08:41 GMT, January 27, 2010 According to India’s Ambassador Arif Shahid Khan, quoted by the Reuters news agency, Eurofighter Typhoon is leading the race to win the new fighter deal for the Indian Air Force ($10.4 billion contract for 126 aircraft). The Ambassador stressed the top position held by Eurofighter Typhoon during a meeting last Friday with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in Rome.

Flight trials of the six aircraft competing for the tender are expected to be complete this April, then a decision will follow. Eurofighter Typhoon sit alongside Dassault’s Rafale, Saab’s Gripen, Boeing’s F/A-18 Super Hornet, Lockheed Martin’s F-16 and Russia’s MiG-35 in the competition. Ambassador Khan remarked that Germany’s President Horst Köhler will visit India in early February as will Silvio Berlusconi later this year. For India, the Eurofighter Typhoon offers a broad spectrum of operational advantages, such as excellent adaptability to severe weather conditions, high mission effectiveness and survivability in threat situations as well as considerable in country economic benefits.


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