India was never even given the PAK-FA for evaluation and you cannot know the full capabilities of an aircraft just by manufacturers claims. India still spend years eveuating aircraft in the MRCA tender (they complained about all of them) so I don’t expect them to know squat about the PAK-Fa especially when they haven’t participated in the program and were denied vital TOT.
India's already finished designing the FGFA, and the aircraft is top notch.
All the criticisms towards the PAK FA are only regarding the Stage 1 with the older engine. So IAF officials have been selectively quoted by the media who do not know any better. Plus the motivations to targeting the Stage 1 were political and not technical, by only a select few within the air force who are biased towards the Rafale. And even they are saying the FGFA program should be delayed enough to make sure we are getting a more mature aircraft in the end, while focusing on older gen aircraft in the meantime. This is something Russia is doing as well.
Officially, the FGFA program was recommended by the expert panel as a necessary purchase. The difference is we have only pushed the decision to go ahead with it or not to the next administration.
I wrote this post elsewhere:
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Originally, the govt was mooting the induction of 3 squadrons of PAK FA and/or 5 squadrons of FGFA. So one of the two or both. The 3 squadrons of PAK FA are expected to replace the 3 Mig-29 squadrons.
Now we don't know what they are planning. They will likely take a call on the PAK FA/FGFA in Modi's second term. We may even cancel FGFA altogether and either outright purchase a few PAK FAs or license produce the Su-57MKI instead, maybe a Su-60MKI.
The problem for FGFA is, the IAF originally wanted a development program so that Indian R&D and manufacturing could benefit from it. But then workshare turned out to be piddly, which the IAF didn't like. And then, it really pissed the IAF off when HAL said they are happy with the current workshare. And when DRDO was asked whether FGFA R&D would help them get advanced tech, DRDO pointed out they can develop all the FGFA related tech by themselves. That's why FGFA is in question today.
And since we do not need FGFA R&D, we can wait a bit more and simply go for an MKIzed version of the PAK FA at a later date. FGFA was an 8-year program, out of which 3 years was for MKIzation. Instead we can go straight for the MKIzation part, which saves us 5 years of development time. So now we just have to wait for the Russians to complete the development of the PAK FA before we make a decision.
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In simpler terms, the IAF is merely waiting for the Russians to make a proper financial commitment towards the Su-57 before India does.
So best not go by what India says in the media about the PAK FA/FGFA unless the source is official. The media simply distorts actual information because most in the media don't understand the program at all. ToT has no relevance to this. Most of the PAK FA tech is going into the Super Sukhoi program anyway.