You are attempting to change the topic, so I guess you agree that South Korea is doing more local manufacture on its 40 F-35 than India did on its first 40 MKI.Asit P wrote:They had no objections when we decided to fit Israeli, French and Indian parts in Su.GeorgeWelch wrote:How much local manufacturing did you do of the first 40 MKI?
Thus criticism of SK's local manufacture package is unwarranted.
As to the rest of your argument, it's not true.
So there will be no MLU because that would be modifying the plane?Asit P wrote:- Under the terms of EUMA, India cannot modify the purchased defence article or system in any form.
A little thought reveals those points are misleading at best.
Clearly that has to do with security and nothing else. Yes, I'm sorry, you cannot contract maintenance out to a Chinese firm. There is nothing preventing you from performing the maintenance yourself, which is ultimately the goal, right?Asit P wrote:- Also, to prevent the buyer country from freeing itself from dependency on the United States for maintenance, EUMA restricts India from getting US-origin defence equipment serviced by any another country without prior American permission.
Practically, how is that any different than the situation that exists with Russia? You are free to source spares from anywhere, but they only come from Russia, so you are still stuck.Asit P wrote:Even spare parts need to be sourced only from the United States.
What that article is missing is the whole 'unauthorized' aspect of it. It's not that you can't add Indian components or manufacture your own parts, it's that it has to be through channels and official.
Basically what this comes down to is that you have to get Boeing to sign-off on stuff, and beyond performing quality-control to ensure that your changes don't cause problems, Boeing has no incentive to say no and every incentive to say yes as they want you for a customer in future.