Check out the first pics and video of the Indian Rafale in action

‘I don’t lie. The truth I declared before and the statements I made are true. I don’t have a reputation of lying. In my position as CEO, you don’t lie,’ said Trappier when asked to respond to Rahul Gandhi’s charge that Dassault was covering up for possible cronyism in awarding the offset deal to Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group.

Speaking to ANI in the Dassault hangar housed in Istres-Le Tub’ Air base located North of the French city of Marseille, Dassault’s CEO Eric Trappier said that they had prior experience dealing with the Congress party and the comments made by the Congress president made him sad.

Pic Source: Smita Prakash with Eric Trappier (Naveen Kapoor/Twitter)

When pressed further for the reason behind Dassault’s choice of Reliance as an offset partner which had no experience in manufacturing fighter jets, Trappier clarified that the money being invested was not going to Reliance directly but in a Joint Venture (JV) that included Dassault.

‘We are not putting the money in Reliance. The money is going into the JV. I put my know-how free of charge on how to produce people. I have engineers and workers from Dassault who are taking the lead as far as the industrial part of this deal is concerned. At the same time, I have an Indian company like Reliance who is putting money into this JV as they want to develop their country. So the company is going to know how to produce aircraft,’ added Trappier.

Pic Source: Naveen Kapoor/Twitter 

On the pricing issue, the CEO said that the present aircrafts are cheaper by 9 %. ‘Price of 36 was exactly the same when you compare with 18 flyaway. 36 is the double of 18, so as far as I was concerned, it should have been double the price. But because it was government to government, there was some negotiation, I had to decrease price by 9%. The price of Rafale in flyaway condition is less expensive in the 36 contract than the 126 contract,’ he said.

Talking about the aircraft, the Dassault CEO explained that the present planes will have all necessary equipments but not weapons and missiles. ‘The weapons will be sent in different contract. But the aircraft with everything other than weapons will be dispatched by Dassault,’ he said.