Its better that india buy thousands of JF-17 from china and fuse it with western avionics and radars and ammunition.That will make it deadly aircraft and cheaper too.in the same money of MRCA,LCA,AMCA which are just nothing but white elephants for india,it can by 1000s of JF-17 and J-10s,J-11s.
Most of the LCA and AMCA programmes are nothing but ego problem for indian scientific community which cant even make a proper working gun.better send indian scientists to Darra Adamkhel to do 1 year Apprenticeship under the local gun maker over their and atleast learn how to make a gun first.
The main issue is the scientific ( ADA/DRDO ) lobby dictating the terms and leading the forefront of development , which means they define and enforce what the next gen fighter tech should be like supercruise , stealth,extreme agily, internal weapons bay ,6th gen cockpit etc.
All great and futuristic technology on paper but all have inherent high risk approach , but this ensures that they have something great to do and talk about in the next 10-20 years , ensures funding and keeps personality cult and institutions they head in the limelight.
There are intra agency rivalary for eg look at Dr Prahlada statement in reference to FGFA and HAL where he states that they(HAL) know we are good at avionics sensors etc , so there is good deal of rivalry between agency to get their share of stake.
The IAF on the other hand have their own say in such matter , they may not be able to completely sway the scientific lobby to toe their line for future fighter , but being the defender they have their say with GOI on the next BIG deal thats badly needed due to urgent operational reasons and non availability of indiginous system on said time frame , hence the next big mother of all deals takes a life of its own.
Ocourse there is the perpetual import lobby omni present from Russia.Israel.US and GOI/Defence/Bureaucrats that want to make the most buck from mother of all deals before their retire and their sons/daughter in US/Europe well funded.
My thinking is to get to an operation fighter inducted in a time frame is to let IAF lead these scientific institutions and define ,mitigate risk at early stage and know what they cannot do , its good to spread risk in different tranches over many years. its good to define technologies in
Must Have ,Good To Have ,Sound Great but lets have it at a later stage.
The JF-17 succeeded to what it is today is because the Chinese/Pakistanis knew what they couldnt do and just stuck with what they could , so no fancy FBW ,no AESA ,no great composite but its does the job at cost effective prices and is available.
It is important to know ones limitation and work within it and deliver with no flights of fancy and tall promises and wasting taxpayers' hard earned money on white elephants like HAL/DRDO
Disagree 
