Dassault Rafales sold at last

There have been allegations that pressure from the highest political level, and possibly a huge under-the-table payment, dictated India's decision to plump for the Rafale jet fighter made by Dassault of France. The order is for 126 fighter-jets worth an immense $11 billion. These jets are meant to replace the country's ageing fleet of MiG 21s, which make up one-third of the Air force's jet fighters.

Collateral evidence has emerged, through research by Subramanian Swamy and our searches on Google and other internet sites, that blood relations and close friendships at the top political level probably tilted the scales in favour of the Rafale. There is as yet no evidence that Dassault paid a huge bribe to India's first family, though the possibility cannot be ruled out, given the current milieu in India.

It is a tangled skein and one end of the thread begins with T Anantha Krishnan, popularly called TAK. He is the son of a Sri Lankan Tamil immigrant, who was an indentured plantation worker.TAK was reputedly close to K Padbanabhan, money manager of the LTTE, who is now in jail in Sri Lanka.

TAK has no further role in this tale, except that his wife is Latchoumie Marie Helene, born to a white French father who belongs one of the ancient families of France and a Tamil mother. She is popularly known as Mme TAK and Latchoumie is probably the Frenchified version of Lakshmi, a common Tamil name...

Mme TAK, is the owner of La Fantaisie, a very big art gallery and auction house in Paris, which can be described as the Christie's of France. Carla Bruni, the Italian wife of Nicholas Sarkozy who was the French president when the Rafale deal was inked, is a partner in this venture for the past two years.

Mme TAK is also owner of a sophisticated music recording house in Paris. Carla, who is also a pop singer, uses Mme TAK's studios for registering and issuing her albums.

She counts among her good friends Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Sonia's sisters who frequently visit her in France and stay in her chateau. Rahul Gandhi stayed with her when he went to France in early 2012.

Mme TAK owns vineyards in northern Colombia with jointly with rich Colombian families called Bettancourt and Katalli. Rahul Gandhi's former live in girl-friend Veronique is connected to the Kattallis.

Now comes the interesting point. Mme TAK is one of the shareholders of Dassault. Carla Bruni is Italian born. She is related by marriage to Sonia Gandhi: Carla is a cousin of Sonia Gandhi's sister's daughter-in-law.

Discussions are still going on between India's defence ministry and Dassault, particularly on the 'offset' condition under which around 50% of the aircraft will have to be built by Indian manufacturers.

A couple of months ago, Moneylife wrote on the choice of the Rafale. The headline of the story was "Look out, Mr Antony, Little Brother is watching you".

The nickname "miracle" appears to have been used, but not for the reasons you mentioned. More probably because of the good quality of the aircraft, or because of the fact that they last flew as part of an aerobatic team

Dude! Rwanda never was a French colony; it was held by the Belgians. How misinformed can you get?

That team would NEVER have chosen such a name

I am telling you what I know from my life's experience

You are an uninformed rabid anti-French bigot.

In the meantime, it seems the Typhoon-Eurofighters are often grounded due to some design flaw or another... That's what the Brits call a 'lemon', right? ;-)

There is ample mention of the Mirage's multi-role deficiencies, in particular for service in the Australian area. Yet the aircraft did a first class job as events transpired. The RAAF moved into new operational and technical regimes. [...] the spin- off covered a wider range of airframe, engine and electronic capabilities than we had expected. Cooperation between 'them and us' hurdled old barriers. The infrastructure grew in its widest sense; without the Mirage experience we'd not be capable of tackling new technology: building it, operating it and fixing it. Industry would not be so successful in meeting our full share of military and civil offset opportunities, or in winning additional contracts in the fiercely competitive international free-bid arenas. So we grew up all round.

Ted Bennet's and Pierce Talbot's final statement appeals to me enormously - 'the most successful aircraft project undertaken'. [...]

On reflection, I believe we failed the fighter force by not remedying deficiencies identified early in the aircraft's life (for example, providing an inertial system) and through being forced to reduce our permanent liaison staff in France, which I'm sure contributed to our slowness to stay on top of serious technical problems — another example of 'penny wise and pound foolish'. This neglect became more pressing as we extended and re-extended the Mirage's operational life when the F/A-18 date of introduction slipped several years. Notwithstanding these strictures and millstones, morale stood up when times were tough; the technicians worked harder to keep the Mirage flying, and the pilots continued to fly them hard and enjoy it. So passes an important era in RAAF history, and a much respected aircraft.

J.W Newham
Air Marshal
Farrer, ACT
September 1988

Taxying the Mirage always had a hint of being a slightly untidy affair due to the lack of nosewheel steering, and turning the 11,000 kg plus fighter was a case of differential braking and sufficient engine power to keep her moving while under brakes. However, any doubts about the Mirage's handling on the ground were soon forgotten when the "Miracle" blasted into her element with an ear-splitting crescendo from the afterburner. [...] The Mach 2 flight always proved an exhilarating experience. A maximum rate climb in a clean Mirage had you at 36,000 ft and 0.9 Mach in two and a half to three minutes from brakes release on the runway. [...] in just under 6 minutes and 400 gallons from sitting on the end of the runway, you would arrive at Mach 2 at 50,000 feet. (p.121-122)

Sadly, 14 pilots lost their lives flying the RAAF Mirage. By far the largest percentage of the fatalities (36%) were night related accidents; all were operating below 5000 feet in high workload situations on dark, rather than moonlit nights. However on a more positive note, all 26 known ejection attempts were successful, with one pilot successfully ejecting twice. (p.124)

As a final word on the Pilots' Viewpoint of the Mirage IIIO, I could do no better than quote a recent anecdote related by Jorge Washington. "In 1986 I felt deep satisfaction that my love of the Mirage was not alone when the final Mirage Conversion Course was about to commence and the group of young fighter pilot hopefuls were asked whether they wanted to be on the last Mirage course or the first F/A-18 Hornet course - to a man they chose the Mirage!"

BJP leader Subramanian Swamy on Saturday threatened to go to court against the deal to buy Rafale fighter aircraft from France if the government does not heed to his warning. Terming the deal “corrupt”, Swamy said it will bring bad name to the party. The senior BJP leader said no one in the world is buying the Rafale planes and in the past countries which signed an MoU to procure the aircraft have scrapped the deal.

“No one is buying the planes in the country. Dassault (Aviation- the company which manufactures the fighter jets) says if India does not buy these planes then they will wind up. Many counties like Switzerland signed an MoU, but later cancelled it,” Swamy said. The senior BJP leader added that if the government wanted to please France, then it should have bought the company, which is anyway running into losses. “If the government does not agree to this, then I have to go to the court. It is a corrupt deal and can spoil the name of the party. “These babus (bureaucrats) are giving wrong advice to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The defence ministry’s opinion is also not this (to buy the planes). Modi had on Friday said in Paris that India will buy 36 Rafale fighter jets in “fly-away” condition from France at the earliest by “keeping in view the critical operational necessity of fighter aircraft in India.”

The truth is a lot murkier than the "everything is wonderful" fantasy you're peddling.

Its not meant to dogfight .

It can shoot down an F-16 way before a dogfight range and the F-16 and its radars and weapons systems cant find the F-35 . In other tests it outshot 3 x F-15's .

I know (and stated) the F-35 is not meant to dogfight. But it may never live up to its expectations either. Too many glitches. Too expensive to buy and maintain. And if its stealth features ever are broken by the Russians (as they probably will at some point), it's gona loose much of its tactical advantages.

Been regularly updated and is now considered generation "4.5". Also, since none of the 5th generation jets are up and running yet (apart from the F-22), the Rafale is currently without rival (except the F-22).

You mean somebody told you that once, and that's all you got.