Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Vivek Ram Chaudhari, in an interview to a website, has said that the Air Force in response to the Request For Information (RFI) for procurement of 114 jets under MRFA Tender has been offered fighter jets from 8 OEMs and the air force is in the process of framing Request for Proposal (RFP) soon.
Interestingly there has always been Seven foreign aircraft manufacturers in the MRFA tender that includes American firms Boeing and Lockheed Martin, Russia’s Mig corporation and Sukhoi bureau, French Dassault Aviation, Swedish SAAB group and the Eurofighter which could mean that there is a new entry in the MRFA tender or it was simply a slip off to mind he also confirmed that the Indian Air Force prefers to take.
Some sources says that there will be a new entrants and that may be a stealth fighter. Speculations are circulating that this will be either American F-35 or Russian Su-75 single engine or Su-57E twin engine stealth fighters.
Air Chief Marshall confirmed that the Indian Air Force (IAF) would prefer to take the “˜Buy Global Make Indian” route over the strategic partnership policy model to produce the planes within the country just like the C-295 deal with Airbus will be executed with the Tata Systems in India.
