Tejas programme began in 1985, about Rs 7,000 crore have been spent on the Tejas Mark I, which obtained Initial Operational Clearance in December, allowing regular IAF pilots to fly it. By the end of this year, when it obtains Final Operational Clearance,
it would have consumed a budget of Rs 7,965 crore.
Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, which manufactures the
Tejas, has quoted Rs 162 crore per fighter as its latest price. Amortising the entire development cost on the envisioned 344 fighters (IAF: 294; Navy: 50), the Tejas would cost Rs 209 crore ($33.5 million) per fighter.
In comparison, the IAF's Mirage 2000 fighters, which were bought in the 1980s, are currently being
upgraded for $45 million per aircraft. IAF pilots that test-fly the Tejas Mark I find it qualitatively superior to the Mirage 2000.
The heavier Sukhoi-30MKI costs more than Rs 400 crore ($65 million) each. And the Rafale, which is currently being negotiated with Dassault, is pegged at Rs 750-850 crore ($120-140 million) per fighter.
Source :
Broadsword: LCA
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@ersakthivel can shed some light in ..
kunal there are lots of people repeatedly trying to make it look as if tejas development is expensive as gripen or any other fighter program,
crucial differences are, other fighter makers had years of experience in gradually making three generation of fighter planes for many decades right fro design to producing them in thousands all with their own design skills, In india tejas program is responsible for catapulting india from zero gen to 4.5th gen all in one go, the main components of LCA program are,
1. fly by wire sftware,
2. perfecting RSS airframe
3.all glass cockpit,
4. Avionics and mission computers,
5. composites,
1.fly by wire tech,
According to ADA the first 500 test flights of LCA which took five or more years were used to validate control laws for fly by wire software, which will be common database to all future indian fighter programs and Aura program,
2.RSS airframe,
same here, the design principle perfected for tejas will serve as common database for AMCA and future RSS platforms,
3.All glass cockpits, 4.avionics and mission computers,
Su-30 MKi and many jaguar upgrades extensively rely on the knowledge base generated in tejas avionics program,
5.composites,
Same thing. AMCA Su-30 MI and Aura will all use the same composite tech deveopled for tejas, infact even the tech we will get for the quartz radome of tejas will be commonly used across all future fighter programs,
but the oversea fighter makers had already developed pieces of these experience in previous fighter programs and evolved them further, Still their costs are high, mainly due to higher living cost abroad.
But india has zero competence in all the above five sectors and thanks to one program created by ADA , now we have world class techs in all these strategically critical areas,
if we divide the cost of the entire tejas program by the benefits received by future ADA developed AMCA and Su-30 MKi, jag upgrades and Aura cost is actually a fraction of what is stated here.
thank to tejas AMCA does not have to undertake 500 flights spanning over five years to do the basic leg work of its control laws for fly by wire software tech,
AMCA will have ready availability of composites and basic avionicvs along with mission computers weapon stores software, quartz radome, oborg, refueling probe tech,,,,,,
Also many of he basic principles to be validated for RSS airframe of AMCA are already completed in tejas program after design, evolution and validation,
Only japan's 5th gen fighter project is trying to achieve a quantum jump in one go like we did for tejas.
Also the kaveri is going into Aura. And future k-10 's development time will be significantly less thanks to versions upto k-9.
if at all IAf has cleared stealth MCA which was to use the same cranked arrow delta of tejas wing form,with lesser specs in 2005 ,
k-9 would have nicely fit into it, but we lost the opportunity in the last decade by delaying the ASR release of AMCA by 10 years.
And even if we are ready to pay tens of billions of dollars we can not buy the man power which created all these stuff upto these levels,
