all said and done point is it will come in 2021 meaning china will also be fielding two 5th gen fighter jets that too with AESA
In Short:meaning LCA MK2 will be too little too late better focus on AMCA & AURA
I wouldn't be so negative about it.. Do you know that, kalam's experience with PSLV was the brain child for all GMDP programme..? Likewise, we have had a fair bit of research and failures on our LCA, which taught us a lot of lessons and which makes India one of the Very few countries to have the experience of building a fighter plane from scratch..
Look at all the parallel works started for LCA, and how they are all evolving independently
1. GTRE kaveri engine, though failed to power our LCA but had taught us many lessons in building a jet engine.. Look at its fate now, while the Bigger thrust Kaveri is scrapped, but smaller thrust variants are being developed for Cruise missiles and Trainer aircrafts
2. DARE is developing the Radar for LCA future variants and now from the existing research base, requests for AESA radars for AMCA has been put up already as a Proposal with DARE and the collaborative works
were already started between ELTA and DARE
3. These two were the most critical aspects of any fighter plane, which India was lacking, but look at us now, our LCA has given us know hows on how to do it.. Only problem was amplifying the works to a bigger levels.
So I would say that, LCA has been a huge success for a country like India which is known for its democratic work culture which often results in delays..