Sorry to say this but I have a grudging admiration for Chinese Airforce , they may not have a top of line fighter but they buy and build what their industry can make and build on that as much less capable it may be but that is how they build an Aerospace Industry and MIC which supports their independent foreign policy.
Compare that to IAF they just got Rafale worth $9 billion to stop depleting squdron strength and then they have Tejas ready after 15 years and almost at nascent stage of production run , Now they want to build another 100 Single Engine Imported Fighter spending billions into program that can put into Tejas and ramp up production both at HAL and Pvt Player and start the building blocks of Aerospcae Industry …….but no these guys want to import another fighter and MOD is more than happy to play to the gallery and rubber stamp it.
I like the NLCA a lot. I was hoping a variant of it would one day hit the IAF in numbers. Maybe even for the SLAF. What baffles me the most is the slow pace of production. IAF seem to satisfied with the Tejas for the role it has to play, so why isn’t production ramping up? Is the fault with HAL?
But, one thing, as South Asian myself, kickbacks/bribes/corruption is a day to day thing. During our previous Rajapaksha regime the kickbacks were as high as 35% :stupid: :stupid: 😡 😡 Its probably not as bad as that in India, but I get the feeling someone is going get rich if the new foreign single-engined fighter goes ahead.
Sign In
