There is time to realize something.
Indians are always lazy in this field.
They realize that they need to replace its mig-21 aircraft its too late.And now they want to purchase it from foreign company.They now realize that 63% of accidents in air force history is because of human error.So i am not surprised to see them realize important things very lately.
I would not call us lazy, we were indecisive and when we took decisions in the past it was based on lining our pockets.
Lets go with some facts which you might agree.
MiG-21 were flying well till the collapse of USSR and then our Govt and IAF staff did end up buying cheap spares (and pocketing hefty commission) and these cheap spares were useless and that made the plane the flying coffin. Many countries still use MiG-21 and it is well respected. Try Eastern European countries. And because the MiG started to fall out of the sky hence the urgent need for replacements. But it was all due to faulty and cheap spares purchased.
Also one thing you would not know, we were developing a plane way back in mid 70s called HF-73 and it was dumped because then Russia offered upgraded MiG-21 that also had ground attack capability, and due to lack of foresight of our leaders and of course making the IAF happy, we prefered the IMPORTS and not develop our domestic plane. What we ended up doing is we lost the need or intent to produce planes and we were happy being importers.
IAF never had the intention to buy Tejas in the first place. IAF top brass is highly incompetent and does not know much about latest technology being worked on, hence the requirement of tejas came up based on few plane brochures, and then when they read another issue, they wanted different upgrades. When you design a plane, you need specs that are frozen, but if the user comes with changing specs, then the manufacturer has to spend more time to incorporate them or to give up and this is what IAF wanted, a delay means they get to order an imported ITEM (they wanted Mirage 2000) and if HAL gives up then they get to order more.
In my view it is a position in history that India stands, do we do the same mistake we did 40 year ago? If we do, Tejas nos will be limited, the total cost of Tejas program will be expensive to justify and our own development programs will be shelved. One thing you should realize that when a country is close making good products, other powerful countries try to offer them products to ensure the market remains. I think we have achieved that status with Tejas. India fears China, and Chinese have been producing their own J-10 in big numbers. the backbone of PLAAF is not Su-30 MKK please note. The idea behind having big nos of single engine planes is, they are cheaper to produce,fly and maintain. The time taken to maintain them is less because of single engine. The operation cost is less. For example if you fly Rafale and Tejas, the cost of flying Tejas will be less than half maybe 1/3. Thus it becomes more economical to buy, fly and maintain. IF India does buy Rafale then the Air force budget will have to be increased further for adding the cost of flying (Fuel does not come free) thus if the budget is not increased then either we have to fly less sorties, which is not beneficial at all.
I once again stress that IAF top brass is incompetent and not in sync with the ground realities,. I would not be surprised if the pilots are not in sync with the Chief of air staff. IAF lacks the vision to see the future battles and to procure as per their vision of future battles.
China already is getting its 5th Gen plane, what chances do Rafale stand against them? Cannon fodder?
For threat from Pakistan, we are prepared with the fleet of Su-30 MKI and Tejas to support them, but for Chinese threat, nothing that we have can win against them in terms of Tech (5th Gen) or numbers.
I know what I can do ..!! is there any problem Cleaning Toilets
