passages like the above are made without even acknowledging that today's flight test team has 8 LSP s along with many PVs, which is not the case in 2000.
So it is stupid to expect that the time taken for the remaining 1500 flights will be at the same ratio of the previous 2300 flights which had less than half the number of LSPs available from 2000 to 2005.
And most of the time consuming design modifications asked by IAF are already done in the past decade. And LSP-7 and 8 are closest to freezed production models. So remaining flight tests can be completed easily .
Already there are reports that IAF is satisfied with the STR of tejas mk-1 and AOA has gone past 22 deg AOA. This was not the case in 2000.
So it is absurd to sweep these critical facts under the carpet and attribute the same time lines for the remaining 1000 flights.
If Tejas is obsolete then the J-10 which has an absurd AL-31 engine mated to Israeli Lavi airframe dating back to 1970s is space age perhaps!!!!!!!!!
Methods to defeat 5th gen stealths would be deployed by 2030. In that case J-20 too will become obsolete by the time it's numbers reach 200 or 300 in PLAF perhaps!!!!!!!!!!
The only thing Tejas can not do for some "Policy makers" is ---
1. It has no facility to funnel hard earned Indian tax payer money to Swiss bank Accounts through slush funds
2. It can not summon leggy beauties in lavish parties held by Arms dealers in posh farm houses on the suburbs of New Delhi.
3. Also ADA can not get ASRs diluted in it's favor like the makers of Pliatus,West land and FGFA can pull it off with their "very high technical expertise".
Much worse due to the lack of "experience " of ADA the ASR only gets stricter with passage of time for LCA tejas, which by the way is not to the liking of India's adversaries.
Other than these three very critical short comings ,
it can do the mundane tasks of delivering Long range BVRs and doing decent close combat dogfights against incoming enemy fighters,
while taking the base line IAF capacity to the levels above Mirage-2000 and F-16 class , which is the purpose of it's design.
In one thread of Broadsword, Ajay shukla mentioned that tejas stopped being a joke, ever since it flew.
In the first place I never had any doubts about Tejas at all, nor do I have any doubts whatsoever.
We cannot go back and change the past. For whatever reasons , tejas program must continue its journey.
Every product, project, and program must iterate and the aircraft must refine with each phase of delivery. There is nothing new in what I am saying. It common product life cycle.
However would like to make things clear.
I am not being skeptical about the capacity or the efforts . Management is very important and it has to be met with equal enthusiasm from scientist.
"But a time-bound outcome is a must".
It is evident that there was a "lack of management focus" before. Given that it is center of focus, results are bound to come sooner.
Every managment person know one basic thumb rule. Requirements are never constant. So change must be countered by management effectively.
The product should speak for itself,this should should be the motto of ADA / HAL/ DRDO and with proven capability.
There is a saying in the police force, the biggest threat to society always comes from within .
With the Indian diaspora subject to a rot that starts from the top and with an air force and army that has the "buyers airforce " and "buyers army" , "largest buyers" tag, there lies the greatest threat.
In ndtv they termed it as "contractor mafia"
The USA itself was subject to such tyranny when john kennedy was assasinated. America plunged into a war with vietnam and large contracts of helicopter worth billions that time were given out.
I just hope that there is no sabotage that will lead to loss of life.
However as Mr Woody Allen writes, there are bound to be challenges and lives will be lost ( i hope not), what we must understand is that we must stick to the tejas program and complete it.
