Индия проводит конкурс на лучший реактивный учебно-тренировочный самолет для своих ВВС. Ориентировочный объем заказа - $1,16 млрд.
Окончательное решение будет принято в марте 2000. В качестве претендентов рассматриваются "Hawk" (British Aerospace), "Alphajet" (France Dassault) и российский MiG-AT.
Однако индийские источники сообщают, что МиГ-АТ, существует только в чертежах, и шансов почти не имеет.
quote:
Так, что твориться с МиГ-АТ?
Опять контракт про.. проиграем?
Почему не участвует Як-130?
India to decide on trainer jet deal in March: airforce chief
NEW DELHI, Dec 4 (AFP) - 15:24 GMT - India on Saturday said it would acquire jet trainers worth 1.16 billion dollars after a final decision on the choice of the military aircraft in March 2000, the Press Trust of India said.
Air Force chief Yaswant Amal Tipnis said the acquisition of Advanced Jet Trainers (AJT) was turning into a "critical requirement" for India.
"The acquisition of the trainers will help modernise Indian air force which is very important in the present scenario," he said of the alarming rise in the number of military air crashes.
Since 1991, the Indian air force, the world's fourth largest, has lost more than 85 pilots and almost 200 planes in incidents mostly involving rookie pilots and spares-starved aircraft.
Air chief marshal Tipnis conceded the number of crashes in the current year had risen.
They "are a little more than normal. But the cause is not lack of training.... One of the causes is technical flaws," Tipnis said at a military parade in the western Indian airbase city of Pune.
He also blamed growing habitations around military airstrips as another cause for the mounting losses.
"For instance, urbanisation results in more dumping of garbage near air fields which attracts birds and can cause bird-hits to aircraft," the air chief argued.
Tipnis said the acquisition of AJTs would "optimise training of airforce pilots and reduce the rate of accidents" and added a decision on the choice of aircraft would be finalised by "March-end."
India first invited bids for the AJT contract in 1983, but the procurement was then put on the backburner because of a resource crunch.
The "Hawk" of British Aerospace is in a dogfight with the "Alphajet" produced by France's Dassault Aviation and the Russian MiG-AT trainer to pick up the Indian contract — worth an estimated 1.16 billion dollars.
The Russian aircraft has been sidelined as it is still on the drawing boards, Indian sources say.
The Indian air force has some 1,200 aircraft including around 700 combat jets, mostly supplied by the Soviet Union before its 1991 collapse.