damiendehorn
SENIOR MEMBER
- Joined
- Jan 23, 2010
- Messages
- 2,380
- Reaction score
- 1
- Country
- Location
Vietnaam could be the potential buyer reason for being MIg-21 replacement, and India have good defence relationship, and HAL providing spares for her Mig-21, and helping in upgradation.
However I think the its the MK-2 which will be great product in international market reasons :
1. Active duty in Indian Airforce which is forth largest airforce in the world.
2. F-414IN Engine with 10% more thrust that F-414 engine with TVC, whose TVC nossle is available from US and European thus removing the AOA limit and increase STR.
3. Trainer and Naval variant available.
4. MK-1 was not designed for the mass production but MK-2 will be, which could be produced very fast with the subsystems manufactured by Pvt companies like TATA, Mahindra, Godrej efficiently.
5. UTTAM, ASTRA 1/2, Sudarshan LGB will be available till then giving the choise of the customer to choose either Indian (Uttam, Astra 1/2), Russian (Zhuk, R-77, R73), Israeli (2032/2052, python/derby) or european (Raven) choices.
OK let look at Vietnam as a buyer. What are their needs and does the LCA fill thoes needs?
1. Vietnam is a large country geographically north to south with a large maritime coast line and islands in the South China Sea.
2. Vietnam has a fast growing economy and well funded defence budget that will increase with time. They do have the budget to buy the LCA.....but......
So being large and with a massive maritime area to protect, does a point defence fighter seem the best option? Why do you think Vietnam has concentrated on long range twin engine SUs?
Sorry but the LCA does not really fit the current needs for Vietnam, they need long range fighters to engage far out into the South China Sea....hence why they bought the SUs. (Air launched brahmos would be far easier to sell to Vietnam).