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France offers latest Mirage version to India

France has offered to sell the latest Mirage 2000-5 fighter aircraft to India. The French firm Aerospatiale is also pushing to sell the Advanced Jet Trainer Alpha jets to the Indian Air Force. These offers are understood to have been made to the chief of air staff, Air Chief Marshal Anil Yashwant Tipnis, who is currently on an official visit to France, reports Asia Defence News International.

Though the IAF is keen to acquire about two to three squadrons of Mirage 2000-5s, some sections of the IAF have reservations about the Alpha jet whose production was stopped in 1991 and is hence considered a second-hand aircraft. The Ministry of Defence had earlier shortlisted the British Hawk and the Alpha jet.

Meanwhile, the Russians have offered the MiG-AT to fill the requirement of the IAF and the navy for an AJT. Already 10 MiG-AT aircraft have entered squadron service with the Russian air force. Since the assembly lines for Alpha jet have been scrapped, the French would like to sell about 140 such aircraft which are with French and German air forces. In this case the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, which was planning to produce the AJT, would have no work. Earlier plans were to initially buy a few AJTs outright and produce about 120 under licence.

Air Chief Marshal Tipnis had wide-ranging discussions with his French counterpart and French defence ministry officials about expanding Indo-French cooperation in the military aviation field. He is also visiting some French air force establishments.

The air chief, who left for Paris on September 18, is expected to return on September 30. Aviation experts feel that if India decides to go in for more Mirages and buy outright another 50 Su-30 fighters from Russia, the ambitious Light Combat Aircraft project might be affected. Besides, with outright purchases of these aircraft, HAL would have no work in future, unless major infrastructural modifications are carried out in the HAL to suit other requirements.

UNI

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