The following is a cross post from the LCA thread. It finds a place here NOT becasue it is by a DDM - but it bashed DDM thoroughly and must find a place of honor here:
India's Light Combat Aircraft: When duds begin to fly news
Rajiv Singh
18 February 2008
The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the R&D arm of India's defence ministry, is not one of the most transparent organisations in the country. Involved as it is in development of military hardware of the future, it perhaps cannot really open up all its secrets for friend and foe to see.
That's the story of defence R&D organisations all over the world.
This compulsion to keep things under wraps can work against an organisation. It does, against the DRDO sometimes, because the DRDO is unable to rise to the bait and provide details to refute newspaper stories based on ignorance, bias or sheer motivation.
That these stories begin to fly around the time when a major aerospace or defence exhibition is held makes one wonder whether some of these reports are indeed motivated by a desire to please deep-pocketed global defence equipment companies that are desperate to sell their materiel to the Indian armed forces.
A year ago, before the Aero India 2007 show in Bangalore in February, a series of articles referring to ''DRDO's duds'', run almost like a campaign, adorned the pages of a national daily, hammering the DRDO with some truths and some half-truths. This year, just before the DefExpo2008 in New Delhi, beginning 16 February, we see another attack on the DRDO for its supposedly miserable performance in developing the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), the Tejas in another leading national daily.
A recent report in a leading national daily calls upon defence minister A K Antony to ''take a close look at the fighter which typifies all that is wrong with defence projects in India''. Then it proceeds to list ''all that is wrong with defence projects in India''.
The article points out that the LCA project was sanctioned in 1983 at a cost of Rs.560 crore; now, 25 years later, the cost has escalated to Rs.5,489.78 crore, even as the fighter remains another four years away from becoming fully operational.
That is damning. Sanctioned in 1983 and still not done! The conclusion that people are left to draw is that it was a complete waste investing in the indigenous development of the LCA. It would have been far simpler, cheaper, and safer (from the point of view of India's current defence needs) to have imported the aircraft from an American or European company – or maybe the Russians.
But that's not all. Intended or not, these campaigns end up drumming into our national psyche the stereotype of the inferior, shoddy, third-world DRDO versus technologically sophisticated Western aerospace companies.
So let's take a look at how some of these global defence companies have fared with their projects.
Take the Eurofighter Typhoon, one of the most ''advanced'' fighter aircraft projects in the world, and also a bidder for the Indian Air Force's medium range multi role combat aircraft (MMRCA) tender. The Typhoon owes its genesis to a European Combat Aircraft (ECA) study group formed in 1979. Development began officially in 1983 and the deadline set for commissioning it was fixed as December 1998. This deadline was then extended to December 2001. The induction of the Tranche1 versions into the UK's Royal Air Force was made in 2003 – fully two decades after an official start, more if you go back to1979.
The Tranche 2 version was inducted into service in 2005, another two years later. Now, in 2008, 25 years down the line (or three decades if you take 1979 as the starting point), the Eurofighter programme is yet to field a fully developed Tranche 3 multi-role version – the version that all the partner nations have actually been waiting for.
This is how it is with not one but several European nations that can pump in resources way above anything India and the DRDO can manage. The Eurofighter programme is a project of a consortium that includes British, Germans, Italians and Spanish governments and companies.
The irony is that by the time the Tranche 3 multi-role version finally enters squadron service, the American stealth fighters, the F-22 Raptor and the JSF-35 Lightning II, would have made their entry in sufficiently large numbers to put the Eurofighter in the shadow.
Since the Typhoon wouldn't really like to go up against either of these aircraft on a one-on-one basis you can say that obsolescence is built into the design of the Typhoon!
So what is the big deal about the Typhoon? The fact is that development of the Typhoon has given European aerospace industries a depth of experience and expertise that they wouldn't have missed out on for anything.
In terms of functionalities, the Eurofighter Typhoon combines the capabilities of the American F-15 Eagle and the F/A-18 Hornet in one compact platform. Some experts argued that the Europeans could have saved a lot of time, grief and money by opting for a mix of these American aircraft early on in the game.
However, the Europeans refused to make off-the-shelf purchases of these American fighters. Why? Because they did not want to lose out on the design expertise and the building of a sophisticated manufacturing base that the development of such an aircraft would result in.
Almost three decades later they are still lumbering on.
Cost overruns
Let's see how the Eurofighter has fared in terms of cost overruns. In 1988, the UK's secretary of state for defence told the House of Commons that the European Fighter Aircraft would cost the UK about £7 billion. The figure soon ballooned to £13 billion. By 1997 the estimated cost was £17 billion, and by 2003 it was £20 billion. Since 1993, the UK ministry of defence has refused to release updated cost estimates on the grounds of 'commercial sensitivity.'
Now, a late January 2008 press report says that the Eurofighter consortium has informed partners that the project cost has escalated by another £7.5 billion or so. That too, only for partners; ''clients'' will have to shell out even more.
However, these figures are subject to change, if the UK, for example, should back out of its commitments for Tranche 3 aircraft, of which it is committed to receive 88. Costs per unit of the Eurofighter would go up accordingly.
The Eurofighter consortium argues that its cost increases and delays compare favourably with those of the US F-22 Raptor programme. According to the Eurofighter consortium, the Typhoon is apparently only 14 per cent over-budget and just 54 months late, as compared to the Raptor, which is 127 per cent over-budget and 117 months late!
So, if the Europeans haven't been very efficient with their project it appears the Americans haven't been managing all too well either with their famed Raptor. This, in spite of their deep, deep pockets and the vast experience and arms producing infrastructure that they have.
Not indigenous …
The litany doesn't stop with complaints about the cost overruns. The article on DRDO's failures points out that when the IAF eventually inducts an LCA squadron, around 2012 or so, it will be powered by American GE-404 engines and Israeli radars, besides several other 'foreign' parts. Hardly 'indigenous', wouldn't you say?
This only betrays ignorance about the way in which R&D is done worldwide. The Eurofighter is a classic example of how Europe has gone about trying to negate American dominance in the field of fighter technology.
Everything about it - engines, armaments, airframes, et al - is a collaborative venture. The left wing, to provide one instance, will be manufactured by the Italian firm Alenia Aeronautica, and the right wing by Spain's EADS CASA. The aircraft's EJ200 engine has been developed by Eurojet GmbH, owned jointly by Rolls Royce, MTU Aero Engines, Fiat Aviazione and ITP.
Such collaboration applied to the US too. Several suppliers are involved in programmes identified with any one company. A Lockheed project, for instance, would easily have a competitor like Boeing or Northrop Grumman, or other companies, involved in the manufacture or integration of specific systems – and nobody's perishing of shame because of that.
So, if American GE-404 engines power our first lot of LCAs no need for any Indian to perish of shame because of that.
As for Israeli radars, there are any number of top-of-the-line, hush-hush projects where the Americans access Israeli technology and expertise, and vice versa. Why should we have a problem with their radars?
India recently launched Israel's state-of-the-art TecSAR spy satellite into 'pinpoint' orbit. According to ISRO chairman G Madhavan, the Israelis were very specific about the kind of orbit they wanted the TecSAR to achieve, which ISRO met flawlessly. Our boys are proud of their achievement, and so far, no Israeli appears to be blushing with shame.
As the decade rolls by there will be much of Israel that we shall be using, and not just radars. For that matter there is much that Israel will use, which it would have jointly developed with India.
Decades of development
The report concedes that developing a supersonic fly-by-wire fighter jet from scratch, with international sanctions in place, can be an extremely complex task, but says that taking almost three decades is ''criminal'', it implies.
Is the three decades of development for the Eurofighter also criminal? As for the Americans, the F-22 Raptor programme, for instance, was initiated in 1986, after years of initial study. It achieved 'full operational clearance' (FOC) only on 12 December 2007 - a full 21 years after the requests for proposals were issued. Is 21 years criminal or slightly less than criminal?
A distant FOC …
The article also takes a dim view of the defence ministry's happiness at the LCA conducting a successful test firing of an air-to-air missile. The ministry's proclamation of it as a ''historic event'' marking the beginning of the 'weaponisation' of the LCA seems inappropriate to the author.
The author of the above-mentioned article points out the repeated rescheduling of the initial operational clearance and final operational clearance of the Tejas: ''As things stand now, IOC is projected by 2010 and FOC by 2012.'' Well, the Eurofighter still has to assume its final Tranche 3 avatar, so it will actually complete three decades before it achieves FOC itself. And, as pointed out earlier, the F-22 Raptor achieved FOC on 12 December 2007, a full 21 years after project sanction.
The article says that blame for the delay in the LCA programme needs to be apportioned equally between various agencies involved, such as ''the Aeronautical Development Agency, Defence Research and Development Organisation, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, and even the IAF, which has frequently changed requirements of weapons and electronic warfare midway, have to share the blame''.
Sure, playing the blame game is so easy. But what happens worldwide? What do similar organisations around the world, such as the USAF or US Navy or US Army do with their programmes?
The question is, why not? Life is dynamic - scenarios change overnight. War strategies and battlefield scenarios have changed dramatically since 1983. Should the DRDO have stuck to the scenarios as they existed 25 years ago, and rendered the LCA obsolete even before it went into production?
Obsolescence
The article points out that the IAF has placed an order for only 20 aircraft even though early projections were for 220 aircraft for the IAF and the Indian Navy. It also says that the IAF is worried whether ''the LCA will be a top-notch fighter once it is ready.''
The 20 limited series production aircraft order from the Indian Air Force is an initial order. Any order for a new fighter aircraft is invariably for at least 40. A naval version is also under development and an initial order from the Indian Navy is also very likely. A naval version will allow our Air Defence Ship, currently under construction at the Kochi shipyards, to carry a larger complement of fighters onboard, as compared to the larger Mig-29Ks that are currently scheduled to operate only from the INS Vikramaditya (ex-Admiral Gorshkov).
As for worries about the LCA not being a top-notch fighter when finally ready, how different is this predicament that from the Eurofighter? By the time the Tranche 3 Eurofighter achieves full operationalisation, America's F-22 and JSF-35 programmes will already have overtaken it technologically. So, no surprises if the same is true for the LCA.
The point of trying to develop the LCA indigenously was not merely to supply aircraft to the IAF and the navy. Just as the Europeans have used the Eurofighter to develop their technologies for next generation projects, the Indian defence R&D establishment has sought to use the LCA as a platform on which to develop several technologies for the future.
The Europeans know that if there is a political rift with the Americans, they will find themselves up a creek without a paddle. The development of top-notch technology through the Typhoon programme gives them independence from US hegemony.
It would, therefore, be wrong to look upon the LCA merely as a fighter-manufacturing programme. It is in fact a unique test bed for the development of aerospace technologies that will take us to an acceptable level of competence in this field. It is a fighter programme, a technology demonstrator and a technology generator, all at the same time.
Upon maturity, the programme may serve the purpose it was designed for, which is to fight - or it might not. That wouldn't matter. By then it would have developed enough technologies to provide a technology base for our own medium combat aircraft (MCA) programme.
The MCA is India's own fifth generation fighter aircraft (FGFA) programme. Though we have a pact with the Russians to co-develop an FGFA with them, the MCA is our fallback. If and when the Russians act tough and repeat a Gorshkov on this programme, we shouldn't find ourselves scrounging around for the required technology.
By the time the LCA achieves maturity it would have already paid back in full, by way of technologies and expertise that it would have generated over the life of its programme.
For that matter, domestic orders aren't the only option for such a project. Pompous though it may sound, there is a possibility that smaller countries may opt for something like the LCA, which for them may well be a more comfortable, manageable aircraft, both in terms of cost and technology. Not every country will be interested in the F-22 Raptor, purchasing a squadron of which could very likely wipe out half, or more, of some national economies.
If India builds its own technology capabilities, who loses? It's the arms merchants of the world. So, come events like the DefExpo in New Delhi, they would love to have some mainline newspapers do some DRDO bashing. That can reinforce some myths about Indian R&D and help them sell some of their wares. But there is no reason we should fall for these ploys.
