How has this become a prestige project, the fighter that came out of the project has it's use cases and is useful against Pakistan, it would have been a prestige project if we continued the project even though the resulting aircraft had no use for us which is clearly not the case.
Resources spent on Tejas project are peanuts compared to other contemporary projects of similar scale and has achieved more than enough to be called a bang for the buck. (Sure the project failed to achieve 100% of its goals but it didn't achieve only 0% either)
Obviously it's a make do, a company pitched it's project to a probable customer who denied to buy it for valid reasons, what the hell is even problematic here, HAL pitching the project or IN not entertaining it.
Sure why stop at MkI's let's send a F 35 against JF 17 over even better let's send a Mig 21 against F 16 (we saw how that panned out didn't we), see the problem here, air warfare is not as simple as you make it sound (resource optimization is an important aspect)
The first three paragraphs are still you trying to justify the project on its ancillary achievements. Which is fine as I said because it is a prestige issue for you and not a resource optimization one.
The last paragraph is oddly ironic because it was your simplistic approach to air warfare by saying Tejas was there for JF-17s and then oddly brushing up your own PoVs by saying I am simplifying air warfare.
If the F-35 is what you have at alert 5 against a JF-17, then that is what you will send up. Not wait to find some Tejas sitting around - prep and launch it from wherever while in the meantime the JF-17 has done its job and gone.
The same way, because the Su-30s and Mirages bugged out for whatever reason - the IAF AD controllers had no option but to ask the Migs sitting at alert 10 to scramble and get airborne. Regardless of whether it was a low probability of success mission for them or not - they were bound by duty to meet the mission requirements presented to them. They could have said no and sat it out but the bison is potent enough to offer some deterrent.
In your so called advanced definition - the IAF would have simply left the airspace completely undefended because they did not have any asset capable of matching the F-16s that day available to launch within time.
So, please update your own definitions - operational practices and doctrines of air warfare before lecturing others.
Take the Chinese Balloon incident over the US as an example.
It wasn’t left to fly around alone regardless of whether F-16s could make that altitude or not they did shadow it - eventually the F-22 was chosen to make the kill but that did not mean F-15s did not provide Shadow to it. Because if it turned out that it was a threat - regardless of whether there was a F-22 or not in the area whatsoever assets was tasked with air defense at that time would have made attempts to take it down. That is how it works -
Not “Lets not do anything because we don’t have the matching asset available for flight right now” so its ok to leave our airspace and targets at total mercy. Especially when the assets aren’t completely impotent and totally overwhelmed like the Iraqis were facing in Desert Storm.
