amit boss, I've tried to explain as well as I could, if you have some queries please don't hesitate to ask.
amit wrote:And regarding your point about HAL being able to build a medium haul in 10 years, sure it can, afterall we have the expertise to build such a fine aircraft like Tejas. However, if we make a point like that, one also needs to ask if Embraer, if needed, can do or could do all the things HAL has achieved, also within a 10 year period? I would tend to think yes. Also note that Embraer made it known in 2007 that they would build the plane and in 2009 actually signed the deal with the Brazilian air force.
going by how this industry develops I don't think that's necessarily a very valid assumption.
compared to fighters, transports and airliners are much simpler affairs, especially if you do not go for an uber-futuristic design like the 787. of course, HAL hasn't been the lead developer of LCA but it has been the principal partner and contributed substantially.
that it learned a lot from the experience is evident from the story of the IJT which was developed in a record time of 4 years.
another thing though, in this type of comparisons, it makes more sense to compare country to country, rather than HAL to embraer, since no co' makes everything that it needs to put in an aircraft. neither HAL nor embraer would be able to make even one complete aircraft if they were restricted to in-house items only. embraer would of course be hit harder since they lack many of the niche skills HAL has.
coming to India's work in fighters and helo's, it takes quite a long time for the industry to mature to be able to develop those, rather than it does for transports or airliners. the quite large number of such aircraft that have been and are being developed is a proof of this statement. and mind you, none of these transports from tier-2 aerospace powers are in any way much inferior technologically to their tier-1 cousins.
the reason for that is quite simple, military transports have stayed more or less stagnant tech wise from the 50's. that is the reason why you see the C-130 (first flight 1954) and the B-52's (first flight 1952) and the russian bear family (first flight 1952) still going strong after all these years.
the only reason why new families of airliners get developed is because airline operators put a much higher premium on safety and fuel economy, which are obviously much better in newer designed aircraft due to better manufacturing methods and optimisation of design with CAD.
especially in case of fighters, brazil will be hard pressed to produce a contemporary fighter without substantial and I mean very substantial outside assistance. and I'm talking of 4th gen fighters, not even 5th gen ones, which HAL/ADA will be starting shortly.
just look around at how many 4th gen fighters are flying and the record of their countries of origin, barring India and China, all the others have 50 or more years of history of
continuous fighter development. and in case of china, they got an almost ready design from israel (which in turn was assisted substantially by US) and all they did was change the dimensions to accommodate the larger al-31 engines which was again done with russian help. (oversimplification but correct in essentials)
the point I'm making is, (again
) embraer is excellent in one niche and is superlative as a commercial enterprise while HAL is good in a lot of tech areas but poor as a commercial enterprise. but due to its multi-area skills HAL can catch up with embraer in the short term at least product wise given the necessary mandate but embraer can't catch up with HAL in the short to medium term.
