Rakesh wrote:Air HQ wants to develop sub-systems via joint ventures with the chosen MRFA. That is what Air HQ wants to do. Now whether that will actually work, will only be proven if the MRFA deal ever reaches fruition.
More phoren MRFA are coming whether we like it or not. I do not believe 114 will come. The money is just not there for that. But more MRFA is definitely on the cards. And if MRCBF arrives - which is likely - then additional phoren MRFA will surely come.
I'm wondering what those locally unobtainable subsystems are, in the timeframe of MRFA is selected, contracted, ordered, delivered and these fringe benefits (thats exactly how the chosen MRFA supplier will see it and work on it) are actually accrued, absorbed and these subsystems are produced end to end locally in India without any IP dependence on anyone abroad. We are talking at the very least a decade, more like 20+ years ie 2043-45 if all goes as originally planned.
Now given the successes of the past 2 decades in subsystems like avionics, RLGs, navigation systems, mission computers, FCS, OBOGS ityaadi, if anything, I'd feel quite confident that Indian research & industries can deliver anything that IAF needs, especially in public-private partnerships like ISRO has recently shown with Agnikul and Skyroot.
We are just about achieving a broad tech capability leapfrog and critical mass, and I can feel it. So with required funding, and domestic partnerships (which can cherry pick an expert or two wherever in the world they are or an R2I desi) in TWENTY YEARS FROM NOW, no subsystem that currently exists and is known to IAF will remain unobtainium to us.
If IAF needs these birds to be able to deliver the missions the nations expects of it, just ask/push for the effing birds, no shame in it whatsoever. But this convoluted justification of subsystems etc isn't convincing at all. So with the limited gyaan I surely suffer from compared to the Air HQ, I totally fail to see where they're going with this thinking and approach.