Egypt out military shopping, eyes Tejas and Dhruv as high-level delegation visits HAL
Delegation visited Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd’s facilities this week, days after its maiden international air show. It is rumoured the African country is also going in for Chinese J-10s.
Snehesh Alex Philip
13 September, 2024 05:31 pm IST
Jodhpur: Egypt is exploring the possibility of buying light combat aircraft Tejas and the advanced light helicopter Dhruv from India, ThePrint has learnt.
While talks have been going on since last year, sources informed that a high-level Egyptian delegation visited the facilities of the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) this week.
This comes days after Egypt concluded its first International Air Show which saw significant Chinese presence and the first showcase of China’s J-10 fighter jets in Africa. There are rumours that Egypt is going in for the J-10s.
Notably, HAL was also in Egypt for the air show to demonstrate its products.
Sources in the Indian defence establishment told ThePrint that Egypt is looking at procuring about 18 Tejas Mk1A aircraft from India.
Not just Tejas, the Egyptians are also interested in buying the Dhruv helicopters for surveillance, transportation and medical evacuation, sources said.
https://theprint.in/defence/egypt-o...-as-high-level-delegation-visits-hal/2266488/
https://nziv.net/109290/
News analysis
This news was published two days ago. The Israeli press gave additional details, such as that Egypt is negotiating to buy 35-45 aircraft.
As well as one of the Egyptian press programs that revealed the following:
Egypt is re-establishing the Eastern Aircraft Factory, where Egypt used to assemble Chinese F-6 & F-7 aircraft in the Eastern Aircraft Factory in western Egypt in the 1980s, away from the aircraft factory affiliated with the Limited Performance Authority (AOI).
The new factory is in the industrial zone in El Alamein and will produce more than one aircraft for the local market and export to African countries mainly.
The relationship with India includes cooperation in the production of components for drones and already in a project for a small drone operating in the Navy.
The LCA TEJAS MK1A aircraft, India is pushing Egypt to sell it a number of them in exchange for transferring technologies, whether for assembly or subsystems, such as what India recently achieved in AESA radars, where Indian radars can be integrated into Egyptian fighters such as the MIG-29M Especially since the specifications of the UTTAM MK2 radar exceed the performance of the American APG-83 radars by a lot, which raises the level and performance of the Egyptian MIG-29 aircraft.
India offered Egypt to produce ASTRA MK2 missiles, and the missile range will exceed 190 kilometers to supply the Egyptian fighters MIG-29 & RAFALE and also LCA.
Cooperation to produce SAAW, as India aims to produce versions with ranges of 100-250 kilometers and a derivative version of it that works as a cruise missile with a range of 300 kilometers at low cost, and Egypt requested its local production to integrate it into Egyptian fighters.
Indian ammunition such as RUDARM MK2/3 missiles to supply Egyptian fighters as direct export.
India offered Egypt to produce the AKASH missile, although the latest negotiations are on the AKASH NG version, the negotiations remain related to the radars of the Indian system, as India refused to integrate Brazil's local radar into this system.
Egypt produces a series of Chinese ballistic missiles locally, the most famous of which is the DF-15 DF-12 for more than 10 years ago for the DF-15C & DF-12 missiles
And the older versions DF-15A/B about 30 years ago in light of the mutual transfer of technologies between Egypt and China
Egypt is impressed by Indian engines for ballistic missiles and some specifications of the Indian PALARY system and Indian superiority in space rocket engines in which India excelled, as Egypt is working to develop its arsenal and not rely on Chinese technology only
Indian flexibility in transferring technology based on their desire for expansion plans in arms export and providing easy financing for the sale of Indian weapons and India's desire for Egypt to become a center for manufacturing Indian weapons for the benefit of exporting to Africa
There remain problems with the reliability of some Indian weapons such as the aircraft
There remain problems with the reliability of some Indian weapons such as the Dhruv helicopter and the low level of safety in it, which led to India's attempts to cooperate with German and attempts to improve the capabilities and reliability of the aircraft as a result of the failure of the aircraft in Latin America previously due to its repeated flight accidents
India's opportunity is good due to Egyptian factors, including the arms import mafia in Egypt, which has a voracious appetite for imports to make profits and the speed of importing equipment from abroad.
The inefficiency and failure of companies such as AOI in creating national programs, as well as their unwillingness to spend on research and development, claiming that it is a risk, although their contracting of the unsafe Indian DHRUV aircraft is considered a crime in which all parties participate.
Therefore, any local civil or military light helicopter project is being fought as an alternative to the SA-342 GAZELLE aircraft in ambulance and air taxi missions, maintenance of electricity towers, wind turbines, and light firefighting.
Any national project that aims to build local cadres and behind the beginning of special national designs outside the framework of the current military MAFIA, which considers the financial benefit to them only and personally.
Egypt rejected the specifications of the HAL Prachand - Light Combat Helicopter (LCH) aircraft from the version of a medium-range anti-tank attack helicopter.
As it could not exceed the technical specifications required to be nominated for the contract.
Therefore There is competition between the Z-10ME *T-128 ATAK aircraft after the completion of its provision with a national engine or even the Korean KAI LAH aircraft
Therefore, India competes strongly with the HAL Dhruv aircraft
A project was previously proposed for a light aircraft with 2 engines, each with a capacity of 275 horsepower, to replace the Gazelle aircraft.
Egypt also wants not to depend on a single supplier and to stay away from the Europeans for multiple reasons. Western plans for Israel's expansion and occupation of Arab lands make Western weapons unreliable and meet needs during the war because we will fight their local agent. Although India is an ally of Israel against the Arabs and Muslims, any Indian investments will make the Indians loyal to money. Egypt also does not forget India's refusal to provide weapons to Egypt before the October War to please the Soviets at the time. Egypt wants to make any Indian retreat from any cooperation in the event that the Indian product is technically and financially acceptable for service in the Egyptian army.
The cost did not exceed 1 million dollars, less than any other project, and it depends on an engine that is in service, unlike the high-cost Western European engines and Western restrictions on any production outside of Airbus or Leonardo, so it was quickly fought to kill it.
The presence of India as a competitor to China makes the Chinese keen to improve their technical offers and release the technology because there are alternatives to Chinese weapons, in addition to the presence of India as a competitor in providing technology at a low cost in the ability of Egyptian contracts to obtain sufficient quantities
There are still problems for the Indians such as the lack of The existence of a national engine, the KACARI engine did not achieve the required specifications, and although the GE F-404INS engine version is higher than the versions supplied to the Kuryon and the Turks, and even on the T-7A aircraft, and also the American company's offer of additional improvements to this engine is the main factor in the difficulty of the contract, as India itself has a program to supply the LCA TEJAS MK1A aircraft, which is delayed due to the American company's inability to provide more than 20 engines annually to India, so it is natural that in the case of any Egyptian contract, the supply will be over long years, whether for 18 or 35 aircraft. It is true that Egypt negotiated with India to transfer engine manufacturing technologies, and as long as India itself was unable to develop a national engine for a fighter with the required specifications, the KAVARI 2 engine requires investments of $ 1 billion and several years to reach a capacity of 90KN and a weight of 1100 kilograms. Perhaps Egypt aims to produce a turbojet engine developed from the Russian Tumansky R-25-300 engine for use in a low-cost Egyptian UCAV aircraft By raising the performance of the Russian engine and improving it, whether in terms of propulsion capacity or reducing fuel consumption and weight, to produce a local UCAV aircraft in large quantities and at a low price, in addition to the aircraft that will be imported to provide large numbers of this category, and the same thing applies to SMALL TURBO FAN engines for use in local cruise missiles.
