Exactly.

The A-10 demonstrated the ability to operate off a stretch of autobahn in Germany in the early 80s. Looked great on the evening news.

But the idea didn’t pan out. It was easier to fix holes in a runway than it was to relocate all the required ground support to a piece of road somewhere.

dont say that to the swedes..

Good point kramer, but the prototype didnt fly in 1987, it was 1988. rollout was in late 1987. It was still not a set drawing in 1985.

As i said, all progams with risks involved will meet alot of skeptism and critisim. Its not only in india, its all over. That is part of the state of the art world..people dont understand the difference. And reporters love to write it up all day long.. These things needs to be taken care of bay good engineers, managers and leaders to make funding happen.

But you can never get rid of the requierments, overweight needs to be taken care of. Maybe get rid of avionics or other stuff that overshoot ther requirements?

Kramer, in 1985 the prototype was on the drawingboard and was early revised, due to the calculated weight was projected outside the requirements..Bae made prototype parts due to lack of equipment at saab at the time, the operational parts was redesigned at saab.

i give you credit for looking up history. But looking in the mirror, isnt there any fundamentaly wrong aboat developing the LCA for such a long time. To develop anything state-of-the-art, you need to keep the pace up, otherwise its already old when getting to operational. I think this is one of the biggest problems with LCA is the pace of things. Requirements is getting tougther with time. Dont get it wrong, i love the little bagger, but theres obiusly problems.

Looking at gripen, i would say it had its share of critism as well, even thou it just took 8 years from start to first delivery. I think all todays eurocanards have had alot of critism as well as f-22 and f-35. So its maybe part of the development.

So the real question is:
How do you get the pace up?
I would say more outside help (as you imply) and change management.

I agree with matt here. There is no point in comparing LCA with Gripen. If one fighter is meant to be x weight but turns out to be x+y weight for whatever reason-unless the target was changed midcourse-then its overweight. Be it LCA or Gripen. Period.

i am totaly with you and matt, made by different requirements..

Thanks Vishnu ! wonderful read !

interesting to note that the Gripen Demo is actually several hundred kgs overweight..some posters made a lot of mockery of the LCA when it was revealed that it was overweight.

well test instrumentation is nothing a operational gripen carry around…

^^^
Was Gripen first aircraft with Canards?
Was Grippen the first aircraft to use Delta wing?
Was it the first one to use air brakes?
So if one goes by your book:rolleyes:, Gripen is also a derivative design.

do you see any big resemblance to any flying design? except maybe Rafale?(gripen was first) the only two that i know have close-coupled canard and delta.
and also, as you mentioned it the use of canard for airbrakes/groundpressure it totally unheard of.

Comparing an unfinished demonstrator to an upcoming
block induction in active air force duty, are we, Sign?

How meaningful, lol!:diablo:

Have a pint and stop worrying about such stuff, mate.

Good nap all, Tay.

Well, Gripen E/F will be introduced in 2016 and is based on tech from the demonstrator(NG) program. I dont think theres any difference in operational status..