LCA TEJAS MK1 & MK1A: News and Discussion

[Kharavela]

Please ask any other fighter manufacturer to mate Israeli Radar, Russian Missiles, American Engine with Indigenous FBW, not counting whims & fancies of Indian Air Force, in a tiny sized fighter jet. You will get shock of your life with their replies.

HAL didn't studied the plane. It was the DRDO job.
HAL just produce it at a pityfull rate.

Please ask SAAB what would be their production rate per year if they are given an order of 20 fighters ?

Ask SAAB , with a US engine, US and european missiles, english FBW, non fully swedish radar. In a tiny sized jet.

No offense, but you didn't understand the complexity of the above.

US Engine, European Missiles, English FBW & non-fully Swedish Radar... All these adhere to NATO standards.

Never before in world, no one has even tried to integrate Israeli Radar, Russian Missiles, American Engine with Indigenous FBW. Russian missiles have their own system whereas Israeli radar & American engine have their own. Every subsystem of Russian vis-a-vis Israeli / American are different.

 

[Kharavela]

I agree, but the record of HAL is really bad.

No, HAL was not always like that. When there was no ADA / DRDO for designing fighter jets, HAL engineers did a fantastic job and produced Marut HF-24. The then Govt & IAF bosses kill it deliberately.

Till recent past. IAF resisted Tejas tooth & nail. Thanks to late Manohar Parrikar, we are witnessing Tejas squadrons. If IAF is so concerned with squadron strength, instead of wasting money on upgrading 50 year old fighters, why don't they order 240+ Tejas ? Since it's first flight in 2001, had GoI & IAF wanted, they could have created alternate production agency for Tejas.

In comparison, Pakistan AF supported JF-17 wholeheartedly despite several problems. Slowly but steadily, JF-17 improved batch-wise.

I am not defending HAL per se. But truth must be told.

 

[Srinivas_K]

Keeping them at Srinagar will be daring, but inevitable nonetheless because Tejas was developed as a point-defense fighter.
I thought Tejas might be kept at second-tier bases and only moved forward during special missions like Mirage-2000s.

Keeping them at Srinagar will make sure Tejas will intercept Pakistani formations at least twice a month.
I am pretty sure Pakistan will try to test it and even try to shoot one down using their JF-17s for humiliating us.

As if JF17s are mighty?

JF17s are not air superiority fighter jets, they are the next evolution of mig 21s.
If things go south then we can see LCA vs JF17 near Sialkot Pakistan.

 

[Srinivas_K]

What's dirty in that? Its strategy right?

The boasting part that comes after, like a rat came from pakistan and exploded in J and K. Now entire India needs to fear Pakistan because they can kill unarmed civilians.

 

[mist_consecutive]

As if JF17s are mighty?

JF17s are not air superiority fighter jets, they are the next evolution of mig 21s.
If things go south then we can see LCA vs JF17 near Sialkot Pakistan.

You guys don't get it. It is not about Jf-17 vs. LCA, it is about shooting down an LCA, by any means possible, then claiming Jf-17 came victorious in a 10 Tejas vs. 1 JF-17 fight and brave mard e momin chanting allah hu akbar emerged victorious.

 

[JBH22]

As if JF17s are mighty?

JF17s are not air superiority fighter jets, they are the next evolution of mig 21s.
If things go south then we can see LCA vs JF17 near Sialkot Pakistan.

Oh kuffrs. Mighty JF 17 is a 786th gen fighter plane which is powered by roohani taqaat piloted by superior imaan pilots.

JF-17 is what PAF can afford, whereas LCA is the stepping stone of what we would like to develop. Most importantly it is a replacement of MiG 21 and it's current configuration is more than enough to achieve it.

 

[itsme]

 

[Ghost hale]

The boasting part that comes after, like a rat came from pakistan and exploded in J and K. Now entire India needs to fear Pakistan because they can kill unarmed civilians.

I get all BS Pak do but I m not sure that should we really be that naïve to expect better from them? We need to know what they can do, bad or worst and prepare for it. Its like Fool me once kinda thing.
I also do think If They are able to get number advantage of 4-5 vi 1 on Tejas then we faulted on our end.

You guys don't get it. It is not about Jf-17 vs. LCA, it is about shooting down an LCA, by any means possible, then claiming Jf-17 came victorious in a 10 Tejas vs. 1 JF-17 fight and brave mard e momin chanting allah hu akbar emerged victorious.

We really need to up our game in information warfare though but I seriously think its internal issue as the credibility of Pak and China are to ruins. Its internal 'sickulars' we should be worried about.

Side Note : Will definitely want to see how Tejas performs in war clout. I think its mean machine and can very well handle itself.

 

[BON PLAN]

Please ask SAAB what would be their production rate per year if they are given an order of 20 fighters ?

I agree. A detail forgotten....

 

[BON PLAN]

Never before in world, no one has even tried to integrate Israeli Radar, Russian Missiles, American Engine with Indigenous FBW. Russian missiles have their own system whereas Israeli radar & American engine have their own. Every subsystem of Russian vis-a-vis Israeli / American are different.

It's mainly because the indigenous engine was late (and never fully ready with reheat), and probably the same with the indegenous radar.

 

[Vaibhavseafarer]

One thing is sure you see none of Porkis will ever criticise JF 17 no matter what.
Whereas Indian some will criticise Tejas some will not. Only because we have a forward mindset.
We want better n better they want what they got after begging.

Tejas is something which will give advantage to India airspace industry in future.
So much of Technology we developed around it.

 

[omaebakabaka]

One thing is sure you see none of Porkis will ever criticise JF 17 no matter what.
Whereas Indian some will criticise Tejas some will not. Only because we have a forward mindset.
We want better n better they want what they got after begging.

Tejas is something which will give advantage to India airspace industry in future.
So much of Technology we developed around it.

As long as its adopted on time and proves its claims in service and keeps up with competition as they inevitably invest in next gen development of key technologies. Falling backward or missing a wave will be very expensive

 

[Lonewolf]

As long as its adopted on time and proves its claims in service and keeps up with competition as they inevitably invest in next gen development of key technologies. Falling backward or missing a wave will be very expensive

I just want a new cockpit in mk1a , this older don't suite it , @Bleh any possibility

 

[omaebakabaka]

I just want a new cockpit in mk1a , this older don't suite it , @Bleh any possibility

Do I sense sarcasm vis-a-vis IAF

 

[Bleh]

I just want a new cockpit in mk1a , this older don't suite it , @Bleh any possibility

Can't say.. Lift is getting the MWF cockpit. Mark1A might still get lucky.

 

[onlinpunit]

No, HAL was not always like that. When there was no ADA / DRDO for designing fighter jets, HAL engineers did a fantastic job and produced Marut HF-24. The then Govt & IAF bosses kill it deliberately.

Till recent past. IAF resisted Tejas tooth & nail. Thanks to late Manohar Parrikar, we are witnessing Tejas squadrons. If IAF is so concerned with squadron strength, instead of wasting money on upgrading 50 year old fighters, why don't they order 240+ Tejas ? Since it's first flight in 2001, had GoI & IAF wanted, they could have created alternate production agency for Tejas.

In comparison, Pakistan AF supported JF-17 wholeheartedly despite several problems. Slowly but steadily, JF-17 improved batch-wise.

I am not defending HAL per se. But truth must be told.

Lol Marut HF 24 was brainchild of Kurt Tank.

 

[BON PLAN]

One thing is sure you see none of Porkis will ever criticise JF 17 no matter what.
Whereas Indian some will criticise Tejas some will not. Only because we have a forward mindset.
We want better n better they want what they got after begging.

Tejas is something which will give advantage to India airspace industry in future.
So much of Technology we developed around it.

You probably have far more knowledge now thanks to the Tejas problems.
You always learn more from difficulties than from too easy victories.

JF-17 is a chinese low end product. Quite nothing came from porkies heads.

 

[abingdonboy]

J&K theater needs Sukhoi and Rafale not LCA IOC.

Some seem to be entirely forgetting what the LCA is meant to do and how the IAF employs their assets

LCA is to replace the MiG-21, MiG-21 is foreword deployed for the interceptor role and is the first line of defence, LCA's dimensions are entirely derived from the need to fit the airframe into the same HAS as used by MIG-21s in forward bases.

Rafales, Mirages and MKIs are mostly kept in the interior of India and used in offensive ops or special missions. Occasionally MKI flights are dispatched to foreword bases for surge ops but this is only on a short term basis during high readiness periods.

 

[abingdonboy]

Risk assessment will be same for both fighters and tejas will come at top over Migs on risk mitigation by any factor. Fighter pilots of Tejas squadron won't be uncalamatised with operation procedures in LOCs as most were previously Migs pilot only I guess. This doesn't make any sound sense. If the goal is to give a safe base than Sulur is best place.

Crawl, walk, run.


It makes perfect sense to go Sulur>Srinagar>Pathankot.


Sulur as the home base (and close to HAL BLR) is where the operational workup began for LCA and where a lot of the training manuals will have been written but going to a foreword base like Srinagar is a huge jump for a new asset and that too one that is relatively unproven. It will create understanding of how to operate and support LCA away from S.India, then they can take it to a (more) strategically critical base like Pathankot


Srinagar is a very smart intermediate step from Sulur to Pathankot, it will pose just the right amount of challenge without pushing the fleet too hard operationally


Guys it's not even like the Mirages get out of Agra very often or the Rafales will be operating out of their 2 Homebases too much, LCA will be all over India within a few years.

 

[abingdonboy]

I agree, but the record of HAL is really bad.

I think this is overrated.


Consider that the LCA before March 2021 only ever had 16+16 firm orders from the IAF, what was HAL meant to do with that? 4-5/yr is about all they can do for such pitiful orders.

COVID came at just the wrong time for them as they were scaling up to clear the FOC/trainer backlog and begin preparations for the MK1A rollout.


Can only judge HAL after 2025 IMO, if they haven't hit their 16/year target for MK1A then they'll have nowhere to hide but I'm pretty sure they'll get it done, they've shown that with stable (largish) orders they can churn out (ALH). They've worked hard with the private sector tier 2/3 players in India to have quite a substantial dispersed ecosystem but this comes with its own challenge- private players won't commit capital for increased production without firm orders, MK1A changes the picture entirely.