Rob Arndt wrote:
On Nov 4, 5:53�pm, dumbstruck wrote:
On Nov 3, 3:24 am, Tiger wrote:

India's AF is looking to make a huge purchase & production deal. $10
Billion dollars for 126 aircraft. They are looking to replace their Mig
21's. There are about 6 �Firms/ planes up for consideration.
Eruofighter Typhoon
Saab Gripen
Boeing's F-18
Lock Mart's F16
Mig's 29 & 35
Dassualt's Rafale & Mirage series
So if you had $10 Billion to spend? What would you buy for your force??
Keep in mind the needs of India, the potential foes & that any US plane
come with political strings attached (like Pakastians f-16 deal).
Rough field capability would be a plus; do the Saab and Mig offferings
still favor that? Eurofighter and Dassualt are probably very motivated
to negotiate price, but maybe Mig most of all... logical winner?

But I would expand the search box. On the more futuristic side,
consider unmanned hunter-killer drones like General Atomics MQ-9
Reaper, adding sidewinders. Using the price from Wikipedia, India
could afford 12000 of these instead of 126 of the above. Well, maybe
China or sombody could figure out how to jam UAV's.

My personal favorite would be a low tech option that takes advantage
of India's vast manpower. I'm thinking of a plywood overcast: 126000
rocket/cruise-missle carrying Mosquito's. Get the DeHavilland assembly
plans from the internet, and make it's plywood from recycled scrap
wood in a thousand village workshops. For engines, Russia must have
heaps of worn out Kuznetsov turboprops used on Tupolev Bear bombers -
those awesomely fast ones with counterrotating props might be rebuilt
cheaply. Quantity has a quality of it's own, and that is India's
forte.

Easiest answer is whatever meets India's needs in the region and not
what Russia, Europe, or the US think they need...

With 1.1 billion people, maybe they should emulate China and think
indigenous design, with a little help from their allies

In the 21st century there will be 5 powers: US, United Europe, China,
Russia, and India. China and India constitute 1/3rd of the entire
world population and are growing while the US, Europe, and Russia are
declining by birthrate. The West needs to start taking these nations
seriously.

Rob



PetroChina 1st firm worth $1 trillion

By ELAINE KURTENBACH, AP Business Writer 2 hours, 31 minutes ago

SHANGHAI, China - PetroChina became the world's first company worth more
than $1 trillion on Monday, surging past Exxon Mobil as the Chinese oil
producer's shares nearly tripled in their first day of trading in China.

State-owned PetroChina Co., a unit of state-owned China National
Petroleum Corp., is the country's biggest oil and gas producer. Its
Shanghai initial public offering of 4 billion shares raised $8.94
billion — a record for a mainland bourse.

Adding the value of PetroChina shares traded in Shanghai, Hong Kong and
New York — and those still owned by the government — the company's total
market capitalization ballooned to just over $1 trillion, compared to
Exxon Mobil Corp.'s $488 billion.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071105/...9O4dbVNv 24cA