First, nobody has noticed the initial mischief created by the wise guy who wrote the ASR for the IAF and put in that whole bloody multi-role bit all over again, as we haven't had enough grief over this already. The IAF persists in believing that one aircraft, frame, engine, avionics, radar, weapons configurations, manning, all put together, can be made to fly two roles. This is stuff and nonsense and stems from two deep-rooted fears, which have nothing - NOTHING - to do with the professional role of the IAF.
The eternal yearning for multi-role aircraft stems from a need to keep the army out of aviation. It was not possible to keep the navy out, partly because of the influence that Former Naval Persons at the very top of Indian administration had on the politicians who took over at independence. From that point on, there has never been an opportunity given to the army to get into aviation, except for forward observers in artillery: a number of gunners have become helicopter pilots. However, the air force does not want to give up an inch of space to the army, to ground attack roles, for instance, and insists on combining this with its other deep strike, air superiority and interception roles (leaving aside the transport wing altogether for now).
The second reason for these recurring and futile dreams is the need for standardisation. The difficulty of maintaining such a diverse fleet cannot be imagined by most of us on this forum; those who know that each major component, each rotary component in particular, has a life, and that this is an individual life which is recorded with precision and care, and which life depends not merely on efflux of time but on flying hours as well, will understand. In effect, it means that each key component on each aircraft has to be tracked; in addition,
if a pilot or the maintenance crew have even the slightest shade of doubt about the operational capability of a part, they have the authority to ground the craft. Now add diverse suppliers, different supply agreements, obsolescence due to use of the craft well beyond the scheduled life, thanks to failure to procure in time, the dispersed bases to which parts have to flow, the fewer, but still dispersed maintenance focal points, the rear echelon bases, and the handful of HAL factories authorised to carry out major overhaul, and we might begin to understand a fraction of the problem.
While the second driver is convincing, it is not overwhelming; we can manage, with the expenditure of additional effort, and nothing has actually come to a halt. The first one is a nightmare
Originally Posted by shrivatsa
Why cant pvt sector take the initiative themselves, why waiting for govt ? at least come up with a decent uav.
A better model is 'productionising' public sector designs and blueprints. These efforts are going on, and have been going on for years now. It is not appropriate to name the weapons systems, the private sector organisations and the locations.
Originally Posted by Kinetic
Indian private sector lacks the capability to build any hitech weapons. Their minor contribution to many defence projects also lead to delay. For example there is no private company in India that can make a modern MBT to meet the requirements of Indian Army, a modern fighter to meet the requirements of IAF etc.
That is all pie in the sky.
It would be nice to see a good tank engine being built. Or a good radar system. Or good artillery pieces. Or a transport aircraft, a modern one, a simple work-horse, not those glamour-pusses the C130J or the C-17s.
Originally Posted by The HBS Guy
Kiinetic the Indian private industry must chip in with smaller inputs first.
Like materials research. Chemical research. Participating with the academia etc.
They need to start funding research projects in universities. That's the starting point.
What a solid point! Precisely.
It is amazing how disconnected Indian technical institutions and Indian R&D is. Or, for that matter, Indian industry. Because we have always bought technology and our manufacturing has been concentrated on tooling and machining and setting up assembly lines and production capacity, we have been able to manufacture cheap; even cheaper now that quantitative restrictions have been removed, and it is possible to manufacture using economies of scale.
However, the weak point is linking R&D and production. There are literally thousands of ways in which young talent in engineering institutions can be given portions of project work to execute, thus closely associating them with the real-world effort as well as supplementing the scientific and technical capability within our science and defence technological institutions. Even now, it isn't too late.
