for 110 new warplanes.
This F21 of the Lockheed has no xhance of competing against the vastly superior MIG35 and Rafael and so will not get the contract.
India has already placed orders for 36 Rafael and the first of the lot will be handed over in September this year. They will start arriving in India by next year. The infrastructure to support these fighters is already coming up in the selected bases. So it should be more prudent for IAF to demand additional 108 aircrafts of the same make.
Other candidates for the Indian tender are the Saab Gripen from Sweden, the European Eurofighter Typhoon, the MiG-35 from Russia and the Boeing Super Hornet from the United States. These 6 x Squadrons will go a long way to ensure that IAF reaches the desired 54 Squadrons by 2030, so that it is comfortably placed for a two front war scenario, if ever imposed on us. The oft repeated 45 squadrons (or sanctioned 42 Squadrons is a most outdated concept).
In 2019 the Indian air force maintains over 36 fighters squadrons. The units operate, among other plane types, 13x squadrons of SU30 MKI, 1xSquadron Tejas, 3x Mirage 2000, 3x MIG29, 6x Jaguars, 6x MIG21 Bisons, 4x MIG 27 and a few MIG 21s.
On Feb. 26, 2019 Indian planes crossed the line of control at India’s border with Pakistan and bombed what New Dehli described as a terrorist training camp near Balakot.
On Feb. 27, 2019, Pakistani F-16s and other planes crossed the line of control to attack Indian forces. Indian MiG-21s and other fighters intercepted the Pakistanis and shot down one PAF F16 plane. It was not only the Pakistanis but even the USAAF were badly shaken.
Both the Pakis and the U.S. government went into an hyper drive to deny the happenings.One American newspaper even claimed that USAAF reportedly counted Pakistan’s F-16s after the battle and concluded that none was missing. Later the US government had to deny the counting report.
The Lockheed’s marketing campaign is touting the F-21 as a new fighter, although it shares many of its major features with the F-16V the company has sold to Bahrain, Greece, Slovakia, South Korea and Taiwan. This claim is not going to fool even the Myanmar Air Force and here they are trying to sell it to the IAF!
