The Indian government has decided to buy 26 units of French Dassault Rafale M carrier-based fighters as part of the Multi-Role Carrier-Based Fighter (MRCBF) program for the Indian Navy's aircraft carriers.
In the competition for the contract, the French Rafale M overtook its main competitor, the F/A-18 Super Hornet by Boeing, and in fact outdone the russian MiG-29K, as Scramble.ln reports.
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It is noted that in early 2022, the Indian military conducted comparative tests of the Rafale M and the F/A-18 Super Hornet. The conditions of flights from the aircraft carriers of the Indian Navy Vikrant and Vikramaditya were carried out during the tests. And as a result, the Indian government decided that the French Rafale M "better meets the operational requirements of the Indian Navy" than its competitor by Boeing.
At the same time, it is noted that the purchase of almost three dozen Rafale M is still an "intermediate step", and that the Indian defense industry will continue to work on the program of its own carrier-based fighter under the index TEDBF. The first prototype under the TEDBF program should make its first flight in 2026, will belong to the 5th generation and will have dimensions smaller than the russian MiG-29K.
It remains unclear when the Indian Defense Ministry plans to enter into a firm contract for the French Rafale M aircraft, and what are the delivery terms of these aircraft. Choosing different fighter jets, India had own reasons to complain about russia’s MiG-29K aircraft: at least three units of this type were lost in various disasters, only one third of the fleet's combat capacity is available out of all russian jets of this type.
However, according to The Military Balance 2022, the Indian Navy still maintains 43 MiG-29K and MiG-29KUB aircraft.
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