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As far as the Make in India plan goes, we are at the moment procuring the LCA Mk I. It is being purchased in two
stages: We have the IOC (Initial Operational Clearance) variant, 20 of which were ordered in 2006, of which nine have been delivered and the remaining eleven, we believe will be delivered in the next two years. We have ordered another 20 LCAs, which are the FOC (Final Operational Clearance) variant, and these will be delivered after the IOC variant is complete. The LCA Mark I fleet, we have restricted to these 40 aircraft.
Subsequent to the above, we intend to procure the Mark IA, which is an improved version of the LCA Mark I and has a new radar and advanced EW capabilities. It is, however, essentially the Mark I, with a few add ons. We have issued an RFP in December 2017, to get an additional 83 aircrafts of this type.
It must be stated that the LCA Mark 1 and Mark 1A are very good aircraft. We recently conducted a major exercise called Gagan Shakti, and the LCA performed remarkably well. The best range scores and the best weapon delivery emerged from the nine LCAs we had fielded, which really worked wonders.
This gives me the confidence to state that the LCA will see us through the next 20 years, if not more, in technological capability terms.
The first squadron of the LCA, 45 Squadron, also called the ‘Flying Daggers,’ has recently shifted from Bangalore, where they were being looked after by HAL to Sulur. They are now operating in a more operational scenario and are being put through the full spectrum of air operations as envisaged by the IAF.
Our aircraft of the future, as we perceive it as of today, is the LCA Mark II. This aircraft, we believe, will replace the MiG 29 in the next ten years, the Jaguar in the next 15 years and the Mirage 2000 in the next 20 years. All combined, this adds up to a total of twelve squadrons.
The requirements of the IAF for the LCA Mark II are centred on two crucial points. First, it has to be cutting edge,
to the tune of its best electronic warfare capability and best weapons. As far as performance goes, we have pegged the performance to the level of the Mirage 2000, which is an aircraft already 35 years in our inventory. We are therefore not aiming for the moon, but for space at best. Therefore, our requirements have already been crystallised, our designers are at it, and given the fact that we have pitched ourselves at a level at which they are capable of generating and making, we will have an aircraft which will be in time in the next ten years or so.
It will be the Mark II and will be a different breed of aircraft — probably bigger, probably more powerful and
definitely capable of lifting much more load. We are envisaging an aircraft that can lift at least 6.5 tons of weapon
load as compared to the LCA and LCA I which lifts about 3.8 tons.
We are also looking at six squadrons of fighter aircraft through the strategic partner route. A lot of doubting
Thomas’s doubt whether this will happen. We believe it will. We believe we require this aircraft to bridge over the fighter gap which we see happening in our inventory as the years go
by.
Our future is the Advance Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA). This is not just wishful thinking. We have committed
land, money and a lot of thought to this programme, and we believe that in the next 15 years, we will have the AMCA prototype, the NGTD1 (Next Generation Technology Demonstrator) and the NGTD 2 flying. We intend to have this aircraft in collaboration with the DRDO, with the Public Private Partnership model, flying out of Sulur by that date.
We have broad concurrence from the government, the DRDO is on board and an expression of interest is already in the market for establishing a partnership for the AMCA.
Our bottomline is to have indigenously built fighters which will form the bulk of the IAF inventory by 2032. Mark II of the LCA will be as many as 12 squadrons. That is how we envisage the IAF to be heading.
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