pragnya wrote:ramana,
it was planned as a mig 21 replacement but has far outgrown that testified by the TPs themselves as equivqlent to M2K upgraded!!
as for Sir Matheswaran, he is not wrong 'but' deliberate.
as Dileep put it nicely somewhere - those who fly it swear by it, those who never flew diss her.
The incredible part is how these chaps misuse their position to make all sorts of claims which nobody from ADA or even the IAF itself can counter openly since it would reveal classified info in some cases. For instance take a look at his claims about supersonic performance and this and that. We know for a fact that the LCA is far superior to the MiG-21 in the area given the NFTC pilots statements. We know the MiG-21 is still regarded as a rocket by many of the pilots who have used it creditably against supposedly superior platforms. We know in terms of turn rates etc, the IAF can't reveal specifics and nor can ADA but we do know in turn, unlike as was originally envisaged at the time of ASR, the LCA has a HMS with HOBS missiles which coupled with high ITR make it lethal in the close range fight as versus relying on STR w/limited aspect earlier gen missiles. We know for all his claims about LCA not having AESA and hence being merely a TD, no fighter in the IAF today has AESA including the upgrades which IAF signed off on, and IAF pilots have stated the aircraft is equivalent to an upgraded Mirage 2000. But how many people have the interest or inclination to string this together? Instead we have this man attempting to run down a prominent national program right at the cusp of success.
Basically its this, all folks have their own bias but some of these gents have let their planet sized egos affect national programs to their detriment and more and more, we are getting to know the manner in which their "interventions" were motivated by their bias as versus unbiased judgement. Here we have an AF which is struggling with 3Gen aircraft barely upgraded to 4Gen standards in most cases, with performance way behind that of the LCA. Yet, this man is busy spreading the impression that this is Ok, whilst the LCA can only be a technological demonstrator etc.
Presumably the NFTC and the ADA etc were twiddling their thumbs for the past decade and all those test flights were for time pass. Of course, despite knowing the situation, he deliberately chose this time to shoot his mouth off, because the "MMRCA" his singular achievement, is under threat. He didn't contribute to the LCA much, but the MMRCA program is his, and if one threatens the other, down with it. Such was the state of affairs and was allowed to fester by a toothless MOD. No wonder then that despite TPs slaving over the aircraft, and IAF orgs themselves doing their most, AHQ itself would remain non committal about the future of fhe program.
Thank goodness we now have a more effective leadership that finally broke through this sordid mess. In turn as the aircraft proves itself, AHQ will do more with it. And in turn I hope HAL stays far far away from this gentleman. The need of the hour is to convert the LCA into a war winning tool with all of HALs resources devoted to this task. With his sort of "focus", he will clearly do all he can in the opposite direction as an advisor with every aircraft but the LCA getting attention. We have been down the path already with IJT and HTT sort of lunacy and it need not be repeated.
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