Boeing had strengthened the landing gear and made other changes to the F/A-18 E/F, which is actually only capable of catapult take-off, in order to meet India's demand for ski-jump-capable carrier aircraft for the Indian home-built "Vikrant", and even demonstrated the modified Super Hornets on site at the "Hansa" naval air base in Goa in western India - but none of this helped: At the turn of the year, India decided against the Super Hornet in favour of the French Dassault Rafale M.
An act of state
This decision is to be officially announced during a visit by French President Emmanuel Macron to India in March this year to mark the anniversary of the strategic cooperation concluded 25 years ago - a treaty is expected to follow very soon.
You have to understand that
The background to this decision may be the fact that India's air force already operates 36 examples of this type in the C single-seater and B two-seater versions, and therefore expects synergy gains overall. The Rafale has some serious technical disadvantages: it has no folding wings and therefore requires considerably more stowage space below deck than the Hornet - and because the Indian lifts are also narrower than French and American ones, the weapon stations on the wingtips have to be fitted and removed each time they move from the flight deck to the hangar - and vice versa. The technician would like to tear his hair out - but there must be enough suffering and industriousness to go round.
Honny soit qui mal y pense!
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