HAL Tejas

the status of this program changes so often, I can't keep track of it anymore.. can anyone help confirm if what I said is correct

Tejas Mk1 - finally ordered by Air Force? will come into service this year?
Tejas Mk 2 - new plane thats Griped Sized. Canards. will be the MWF?

Navy Tejas mk 1 - ordered in small bits
Navy Tejas mk 2 - yet another new plane with two engines?
 
the status of this program changes so often, I can't keep track of it anymore.. can anyone help confirm if what I said is correct

Tejas Mk1 - finally ordered by Air Force? will come into service this year?
Tejas Mk 2 - new plane thats Griped Sized. Canards. will be the MWF?

Navy Tejas mk 1 - ordered in small bits
Navy Tejas mk 2 - yet another new plane with two engines?


Actually I don't know ... already today it is a plethora of family members and it seems as if I already lost all faith in it:
IMO only the Tejas Mk. 1 will be introduced ... and Mk.2 now as a Gripen-sized fighter as well as the twin-engined Rafale-like Orca will remain projects only.
 
Mk1 prototypes and IOC (roughly 40 planes) were already contracted. Those have non aesa radar and no very long range aam.
Mk1A is the upgraded version (FOC) rumored to be ordered today. They fit aesa radar, better defensive system and long range aam.

Naval LCA is a demonstrator based on the basic design with naval capabilities STOBAR. It use Levcons (manually triggered) for enhancing the delta behavior in pitch during arrested landings.

Teja Mk2, also officially known and the MWF (M for medium), is an enlarged version of the LCA with Canards.

See previous page or here for more details (it's another forum where one member kindly keep us updated on that design): https://www.key.aero/forum/modern-m...-derivatives-news-and-discussion-reincarnated
 
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I wonder if India could have saved a lot of time
simply just by buying and building off the design of more proven manufacturers that were also examining a fighter of a similar class and size as the Tejas
SOKO's Novi Avion (India was supposedly a target partner too)
ATLAS Cava
and especially IAI's Lavi which actually was built
 
It would be foolish not to consider the tremendous benefits that India gained in building an aerospace industry.
Lavi was also just that for Israel as well as a showroom for their industry.
 
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exactly, the Tejas, Novi Avion, Lavi, Carver
were all roughly the same size (Carver is probably bigger it seems)
and especially the same technological era. representing typical 80s design

but its now 2020, 40 years later and its still not in sufficient numbers in service.
I think some countries like Turkey, might be able to succeed in going from license producing foreign fighters, to going straight to producing domestic medium weight fighters.
South Korea also made that transition more or less smoothly. license producing foreign fighters, joint cooperation on a trainer, and now producing their own medium stealth jet
 
It would be foolish not to consider the tremendous benefits that India gained in building an aerospace industry.
Lavi was also just that for Israel as well as a showroom for their industry.

True enough. Unfortunately the Lavi ended up being sabotaged by the U.S. State Department.
 
India Plans to Scrap 114-Unit Fighter Order in Favor of More Tejas LCAs
(Source: Forecast International; issued May 18, 2020)

India intends to forgo a planned acquisition of 114 foreign-sourced combat aircraft in favor of more indigenous Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCAs). The move comes a little over two years after the Indian Air Force (IAF) released a 72-page preliminary Request for Information (RFI) to foreign vendors on April 8, 2018. The RFI attracted responses from such manufacturers as Boeing, Dassault, Lockheed Martin, Saab and Sukhoi.

This roughly $20 billion project essentially amounted to a reboot of India’s failed “Mother of all Defence Deals” floated in 2007. That tender, falling under the 126-unit Medium Multirole Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) requirement, ultimately fell by the wayside in April 2015 due to the gulf in agreement between the competition winner, France’s Dassault (pitching its Rafale), and the Indian government over the transfer of technology requirements to India’s state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL).

In order to make up for an emerging fighter capability and capacity shortfall, Prime Minister Narendra Modi opted for an inter-government agreement with France in 2016 for the purchase of 36 Rafales in flyaway condition.

But this still left the IAF short of roughly 100 capable fighters with which to build out squadron capacity. The IAF has a requirement for 42 active fighter squadrons to defend against a collusive threat from China and Pakistan. However, it currently only has somewhere between 28 and 31 squadrons, leaving the IAF far short of optimal readiness.

The move to bypass the strategic partnership initiative and instead procure more Tejas LCAs appears to be financially driven at first glance. With the COVID-19 pandemic crippling the local and global economy, the Indian government will be forced to review all government spending in the near term. Military service branches, already feeling the pinch to their modernization budgets before the outbreak of COVID-19, will now be forced to economize further.

While India has long sought to increase the level of indigenous content in its military hardware in order to limit its exposure to foreign-sourced materiel, it has struggled mightily to achieve that goal. India remains a substantial net arms importer, with 70-75 percent of its armaments acquired through global suppliers. Thus the shift from seeking a foreign-sourced platform to the Tejas is as much – if not more- about keeping local industry humming during an economic slowdown while ensuring greater domestic defense content.

The IAF has already ordered 40 units of the initial Mk 1 variant of the Tejas, plus 83 of the improved Mk 1A variant.

Future orders will be for Mk 2 variants, which are expected to be fitted with advanced radar and avionics and enhanced capability for carrying fuel and weapons. The Mk 2 models – expected to replace the legacy French-designed Mirage 2000 fighters – will be designated as medium-weight fighters due to the increased weight and weapons-carrying capacity of the upgraded platform.

The Mk 2 is not expected to be flight-tested until 2022 at the earliest. But faced with the prospect of taking up to two years simply to downselect a preferred fighter option – with no guarantee that after winding through the 11-step formal procedural process a contract would even come to fruition – the decision to opt for Tejas LCA Mk 2s to backfill numbers presents no more of a delay risk than the strategic partnership model

-ends-
 
That's a good development... get more birds.. make it better, fix the problem.

Would love to See Kaveri coming, in the future.
 
Logic and governments tend to be strange bedfellows at the best of times.


My friend, that's the best statement concerning the Indian - but surely other decisions everywhere as well - LCA Tejas story!

Thanks a lot.

Too true!
Few Canadian defence purchases make sense from the soldiers', sailors' or airmens' perspective. They only make sense when you consider them from the perspective of buying federal votes in (separatist-leaning) Quebec.
 
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to our fellow armchair aviators and generals here
what do YOU personally think the direction the IAF should go in terms of updating its air force?
buy more local Tejas?
buy a foreign aircraft and from where?
etc
 
Buy more local Tejas, definitely. That's not really optional, if long term goals are strengthening of domestic industry and technology base. Continue developing techs for the follow-up domestic fighter. But perhaps try to be more realistic about the requirements and what the domestic industry can realistically deliver. Ideally, the new fighter would be relatively large and should be developed in time to start replacing Su-30s.

Settle on one medium class fighter to be bought from abroad. As numbers will be needed soon, and there's no way domestic planes could quickly replace both numbers and quality.

At the same time, using a DIFFERENT country, look for technological cooperation to help with the large domestic fighter, mentioned above, to be developed.

Make the naval, carrier borne fighter, to be a variant of an existing/planned fighter for the Air Force.

Make ALL the fighters be multirole.
 
Something very much different I stumbled across as the SDF and indeed a major surprise I did not know!

Any idea when this was proposed and where this report is from (looks like from FlightInternational)?

Imagine, if things had turned differently, a JF-17 in IAF-colors.


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relevant to Tejas
India to stop import of light fighters, light helicopters, trainers, conventional subs, etc
green lighting Tejas and perhaps ending any chance of Gripen or F-16s etc?
 
The F-21 (aka F-16) was always to be produced in India, being the facto outside the scope of such decree.
 
So, bear with me on this. The USA rescinds the Turkish membership of the F-35 club because of the purchase of a Russian AAM system. What about the Indians basically having a hold on future F-16 parts production and collaborating with the Chinese? Are the Chinese not a bigger threat or is there "something in the air (Tonight)" re F-16 and the future service of this aircraft? It seems weird to me.
 

relevant to Tejas
India to stop import of light fighters, light helicopters, trainers, conventional subs, etc
green lighting Tejas and perhaps ending any chance of Gripen or F-16s etc?

I don't understand WTH this mean.
 
I don't understand WTH this mean.

it means they are more or less closing off several defense systems to foreign bidders and will buy only Indian. so no more new competitions for light helicopters, or alternatives to Tejas, etc
 
The import ban makes sense from an economic perspective.
Importing new weapons is frightfully expensive for any country. While India may be the second most populous country on the planet, but her economy is a long way from the second largest, ergo India is a poor country that struggles to feed and educate her population, making weapons a luxury. India has always struggled to equip her army with modern weapons.

OTOH domestic production means fewer rupees spent over-seas, more skilled jobs for Indians and less dependence on spare parts from over-seas. India knows that if they offend a supplier nation, the supply of spare parts will quickly dry up.
 
Yep. Still don't understand how this one has survived for so long. Hey, don't forget, it all started in 1983, so in two years it will turn FORTY YEARS !! :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:
 
Ah the first pic of the prototype.
I remember when it first was on the internet I said it looked a lot like a baby Mirage 2000 with a different wing position, which pissed off a lot of people
but come on, even the paint is similar

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India to buy 83 LCA MK1A
and since im here.. 56 C-295 (I thought they were building their own light transport with Russia?)

 
and since im here.. 56 C-295 (I thought they were building their own light transport with Russia?)
C-295 is a light transport, more close to a Russian Il-112 that's currently in development.
India and Russia were developing an MTA (Medium Transport Aircraft) program, until India leaved in 2015.
 
Each LCA MK1A fighter is powered by a single F404-GE-IN20 engine, and each jet will cost about $78.5 million, another HAL executive said, adding that the program is expected to generate 5,000 jobs in India.

at 79 million, thats the cost the F-35 is projected to fall down to this year (and down to 77 in 2022). not sure of what else is included in these costs.
 
At least for them, it's much cheaper than their Rafale and the total cost of their upgraded Mirages.
But how does it compare to their MKI should be an interesting thing to see.
 
At least for them, it's much cheaper than their Rafale and the total cost of their upgraded Mirages.
But how does it compare to their MKI should be an interesting thing to see.

me thinks the rationale for countries to purchase French combat aircraft isn't for the cost effectiveness (French stuff has long been known to be pricey)
but to reduce vulnerabilities in supply chains.. usually due to political reasons ( say fears another western country such as the US or Germany putting sanctions on spares, or they don't trust eastern bloc stuff, etc). I've noticed that many French aircraft operators also operate a similar non-French type, i.e. Mirage and Mig-29s (Peru and India), Mirage and F-16s (like Greece), Mirage, F16s and Mig-29s (Hi egypt!), etc. I suspect it is for redundancy purposes if one type gets into spare issues.
Not that buying French guarantees this redundancy and reducing vulnerabilities, but it does help.

as for the Tejas.. I agree with some of the sentiment here (especially Deino's)
its an aircraft that came out way too late (maybe by 2 decades), a bit on the pricey side, among many other issues

BUT, I still think India should keep acquiring them simply to create jobs, produce and strengthen the local industry and research,
and to reduce some vulnerability on reliance on imported aircraft (even though the Tejas has a lot of systems that are foreign).
 
wow looks like a Rafale went 5th gen stealth!

looks like a completely new design.
but since they are back at the drawing stage.. why not just keep on developing AMCA and make a naval version out of it too. they seem to be at similar starting points.
 

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