 |
| Dassault Rafale |
K.P. NAYAR
Washington, Feb. 5: When Pratibha Patil travelled to Europe last October, she and others in her entourage had a pleasant surprise in the sky. At one point along the air space that the President’s flight was using, half a squadron of Eurofighters appeared on both sides of her Air India plane.
In the graceful style of these sleek war machines, they escorted the presidential aircraft to its safe landing at Patil’s next destination. Even so, those manning the Eurofighters could not resist showing off.
When the Eurofighters displayed the prowess of this advanced new-generation, multi-role combat aircraft to the President, members of Parliament and senior officials accompanying her, New Delhi’s quest for 126 planes of its kind could not have been far from the minds of their pilots.
The competition for the biggest military aviation deal in history, which began 11 years ago when the defence ministry initiated its “request for information” or RFI, had just entered its final and decisive phase.
Read the full story at The Telegraph