China flies the stealth plane - where is India’s?

Even the Americans are concerned that the Chinese could so stealthy build a stealth aircraft (pun intended).  The Chinese had the gumption to take it out for a spin just when the SecDef was on a jaunt to China.  Even more galling was their bland statement that ‘the test flight is not connected to SecDef visit’.  That the Chinese are known to do things in an ‘in-your-face’ fashion, when their are riled, elated or sad is well known.  So, this weeks drama should be taken as one of elation - at SecDef visit - in good faith.
:-D

So while China marches on in its own ‘stealthy’ way, what was India doing all the while?  It would be totally wrong to think that We Indians have been sucking thumbs and doing nothing to better the security situation.  Indian scientists have been slogging for almost a generation, a full 27 years, to design and build the nation’s own, completely brand new, high performance Light Combat Aircraft - the Tejas (Radiant).   The foolish do laugh as only the fools can do, that:

• With thrust-to-weight ratio of less than 1, it is indeed meant only for ‘light’ combat (Here is an excellent post on T/W ratios of most fighters [http://www.angelfire.com/falcon/fighterplanes/texts/articles/twr.html])
• If it had been designed slightly heavier, India could have dispensed with the $9bn MRCA
• If instead it had been downgraded to trainer, it could have entered operation sooner and India need not have signed the $2.4bn AJT-Hawk. ($1.7bn in 2003 plus $0.7bn in 2010)
• It might even have been superior and more sale able than the Korean T-50 Golden Eagle trainer, which has the same engine and is comparable to the Tejas
• The Tejas thus looks more like a bastard runt who cannot be disposed off, but has to be discreetly housed in the countryside - away from action

Let the fools laugh.  They who do not understand the issues will keep laughing their heads off - and possibly shoot themselves in the foot.  The facts are:

• LCA Tejas was never meant to be a Sukhoi-30 MKI
• Out of 35 major systems on board, only the 3 critical are foreign; rest all are indigenously developed.
• The Tejas allowed India to master the glass cockpit and carbon fibre composites technology
• The Tejas is far superior to the outdated MiG-21s, which it is intended to replace

And as for the question why India is not developing a stealth plane, we are already on the job in collaboration with the Russians - the PAK-FA or as we prefer to call it FGFA.  I feel that anything Pak is anathema for us, hence the re designation from PAK-FA to FGFA.

As for India’s indigenous Stealth fighter, read a humorous and imaginary take in the next post.

My Wicked half whispers,’If Tejas was to replace MiG-21 fleet, why should a new airbase be built for her?  Why not replace/augment the existing MiG fleet at their present airbases?’

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