I think that one perspective that is missed when we talk of aircraft design is how history has played a role in such a way that each new development in flying is based on an earlier improvement. This has been a continuous chain of innovation going back more than a century to the first aircraft that were built.
The earliest aircraft that flew were not designed for amy military requirement. They were recognized as being useful by militaries for reconnaissance. Early military aircraft had a man with a bomb to be thrown by hand in the open back cockpit or a man witha gun. This was clearly so unsatisfactory that militaries looked for better armament.
The next step was (IIRC) the machine gun in a gunner's cockpit. But by the time this innovation came, aircrfat were already flying. The basic design, the engine, the materials etc were already known. Adding a gun added complications that were made easier if you already knew how to build a plane.
The next step in evolution was the forward firing machine gun. One idea was to have a pusher propeller to bypass the problem of firing through the propeller. But I think it was the Germans who came up with a timer that mechanically linked the gun to the propeller so that the gun would not fire when there was a prop blade in front of the barrel. By the time this complexity was added, they knew how to build flying aircraft and design them to fly with the extra weight of guns.
Further steps would be the development of ways of carrying underslung bombs and releasing them. These would have require new designed with strengthened wings. So by the time world war 2 came - all the European and American (and japanese) companies had solved these initial issues. Tens of thousands of planes had been built by tens of thousands of engineers and factory workers at a time when India had just a handful of engineers of any kind.
The fierce fighting and research and numerous production lines set up for world war 2 spurred new aircraft designs, armament, radar and jet engines. By the time WW2 ended the warring nations were past masters at building reliable flying aircraft with reliable engines. The newest post WW2 designs used the old knowledge of aircraft with the new jet engines. By this time India had HAL, but it was under American control during WW2 and was mainly overhauling and repairing.
By 1951 HAL had designed its own first aircraft - the HT-2 which was apparently modern in capability as a basic trainer but in reality its power, performance etc were not even equal to that of a German Me-109 built in the mid 1930s. In contrast the Canberra bomber was entering service in Britain in 1951. Can you picture the technology gap between HT 2 and the Canberra? And the HT-2 had an imported engine of course.
The HF 24 first flew in 1961. Although it was a big achievement for India, compare with what was being done in Europe and USA: The Alouette II that we still fly flew in 1957, An 12-1957, Vulcan Bomber 1956, Boeing 707 1955, B-52 in 1955, KC-135 in 1956, Ouragan 1952, Dassault Etendard (just retired or about to be retioted French navy) 1958, Mirage III, (still in service) 1956, A-4 Skyhawk 1956 the list is in the link below - see for yourself and check the tech capability gap.
http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft ... 0-1959.asp
Heck MiG 21 was 1959!!
By 2015 we will have the LCA in service. The MiG 21 will just have retired. The Mirage III may have retired. The B 52 will not have retired. But the Tejas uses technology similar to the F-16 and Mirage 2000. The F-16 entered service in 1978 but I would rate the Tejas as probably having newer flight control and other tech than the early F-16s. The Mirage 2000 entered service in 1982.
If you look back you find that France took from 1956 to 1982 (26 years) to graduate from HF-24/Mirage III level to Mirage 2000. The US did the same leap from Skyhawk (1956) to F-16 - 1978 - 22 years. But both countries had been building engines from the 1800s and jet engines soon after they were invented. India has taken 50 plus years to graduate from HF-24 to Tejas. But the US and France already had 50 years of experience to reach the Skyhawk/Mirage III level. India got there in 10 years - minus the engine tech. It was surely the Kurt Tank effect.
Still, if you look at the history of the last 60 years of Indian aircraft manufacture, we remain about 30 years behind the top countries of the world in technology. We are of course decades ahead of many countries who are incapable of doing what we have done, but if choose to compare ourselves with the top 3, then we are anywhere from 20 to 35 years behind. From the early years of aviation around 1900, the US and France took about 80 years to reach F-16/Mirage 2000 level. India's "early years" started in 1950 and we have taken about 65 years to get to F-16/Mirage 2000 level.
It is worth remembering that countries like Britain and the US have probably had more accident deaths from test flying since the early 1900s than the total number of test pilots ever trained by India. And the US, Britain and Germany, probably had more aircraft engineers working in 1940 than we have in 2012.
So when you compare, please be aware of the history of your own country. People who work in Indian industry do not deserve contempt. They deserve support so that they too can work, make mistakes and learn. No one will teach us any other way. As a nation we have been so enamoured of foreign tech that we have been fooled into thinking that the people who are 30 years ahead will just give is the experience they have. You cannot transfer experience. "Deep" technology transfer, an expression that we on BRF went ga ga over a few years ago means little. We just have to learn the hard way.
Will cross post in the FAQ thread because I put in some effort into this.