Did India make the right choice selecting the AL-55 for the HJT?

This week’s article from AW&ST with some summary points;

– Snecma/Turbomeca’s Larzac 04-20 was the expected winner for the engine bid, and had already produced three engines for the HJT’s development phase. Snecma had offered HAL the higher thrust version of the 04-20 with FADEC for HJT production.

– According to the article, the AL-55s, according to UMPO’s spokesman, will not be ready until 2006, because the AL-55 hasn’t even been developed yet. That date could further slip because it will inevitably encounter bugs along the way as any engine development will.

– “The AL-55 was initially proposed by NPO Saturn for two new Russian jet trainers, the Yakovlev Yak-130 and Mikoyan MiG-AT, but lack of customers has kept full-scale development on hold.” The Yak-130 uses Al-222s instead.

– “According to NPO Saturn, the AL-55 will be a 4,845-lb.-basic-thrust turbofan engine with specific fuel consumption of 0.71 lb./hr. The 355-kg. (782-lb.) engine will have Fadec controls and could be equipped with afterburner and thrust vector control.”

– The main reason for the switch to UMPO seems to have been to the AL-55’s cheaper price tag.

While it would make sense to have the same supplier as the AL-31FP engines for the IAF’s Su-30MKIs, was it a wise choice to go with the cheaper solution that may not even be ready by 2006, thus pushing back the entry date of the HJTs, a trainer that the IAF needs to replace its elderly fleet of Surya Kiran Mark IIs?