At a time when the United States and France have taken the lead in engaging India and other emerging economies to find a way out of the global financial mess, aviation majors of the two countries are locked in a turf battle of a different kind, vying with each other for the $10-billion India contract for 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA).

Of the six in the fray for the MMRCA contract, two are from the US — the Lockheed Martin F-16 and the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet — while the French are offering the omnirole Rafale fighter which has already been chosen by their air force as the future mainstay. The other contenders are the Saab Gripen from Sweden, the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Russian MiG-35.

As they await an Indian decision on the bids, Dassault Aviation and avionics major Thales, responsible for the design and development of the Rafale, have for the first time expressed a sense of unease over the format of the MMRCA request for proposal (RFP), pointing to the “gross mismatch” between the types of aircraft in the fray.

Officials of the two firms say “it’s like comparing apples and oranges” — the Saab Gripen and F-16 are single-engine fighters while the Rafale, which is a multi-role aircraft, has two engines.

“The Rafale is a a twin-engine, heavier aircraft and in the same class as the Super Hornet and the Typhoon. The other three aircraft are of lighter variety. The India RFP, in the first analysis, is not extremely demanding but the IAF has to decide whether it wants a heavy or a light aircraft. We are worried, we don’t want a situation where the other three are RFP compliant but we lose out on the price differential,” J P H P Chabriol, senior vice-president of Dassault Aviation and responsible for military sales in Asia, Africa and America, told a group of visiting Indian journalists.

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