We regularly hear our media criticising Tejas aircraft project, mostly because of the delays. But, was it really a wastage of money and time?
HF-24 Marut was the first Indian fighter jet. But due to no follow on development after HF-24, India lost mostly all of its technologies for aircraft development. To develop a highly advanced 4.5 generation fighter, our scientists had to take 3 generation jump from 1st generation HF-24 to 4th generation Tejas.
In the last 30 years, LCA Tejas though not successful with timelines, has given us a full fledged aircraft industry. When we had started in 1983 we had nothing which we could call as an industry, but because of the development initiative of LCA Tejas, we today posses advanced facilities like Mini Bird, Iron Bird, Avionics Integration Rig, Lightening Test Facility, Explosive Environment Test Facility, Fuel System Integration Rig, Vibration Test Facility, Drop Test Rigs, Electromagnetic Interference Test Facility, etc.
Tejas MK-I was just a technology demonstrator for India which gave us technological competence in Aircraft Development, Avionics, EW systems, etc and our newly attained capabilities in AESA Radar tech, display systems, on-board oxygen generation system and many small and large equipment like the newly developed ejection seat and AMAGB gearbox by CVRDE.
Enters Tejas MK-II ::
Tejas MK-II is a highly advanced version of Tejas MK-I. This will be the first Indian Aircraft to have a touchscreen display and on-board Oxygen Generation System (OBOGS). The MK-II verion will posses a high degree of indigenous content as many foreign systems will be replaced by Indian components like the Indian Uttam AESA Radar, Indian Display Systems, new EW System and probably indigenously developed Navigation and Actuation system developed by Research Centre Imarat (RCI). LCA Tejas MK-II will be a meter longer the its previous version to accommodate a larger fuel and will have lesser drag which will increase its range.
Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft ::
We can say that the development of this aircraft was started in 1983, when we had started developing technologies and facilities for Tejas (Factually, it was started after the government gave approval in 2011). The same test facilities and highly upgraded Tejas technologies will be used in our under development, Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft, AMCA.
Conclusion ::
Even tough we criticise the Tejas project today, our future projects are totally dependent on facilities, technologies, experience and manpower developed through the LCA Tejas project. With every successful future project we will be thankful to Tejas, which kick started an aircraft manufacturing industry in India.
but its not that bad its original role was a interceptor to replace mig 21 so size is fine if u consider that .
