Kanson wrote:What ? Not happy since past 20 yrs ? Does he thinks developing LCA is like delivering Pizza? You call, they deliver in flat 40 min, like that? So there is ray of hope, hmm. These statements are nothing but pressure tactics. People have seen even bigger mouths...Even the mighty Americans are struggling with their pet project called F-35, so for what reason exactly is he unhappy with LCA? just timeline ?
he definitely has a reason to be unhappy about. think of it from his perspective, IAF asks for a fighter in 1983, even if they expected a 20 year development period, LCA should have been ready by 2003. scratch that, we didn't have the infrastructure, fine add another couple of years.
we should get it by 2005. that is a very realistic date.
now IOC is not expected before 2011. that's a delay of 6 years from the 'reasonable' time table !! IAF, on its part can't be faulted for more than a year of that delay(wing re-design).
no wonder he is peeved. it's not his job to be 'understanding' about who is responsible for what and so forth, he has the skies to protect and to do it with a force that is built up over long periods and those plans go haywire if the expectations aren't met.
fact is that the LCA program has been mismanaged, massively. it's not his problem who was responsible, the MOD babus or HAL or ADA, as long as it was not IAF. we can only hope that the MCA will be better managed. as things go, it sure seems it will be.