We have achieved everything but not good enough to power a 4th gen aircraft per IAF requirements, but there are Air forces around the globe who have 4th gen fighter's carrying Radar's and engine of MMR and Kaveri standards. You cannot deny the change in demands by the IAF which prolonged its progress.
We don't and not only according to IAF standards, but according to those ADA and DRDO set up at the begining. What about the TWR of 1, what about the AoA of 24 degrees, the speed and G limits, the 81kN of Kaveri engine, or the 5.5t emptyweight?
It is not IAFs fault to ask the manufacturers to provide, what they promised or what their own standards were.
IAF has their own part of the problems and I have critisized that often too, but using them to distract from the facts and to not hold the industry accountable for their mistakes and failures is not getting us anywhere.
We have to finish what we started, have to fix the problems, get the fighter into serial production and induct it into squadron service, but moreover we have to assess the things that went wrong in the project, take people that were responsible to account and learn to not do the same mistakes again.
Then and only then we can say we have achieved soemething!
For LCA we did not have a platform of research, every thing was built from scrap. I am not saying we have all the 5th gen technologies readily available to build a 5th gen aircraft, but the technical know how, to build one is readily available, some of India's best minds are on it while we debate.
What technical know how? Do we know about stealth design now? As I said, we even have major problems in normal aero design, let alone to mix it with stealth in mind.
We have no know how in fighter engine development, let alone a 5 th gen engine.
We have just basic know how of 4 th gen puls doppler radar development, but haven't fielded a single fighter radar yet. AESA developments are only in early stages, far away from beeing used even in LCA, let alone a 5 th gen fighter.
What we do have is, know how in materials, cockpit avionics and EW, that's why these are the fields where we can contribute to a NG development and why these are the only fields where we can contribute to FGFA.
Why would you want to re-invent the wheel. India is not a partner in PAK-FA but FGFA. Most of the core technology's are derived from Pak FA. Why would u waste your money to research on a technology which Russians have already and especially when they are ready to share it with you.
Because it's meant to be our fighter and if we COULD contribute more like you claimed, we would not simply choose Russian AESA, but integrate our own. As said, the fact is that we can't and that's why we didn't chose to not contribute more, but we were limited to such a low contribution.
That's also why we couldn provide an own engine, because we couldn't even develop an engine for LCA MK1, nor can we further develop it alone for LCA MK2 or AMCA.
That is the reality of Indias industrial capability in the aero field today and denying it, makes us just weaker!