HAL LCA Tejas

mokahete said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/2025559605578006929
View: https://x.com/AdithyaKM_/status/2025559605578006929?s=20
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https://twitter.com/x/status/2025860349564707070
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https://twitter.com/x/status/2025860354421698631
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theprint.in

MoD, IAF agree on some exemptions to HAL for Tejas Mk1A, but no compromise on 'must-have' capabilities

IAF is fine with accepting the aircraft with 'must-haves', even if some other steps remain pending, which may take at least another year, it is learnt.
theprint.in theprint.in

Sources further told ThePrint that under the new understanding reached, IAF will accept the aircraft if ADA and HAL complete the missile firing tests, integration of radar to the Electronic Warfare systems, and the weapons package. They said that firing trials have been completed and the certification process is underway.
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HAL has argued before the defence ministry and IAF that much of the pending work is being overseen by ADA, and is not a manufacturing delay. Major capabilities incorporated are undergoing the certification process and should be completed by April.

Following this, the IAF will undertake acceptance trials, which could last a few weeks.
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Welp, that means that the delivery of Mk.1A would only begin by mid 2026, at the earliest. And that also if everything goes according to schedule, after IAF concessions. The original schedule was delivery commencing by February 2024. That was also a delayed schedule as the signing of the contract took a very long time after request for 83 Mk.1A was first touted in 2017.
 
Deino said:
As it seems, there was another - aka third - crash:
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Maro.Kyo said:
Welp, that means that the delivery of Mk.1A would only begin by mid 2026, at the earliest. And that also if everything goes according to schedule, after IAF concessions. The original schedule was delivery commencing by February 2024. That was also a delayed schedule as the signing of the contract took a very long time after request for 83 Mk.1A was first touted in 2017.
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Geo said:
The AMCA is the aircraft of the future. And always will be.
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FighterJock said:
That is the dificult part of the whole AMCA program Deino, not knowing IF it will succeed. It is an improtant fighter program for the IAF.
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A recent commentary by analyst Richard Aboulafia (Aviation Week and Space Technology 9 March 2026 p10) about the new Indian contract for 114 Dassault Rafale fighters to be built by India's dynamic private sector rather than by troubled state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), and about HAL being replaced by the private sector on the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft design, is unusually frank in panning the Tejas fighter plane, a program that began in the 1980s. Aboulafia writes, "...HAL's performance has been subpar, at best. Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh, chief of India's Air Staff, was heard at Aero India 2025 saying that he has 'no confidence' in HAL. This frustration is understandable. For more than 40 years, the company has been working on the Light Combat Aircraft, also known as the Tejas. The Tejas is a relatively lightweight and unambitious design, but only a few dozen have been inducted since production model deliveries began in 2016. The Tejas has been a disaster, but HAL also badly compromised the Indian Air Force fleet plans and confounded hopes for associated work from those [Dassault] contracts."

What a sad reversal from the hopeful promise of the articles about the LCA in the Aviation Week and Space Technology all-India issue of 25 July 1994.

I am a fan of private enterprise over socialism as much as anyone, and I expect the February policy changes (unless HAL can obstruct them) will benefit India. But left unexplained is why state-owned HAL has been a slothful, inept failure with Tejas (and AMCA), while state-owned Chengdu Aircraft Corporation with state-owned Pakistan Aeronautical Complex have designed and built the FC-1/JF-17 fighter to a tighter timeline, an aircraft that successfully flies and fights. I suspect there is an interesting story there.
 
Kiltonge said:
Well the money keeps coming regardless of all the broken promises, so why change?
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If I'm understanding correctly, the Indian government's decision in February 2026 was to greatly decrease that longstanding stream of money to HAL, and instead redirect the funds to India's private sector. Richard Aboulafia writes in his recent AWST commentary that "HAL, the last unreformed legacy of India's state-owned defense industry, will be left with the Tejas, upgrades for aging Sukhois and MiGs, and little else. HAL will face a choice: privatize and reform, or just gradually fade into irrelevance. There are still obstacles in the way of India's aerospace industry development. HAL is not without its political champions, and they might restore the old, dysfunctional order... With HAL largely out of the way, India can now leverage this buying power and talent to promote the part of its aerospace industry that is capable and competent. The Indian Air Force will also have a clearer path to a newer and more capable combat aircraft fleet."

Will HAL change or not, Kiltonge? We'll see how this goes. For the Tejas program, in which any foreign interest died a long time ago, I suspect that this thread's decade of news about the "next version" of the fighter plane, which promises to resolve all problems at last, will gradually peter out.
 
Owens Z said:
I am a fan of private enterprise over socialism as much as anyone, and I expect the February policy changes (unless HAL can obstruct them) will benefit India. But left unexplained is why state-owned HAL has been a slothful, inept failure with Tejas (and AMCA), while state-owned Chengdu Aircraft Corporation with state-owned Pakistan Aeronautical Complex have designed and built the FC-1/JF-17 fighter to a tighter timeline, an aircraft that successfully flies and fights. I suspect there is an interesting story there.
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It's not an interesting story and quite frankly it's not particularly deep either. The difference is a lack of consequences. HAL was allowed to fail onwards everytime, they never experienced severe consequences for severe failure and unkept promises. Meanwhile with China's AVIC, there are consequences for failures. Obviously the uneducated and guilable will think of "le evil socialist firing squads" or imprisonment for life. But the genuine consequences are demotions, lost titles, losing your job and then you're out there with a terrible end to your resumee to this point and then you can pray for good luck in order to find another position at another aviation enterprise and start all over again. In a super competitive market.

The phenomenon of falling upwards, in a corporate sense, where you have failed senior engineers and executives go from company to company because they cannot deliver results is a uniquely western thing (counting India to the western sphere of influence), resulting from a lack of pressure for people of a certain age group and above (which constitute the majority of senior, lead and executive positions in the aerospace sector). That's not present in highly competitive sectors like Chinas aviation industry for example, or any East Asian STEM field. When you seek employment in fields like aerospace, computer science or pharmaceutical science in places like China, Japan, Singapore, Korea and the likes, it's like the 'Hunger Games'. And if you want to keep your job you better deliver on time and within your allocated budget. Otherwise there are 10 eager and younger people waiting in line to take your place.

That is why state owned AVIC delivers, and why state owned and private HAL or Lockheed fail and underdeliver and yet receive all the funding and time they ask for. It's an inherently cultural thing.
 

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