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Is LCA Tejas worth Inducting or a Mistake :: get your opinion corrected
A series of media attack followed, criticising the Air force for promising the Induction of LCA Tejas in large numbers. The interesting thing for us to know is that these attacks were led by an international media house based in Delhi. International media is INTERNATIONAL media which always supports foreign equipment instead of local one.
A series of media attack followed, criticising the Air force for promising the Induction of LCA Tejas in large numbers. The interesting thing for us to know is that these attacks were led by an international media house based in Delhi. International media is INTERNATIONAL media which always supports foreign equipment instead of local one.
- A series of media attack followed, criticising the Air force for promising the Induction of LCA Tejas in large numbers. The interesting thing for us to know is that these attacks were led by an international media house based in Delhi. International media is INTERNATIONAL media which always supports foreign equipment instead of local one.
Now let us return back to our original topic, LCA Tejas. The complex geo-political nature of South Asia and its surroundings has resulted in major conflicts in the region in the past. From the very beginning after the birth of the nation, India has faced serious military threats. History has taught us that there is a compulsion to achieve self-reliance in design, development and production of critical weapon systems to guard the sovereignty of our country.
The LCA programme was launched in the early eighties for two primary purposes. The principal and most obvious goal was the development of a replacement aircraft for India's ageing MiG-21 fighters. The MiG-21 had been the mainstay of the Indian Air Force since the 1970's. The other main objective was to give an impetus for an across-the-board advancement of India's domestic aviation capability.India’s Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) together with its variants, is the smallest and lightest Multi-Role Supersonic Fighter Aircraft of its class. This single engine, Compound-Delta-Wing, Tailless Aircraft is designed and developed by ADA with HAL as the principal partner along with DRDO, CSIR, BEL, DGAQA, IAF & IN to meet diverse needs of the Indian Air Force (IAF) and Indian Navy (IN). The design of the aircraft was finalized in 1990 but the full scale engineering and development could only start in 1993 due to the financial crisis in India. Within two years after the development had started, the first technology demonstrator aircraft rolled out in 1995 but as we all know that today's software giant was not much good in writing algorithms in those times which forced us to write the Control Law or CLAW with the help from USA. Later US withdrew from our CLAW project following the nuclear test by India in 1998. According to the scientists who worked with Tejas project, the late 90s was the toughest time for Tejas as many countries refused the subsystems following nuclear tests. But overcoming these hurdles the first aircraft flew in 2001. Later the air force demanded integration of Israeli missiles on tejas which was designed for Russian missiles. To fit the missile launch rail the wing were redesigned. This is also one of the cause behind the delay in Tejas project.
With HAL fielding the new variant of Tejas MK-I, let us now see how Tejas MK-I-A will add more firepower to Air Force than the current variant. The current variant is too small in size to carry internal Electronic Warfare (EW) System. And now the developers of Tejas have decided to use Electronic Warfare system inside an external pod. With DRDO having expertise in the development of Airborne Electronic warfare systems like Tuskar EW Pod for use in MiG27 and D29 EW system for use in MiG 29 UPG, it now seems that Tejas will be much protected in hostile environment. Another improvement promised by HAL is the installation of AESA radar. The home made radar developed by DRDO named Uttam seems to br the front runner. DRDO is currently carrying out roof top testing of the radar and the results have been found satisfactory. Another improvement sought by the Air force is the weight reduction. 1000 kg weight reduction as speculated by some defence analysts is unlikely to happen but at least 200 kg-500 kg would be reduced by the aircraft which will increase the payload capacity and will also improve the range of the aircraft.
Although Sukhoi Su30 MKI will continue to remain our front line fighter but Tejas will be a good match against Pakistani JF-17 and will allow air force to remove some of our Advanced fighters from western border and place them against China. Although Tejas is smaller than JF-17 yet it could carry more weapon payload due to its high thrust to weight ratio than JF-17. It also has 7 weapon hard points against 6 hard points of JF-17. According to the official Tejas website (Leading Particulars & Performance - Specifications | Tejas - India's Light Combat Aircraft and JF-17 website (Specifications | JF-17 Thunder Tejas has G pullout limits of +8/-3.5 while JF-17 has G pull out limit of +8/-3 which clearly shows the technical advantage of Tejas in case of a Dogfight among the two aircraft's. Except the high service ceiling, Tejas aircraft seems to be better in all other specifications. Other than technical advantage another thing necessary in today's combat scenario is the training of the pilot. When placed at forward airbases like that in Jaisalmer, Rjasthan, Tejas could strike 200 km inside Pakistan (+500km with drop tanks and Aerial refueling). It's small design and excessive use of composite materials adds some stealth characteristic to the aircraft and it could easily penetrate enemy air defence.
==Conclusion==
In the last 30 years, LCA Tejas though not successful with timelines, has given us a full fledged aircraft industry. When we had started in 1983 we had nothing which we could call as an industry, but because of the development initiative of LCA Tejas, we today posses advanced facilities like Mini Bird, Iron Bird, Avionics Integration Rig, Lightening Test Facility, Explosive Environment Test Facility, Fuel System Integration Rig, Vibration Test Facility, Drop Test Rigs, Electromagnetic Interference Test Facility, etc.
Tejas is relevant in today's warfare and could serve actively on western border. Some of you may argue that what is the need of a 4th generation fighter in the era of 5th generation jets. You should remember that Countries around the world are now developing counter stealth technology and according to Israel Aerospace Industry(IAI) the 5th generation jets will be obsolete within next 10 years. When you talk of today then PESA radars and also weather radars could easily detect 5th generation aircraft's. When we look at the past we find that Light fighters like Mitsubishi Zero in World War-II and Folland Gnant in Indo-Pak war of 1971, have proven their worth and only time will prove the worth of Tejas..
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