Zarvan
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India plans to increase is orders for the Light Combat Aircraft.
NEW DELHI — The Indian government will increase orders for its homegrown Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), called Tejas, from 20 to 120, but Air Force officials question the plane's capabilities, and the scheduled arrival of a more advanced model remains murky.
However, Indian Air Force officials said the move to increase reliance on the Tejas, delayed by more than 15 years, would severely compromise India's combat worthiness because this would lead to total dependence on state owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL), which the officials said has a poor record of delivery and quality.
Besides, LCA-Mark1 will be able to meet only the low end of Air Force requirements, a senior Air Force official said.
A Ministry of Defence official, however, said the Air Force ordered additional LCAs with features more advanced than the LCA-Mark 1, including a self-protection jammer, an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar to be procured from Elta of Israel, and air-to-air refueling capability. This version of the aircraft would be labeled LCA-Mark 1A, he said.
But an Air Force official said the decision to boost the order for LCA-Mark 1s was forced on them by the government to support its policy of "Make in India" defense projects.
A decade ago, Air Force officials said that its combat needs would be met only with the LCA-Mark 2, which will be powered by a higher thrust GE 414 engine, compared to the GE-404 engine currently powering the LCA-1 and LCA-1A.
HAL not only has a poor record or delivering on time, but produces inferior products, the Air Force official said.
Retired Air Marshal Subhash Bhojwani said that while the AESA radar and air-to-air refueling capability would compensate for most of the LCA's operational deficiencies, "with regard to day-to-day line maintenance I understand Tejas is still an engineer's nightmare.
"I have yet to see any HAL aircraft where the canopy of one aircraft fits another without a lot of adjustments, the same for any other airframe component. Each aircraft seems to be ever so slightly different; this is a major shortcoming. US- and French-origin aircraft are designed from drawing board onwards to be easy to repair and parts are freely swappable. If HAL has made Tejas more maintenance-friendly than its predecessor products, then my stated opinion would need to undergo modification," Bhojwani said.
Analysts, however, said purchase of additional LCA-Mark 1As might be the best solution to meet immediate fighter aircraft requirements.
"With the IAF's fixed-wing fighter fleet witnessing an alarming decrease, the homegrown LCA-Mark 1A seems to be the quickest solution to arrest this decline. However, a more long-term solution needs to be found in terms of offensive capability," said Ankur Gupta, a defense analyst with Earnest and Young India.
Nitin Mehta, a New Delhi-based defense analyst, said, "After canceling the 2007 tender for the purchase of 126 medium multirole combat aircraft and purchasing 36 French Rafales instead, combining with an increase in orders for the LCA-Mark1A is the best decision to check the falling fleet strength of fighter aircraft."
Another Air Force official said that HAL cannot be relied on to deliver the additional LCA-Mark 1As in a timely fashion.
"It would have been much better to either procure fighter combat aircraft from overseas on a fast-track basis or set up another aerospace agency other than HAL to manufacture the increased numbers of LCA-Mark 1A," the official said.
Hal officials have said they do not respond to such criticism, and that they will meet the delivery schedule.
A HAL official said the Air Force has given an initial order of 20 LCA-Mark 1s and thereafter more than 100 LCA-Mark 1As will be ordered after final operational clearance is achieved, expected next year.
Over the next three years, the HAL official said, the company will increase production capability from the current level of four aircraft annually to seven in 2016-17 and eight in 2017-18. After 2017-18, HAL will boost its capacity to 16 each year.
"I can only presume that the Tejas [upgraded with better sensors and avionics] now meets the low-end needs of the IAF, although I think it will be largely utilized in its own airspace, thus freeing up more capable platforms to do the more challenging cross-border missions," Bhojwani said.
With increased orders for LCA-1A, the fate of LCA-Mark 2, still in development stage, is now uncertain, the Air Force official official said.
"To the best of my understanding, the LCA-Mark 2 is many, many years away. I don't think a single prototype has been built yet so the earlier projected timelines do not stand true," Gupta said. Initial operational certification and final operational clearance for LCA Mark-2 could stretch well into 2025, Gupta said.
The MoD official, however, said with the addition of an AESA radar, a jammer and air-to-air refueling capability, the LCA-Mark 1A should meet the operational needs of the Air Force, but declined to say when the LCA-Mark 2 will be completed.
Email: vraghuvanshi@defensenews.com
India To Boost LCA Order; AF Questions Its Capabilities
They remain the largest distributor of iaf jet parts in the world.. Works for us.. 
