The deal is to manufacture F-16 in India. It never said IAF will buy them. Even LM website also says same.
Why else would LM be willing to shift F-16 production to India if we are not buying it? It makes no sense for them, especially since they claim that component suppliers will most likely remain in US. This is the same reason that Dassault offered to "transfer" MIrage 2000 production line to India if we bought 126 Mirage 2000-5s. This is why Airbus opened a line in China, to sell to Chinese airline comapnies.
What posters here going on about is worst case scenario. Why would we shelve Tejas if some american co runs some assembling unit in India? Don't we have enough confidence in IAF? IAF always buys best products. They are very patriotic.
Members have valid concerns and the grounding of indigenous product is not some unfounded fear, but rooted in reality. Do look up what happened to
Marut in favour of
screwdrivergiri imports. IAF has put up extreme and sometimes unreasonable requirements for LCA and are you aware when Mirage 2000s were first inducted, the plane could barely fire a gun? During MRCA trials, Eurofighter was permitted to test their AESA radar on a bloody helicopter!! Can you even imagine something like this for Tejas?
IAF has a hard-on for shiny imported toys at the expense of indigenous products, whom they derisively label
Khadi Gram Udyog.
The decision is with IAF. They can chose their option. No need to kill healthy competition. If HAL has enough confidence in its products, it shouldn't worry about this competition.
But this is what IAF is hell bent on. Just have a look at the step motherly treatment to Tejas, in contrast to fawning admiration for Western/Roosi products. We have successive air marshals run down the Tejas programme, Matheshwaran (who has no joined Reliance and involved in Dassault partnership for Rafales) called it a three-legged Cheetah. Our last chief said of Rafales that "There is no plan B"
This deal is more to do with appeasing Trump and at the same time squeezing whatever benefits we can from it. Sometimes we may not get any benefit from this single deal.
Trump could have been appeased in many other ways- place orders for more C-130Js, P8Is and even C-17s if possible. As you said, it's difficult to see what benefits we get from this deal instead of investing in LCA and AMCA for the future.
Look at these three as separate ones. Most of our posters here have no business sense or have vetted interests.
Or accept that people can have different views.
