So basically you are saying that DRDO or IAF were never sure of what to do with Tejas !!! They never stuck to the initial design and kept changing it and wasting time and money.
You are good at twisting the Facts, anyways that is not of My concern..... Well Indeed You are correct in a way, DRDO and IAF had two different thinking, While DRDO made this aircraft capable only to replace the Mig 21's IAF wanted it to be superior to the Mirages which they had, and After that they wanted it to be a true 4th gen Light weight aircraft for which they had to Do drastic design changes, then the IAF wanted its RCS to be Low, then After Years of research DRDO found other Ways Of Super maneuverability and Left the canards Useless in the final Design....And About Time and Money, yes., After all Nothing comes for free....
You will never be able to finish the project if you continue to change it so drastically. Someone might say now that LCA must have stealth features so lets wait for another 5 years. Then someone will say that lets have VTOL capability, so another 5 years. Thats a total waste man.
Indeed, You are right IAF wanted a stealthy aircraft and Hence the Birth of Another Project AMCA , For Which another Laboratory of DRDO is In control and ADA is Designing its Avionics , NAL might be Involved too..... DRDO as I always Say is One Governing body of more than 40 Laboratories, and There are more than 4-5 branches for a Lab which do different projects funded by the Govt and Take 40% from there annual turnover
Basically Indians didn’t know what to do with this aircraft and they are still not sure. The design and the things that TEJAS has were becoming obsolete as more time was wasted and designers did'nt know what to do with it.
LCA's Design Is Unique, Its not an Obsolete Design, May I know what is so Obsolete about its design, since you seem to be a design expert. And If the LCA Design was Obsolete and Designers Dint know what to do, then How come Naval Prototype Rolled Out???? One Of the most Complex thing is making an Aircraft Land On a Carrier, which is hardly 200 Meters
Had DRDO stuck with initial design, rolled out the aircraft and started producing it then atleast there was some face saving. Further changes and upgrades could be made later on as the aircraft matured into the service. The new models could have better design features and enhanced capability. You guys could keep it improving while the aircraft was in service. Just look at the F-16 Block 1 and the Block 62. They continued to evolve the aircraft as it was in service,
Dont blame the DRDO, Blame the IAF for the delay, Tejas has Undergone, believe me or Not 3 Design Changes and Now is that finally IAF is Happy with its Performance, and Still wants Its Cockpit Design to be More Pilot firendly, changes Would be Made On LSP 5....
Now TEJAS will be ops God knows when and is already an obsolete. Even the IAF reduced its orders and looking for other better options (MRCA) because Tejas fails to deliver what it was meant for.
As I said, IAF has Ordered Only for 40 as The Cabinet committee has Only approved that Much, HAL chairman said IAF has a Need for 220 LCA Tejas,for which the orders Would be placed after the IOC....