sancho
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Which actually is the sad part about it, we prefer to keep things as complicated as possible and that for the most silly reasons, when there are so many possibilities out there to do things in a better. But yes, everything needs to be indigenous right?Sir, a bloody nice idea but it's too practical and ingenious for India!
And also I'm not too sure whether it is smart to add yet ANOTHER fighter type to the IN's FAA. They will be going from 1 type (Sea Harrier)
The one type was a necessity since there were not more STOVL fighters available, not to mention that we simply had only a single carrier. The increase of the fleet and with carriers with different designs, will make that not avoidable, but as you know, I am against the N-LCA anyway and for Migs, or for V22 AEWs, instead of Ka31 and E-2s.
Not to mention that it won't make much difference, since N-LCA/Mig 29K can't be operated from CATOBAR carriers, nor could F18/F35s be operated from STOBAR carriers. So IN will have to look at different support lines for their carriers anyway.
Also I doubt the Yanks would be so accommodating to such requests of modifying their fighters for Indian needs
The fighter actually wouldn't be modified with anything, that wouldn't be offered for the F18SH via the road map upgrade. GE414 EPE engine, touchscreen displays that will be developed by Elbit for the F18SH, EW sensors which also were meant to be Israeli origin, so only because we fund and produce the parts in India, or via an Indo-Israeli JV won't be a major issue. But if we fund the EPE engine development, we obviously want to have critical ToT in return too, which so far was always the difficult part with the US. Even more difficult will be getting GE and Boeing to team up for Kaveri K10, or N-AMCA, the companies might be ok with it, but the US government and the US laws so far restricted such JVs, but they seems to move a bit and we have to see what is possible.
Also is it worth investing in the F-18 "Silent Hornet" to such a high degree if it is only a "stop-gap" system?
Even with the upgrades it should be clearly cheaper than the F35 and with less restrictions, but the main point would be industrial benefits in return. When they offer HALBIT displays for the later upgrades of the USN for example (several 100s of fighters), it definitely would be worth it. From operational point of view, the higher trust, the additional sensors and most importantly CFTs and weapon pods will be crucial to remain capable in future.
Once the PLAN is operating J-31s off their ACCs in the SCS things are going to take a very ugly turn if the IN doesn't have a VLO next-gen carrier fighter.
As I said, the simple arrival of J31 with the possibility to operate it as a carrier fighter, should had made IN to re-think the pointless N-LCA development. They had to start thinking about the future right away and had pushed MoD to realize that as well!