What exactly is wrong with the T/L ? The project director clearly states that the FLYOFF will happen in 4.5 yrs which is a year after roll out for it'd be involved in taxi trials .
Pls also understand that while funds have been sanctioned they haven't yet been transferred to ADA / HAL . Presumably it'd be done before the end of the year . Hence FLYOFFs will commence 4.5 yrs after allocation of funds which would be early to mid 2029.
This also means we'd have to go in for MRFA ASAP. The IAF seems convinced Rafales are good enough to take on the J-20s. Let's hope & pray they're right in their assessments & more importantly we conclude the damn deal ASAP.
My own gut instinct is we'd probably go in for 2-3 squadrons of the Su-57 Block 2 in a few years thru direct off-the-shelf imports. That's Plan B in case Plan A doesn't go as envisaged.
It will be better we make amca mk 0.5
With all already developed sub-systems for super su30 & Tejas mk2..
Amca mk1 is taking so much time god knows when will mk2 commence.. rather than wasting time just put 4.5gen avionics,systems and make it ready.. by this way we can reduce time of testing..
It will be better to replace mig 29s with amca mk 0.5 which actually has similar T/W ratio compared to mwf..
First prototype in 3.5 yrs maybe first flight in 4.5 yrs
So 4.5 yrs for first flight 5.5 years for testing..
5 prototypes will be made for testing.
And still we are not sure because there can be delays. Most likely we will see a delay of 3-5 yrs.
So it's way better just to make Amca mk 0.5
I don't think kaan will be ready. it will take atleast 10 years. We have done preliminary design review and critical design review they haven't done CDR yet.
The bold part: I would never rely on IAF brass in this regard. They were sleeping on F-16 blk 50/52+ with AIM-120C5 in PAF's hand (2010 onwards) till Balakot happened. They never checked if SU-30 MKI with R-77 RVV-AE is capable of handling this threat or not. Though IAF got detailed info about F-16 during MRFA tender. IAF chief himself said they were waiting for Rafale with Meteor!! So from 2010 to 2019 IAF was on 'Bhagwan bharose' mode! lol
Rvv-sd came in service in 2015. Anyways
If people like us can understand why can't they ? They were most likely waiting for astra as just for 4 years it wouldn't have been worth it to buy 110km range missile from Russians.. but still they had to import it because our production was not that high and they had already exhausted life the lre missiles..