Please don't give this kind of logics If you have nothing to say then better remain quiet.
According to you, Above said missile were immature when they were inducted?? You mean, relevant countries were fool and inducted immature missiles, some of them even used in War. Meanwhile they has been keep updating our Imported air force about deficiency and tweaking. Once Imported- Cum- Scientist IAF came to know that there no further up-gradating is possible Hence, missile is fully matured and let it Induct. In another words, induct when it become obsolete. Only a IAF's guy can give such logics.
If we go by your logic, Meteor inducted in 2016 and IAF signed the deal in the same year that too without any real war experience. Moreover, IAF has been boasting on Meteor like they themselves gave it birth after profound labor pain
IAF should buy Meteor only after 2026. Sir, why are you not applying your own logic now ?? Why don't we give Meteor to each pilot and ask for optimization and induct only after 2026?? Hain Sir? Why This logic only apply on Astra ??
You want to give Astra to each and every pilot for years of evaluation but Sir, Why IAF didn't bring all these genius pilots on the day of field trials ?? Atleast they should tell under which profile trials need to be done ??
Ok. Now since you started crying over Meteor lets look into that aspect too.
Meteor development started back in 1997.
Meteor development in its current form started in 2003.
Meteor flight trial with Rafale-M started in 2005.
Meteor flight standard functional seeker flight test carried out in 2006.
Meteor test firing from Gripen carried out in 2006.
Meteor integration contract on Gripen was signed in 2010.
Meteor integration on Rafale happened in 2015.
Meteor inducted into French Airforce in 2016.
So now if we take the case of Meteor on board Rafale, we could see that difference between first flight trial and integration or induction is 11 years or a decade. For one decade the missile has undergone tests and tests and tests. French airforce has evaluated it for one decade before officially inducting it. In 2012 itself it has undergone numerous trials and those were user trials.
On its order by IAF, do note that Qatar placed a order on 2015. Lets try to answer some questions now.
Why?
Because on paper it is the most capable AAM as of now.
Why it is so?
Because it has been made by MBDA.
What's so special about MBDA?
It is a consortium of defence companies with Matra defence and BAe dynamics. The consortium can boast of around 45 different kinds of missiles development under their belt. So on technical parameters, their products already held edge over any other OEM even before tests. Moreover, IAF would have access to the documentation of Rafale scientists pilots who tested and validated it on Rafale for a decade.
Meteor is just coming for Rafale as of now. But look at MICA. Its testing aboard MKI has started. So its not like IAF is using the missiles without any tests and evaluation on cross platform. But these systems has a backing of decades of relative research behind them as well as tests to prove their mettle which sadly Astra lacks.
So you could go on and cry as much as you want. But IAF wants to use Astra across all the platforms available and DRDO too designed it for that unlike Meteor. So its testings would go on and on and on unless it gets validated on all the platforms in IAF.