What I don’t understand is why did the IAF choose to delay the acquisition of the aircraft and make a long drawn out process which is still not finished so many years after only to contrive a Rafale win? They (the IAF) have had experience of several high tech aircraft through the various exercises!

Was some one being paid top dollar to contrive a Rafale win, if where is the evidence?

If the IAF had contrived a fracas to make rafale win for other reasons then does it matter?

^^^ I dont believe the media hype considering mainstream media is easily manipulated. I would think that Indian intelligence will have much better picture about Pakistan nukes and their number reasonably calculated based on the resources Pak has in its disposal

Thats may all be well and good but how does that change the fact that the PA may have more nuclear weapons?

As for Indian intelligence, does such a thing exist in reality? Most of the intelligence apparatus is focused by the central government and its partners on spying of/on political rivals in India.

But…but…the typhoon was only introduced in the 1940s….?

:dev2:

Beautiful picture… it must the 1940s, they will sell us the typhoons along with salt and cotton….

what a daft statement to make, especially considering everyone knows that the Typhoon originators desperately need money so that their own fleets could be upgraded to the tranche 3s…

I think the snippet from the BBC about the defense minister going to India to tell the Indians to by British is linked to the defense ministry looking for more foriegn investment from outside in British R&D and SME’s typhoon might be put forward as a mechanism to do so.

India has its own issues too much money wasted through corruption within India it does not need to be wrestling with the Eu’s problems as well.

Obviously that translation are a bit off..
It not a ‘gold plated’ cockpit glass, but rather a cockpit glass with degree of gold fused with glass crystalls..:rolleyes:

its not a new method that pak fa has something like this?

The Defence Minister underlined the need for synergy between the DRDO and the Services. “The single most important facet of your operations must be the DRDO-User relation. Both the Services and DRDO must increase their synergy, while finalizing developmental projects and strategies. Secondly, I would like our Armed Forces to actively participate in development programmes, both in management, as well as implementation to ensure that more indigenous systems are inducted,” he said.

Shri Antony said the government recently approved technology acquisition through offsets. “We must leverage offsets to bring in critical technologies to provide a further boost to our existing capability. Today, there is enough space in our defence industry for both the Public and Private sectors to do business. We must ensure active participation of all stakeholders, including Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in defence production,” he said.

Speaking on the occasion the Chairman of the Standing Committee of Parliament on Defence Shri Satpal Maharaj noted with satisfaction that the share of R&D in the Defence Budget has risen to 6 per cent from 1 per cent in the 1960s. The Standing Committee had recommended 10 per cent as compared to 15 per cent being invested by certain countries in our neighbourhood, he added.

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/release/3/133677/india-to-restructure-drdo-defense-r%26d-agency.html

Lets see if it brings any changes.. i think hal needs to be changes/broken up also but lets see..

@Quadbike, whilst it maybe true that starting with a aluminium frame could have meant the LCA would have come into service sooner and potentially given the IAF something to fly and the ADA could have then slowly replaced parts by composites as they got more aware of the issues with composites.

The issue isnt totally to do with this, not from what is available from open literature. Looking at some of the ADA resource sites with the CV’s or Biodata of various high ranked people it seemed as if the ADA/DRDO was endulging in more a PHD style research project (looking at some of the biodata and the number of papers that seemed to have been published unfortunately i cant remember the names of the people i was looking at but there used to be an ADA site with all the biodata of people and the papers published) than in delivering a product suttible for the Airforce .i.e. it was not obvious that ADA/DRDO realised that there were real world customers who were suffering due to poor time management of the project. This might be down to the way HAL or DRDO promote engineers within its rank, i have heard/been told something of the order of “you either get promoted with Age and experience or you have to think of something new and unique and show that you have developed it” ie. taking focus away from the job at hand and giving the resource a completely bifurcated objective for career improvement rather than completing the task at hand.

there were also some very strange choices like biting of the SHM theme when the airframe was not even ready (superfluouse and not needed diversion of resource on items not as critical to flight?).

I do not think the LCA so far represents lesser technical capabilities of engineering in India considering the amount of contracting that is now on going i would say quite the opposite, but it does indicate a incompetence in the decision making/management team for the LCA. Also having worked with ex HAL/DRDO people outside of HAL you start to understand the delays but thats another story.