Indranil, the money is obviously not the only problem for we are willing to import. Let us assume that that money is put into the lCA. Can we build it enough numbers and within the given time? I suspect one of the things we never get to speak about is the sheer lack of manpower required for the scaling - I suspect the GOI in all its wisdom and data points simply cannot produce enough men (both in Private as well as in PSU) to have two assembly lines for the Tejas. Bean counting, useless Babus etc are the easiest explanations that avoid us taking a look at a more fundamental problems that we simply do not have the right manpower to produce things in numbers - and given the constant conflict between operational needs, lack of money and the need for skill development, the decisions will always look less than optimum.indranilroy wrote: Only one of the two conditions can be true.
1. An ecosystem can be developed within India. If this is true, it can be done for the LCA as easily or with as much difficulty as an imported fighter.
2. An ecosystem cannot be developed within India. If this is true, we are back to screwdrivergiri.
The truth is 1. is true and necessary. But, it needs expenditure. The real question is will we as a nation throw away our bean counting mentality and pay the upfront cost of this necessary development.
The second thing I want to emphasize is that it is much easier to produce things that are used only once (e.g. a missile) as opposed to anything reusable (like fighter aircrafts) because of the need to produce a supply chain which will last several decades. Unless we start producing civil aircrafts in meaningful numbers, having a mature aerospace industry (and that includes large number of 2nd and 3rd line vendors) large enough to support two lines for fighter aircraft does not look feasible. In light of this, all the pieces of the puzzle have to move together - whether it is engine development, or development of the MTA or Saras and we should not just look at the LCA. I suspect GOI's biggest challenge is that to balance all this, the decisions will always look short sighted. Not to forget the wasted decade of the UPA when a lot of these decisions could have been easily done, especially when large scale commercial orders for Boeings and Airbuses were given. We never ask for an offsets clause while buying commercial airliners even though we spend billions....and that to me was one of the greatest missed opportunity in last 20-30 years as far as the Indian aerospace industry is concerned.