F-16 is not at all obsolete aircraft as the title of the thread suggests.
Its engine is extremely capable and honestly American engine technology is still envy of the world. F-15 and F-18 have the same engine.
Having said all this this and quickly reading through the posts, I ask the Indian posters to step back and think why India needed to re-invent the wheel when so much is available in the market in terms of aircraft technology?
I think Pakistani model of collaboration with China is a good one to follow.
I read this post with some bemusement. During the embargo years, the Jaguar was not fully operational, because spare parts were stopped, the Sea King could not fly at all, again because of spares. Even the Mirage was partially affected. As far as the LCA team was concerned, their team at Lockheed was told overnight that they would no longer have access to their desks and work-stations, not even to their own work. The
entire flight logic, the heart of an FBW system, had to be re-developed back in India, and resulted in a plane which was very easy to fly, for rookies and old hands alike.
In the design area, for a joint venture with Sextant Avionique, we were not allowed to import Silicon Graphics Octane workstations, and used IBM systems instead, first the true-blue brand, and on finding that we had been ripped off, the clone made by Bull, identical in every respect, but one-third the price. Macs were not available; certain versions would not pass the Department of Commerce tests.
Those were the days when people in nearby countries sat back smug and self-satisfied, and lost no opportunity to remind us of the benefits of being all-weather members of the western alliance, and how our non-alignment policy and egregious friendship with the USSR had led to our complete international isolation.
For those of us who remember, there is a need to build every tank, every aircraft, every warship from indigenous designs, if not from wholly indigenous parts, at least from largely indigenous parts, and other necessary imports to be made only after careful inspection of the prospects of their getting restricted in future.
