”We are now embarking upon long endurance Rustom, the first prototype, the flight of which was tested last week. This UAV has an endurance of 24 hours and weighs 70 kg, compared to Nishant’s 4.5 hours,” he said.

http://mangalorean.com/news.php?newstype=local&newsid=157679

crashed and burned.

As far as I know arabs and Japan paid heavily for the first and second attack on Irac. With that many US firms active you can add that it is lucrative. It did not cost the US much. In fact… It might be a very profiable war. Who do you think earned the most of the selling of Iraci oil lately?

thing is, the 20 year flame is so ridiculous, I’m at a loss where to start. the 2-seat version was expected to fly in late 2008 to early 2009. you do the math as to how late it is.

as for the project, all talks and plans and announcements aside, the project itself started in actuality circa 1989-90. the IAF officers who were associated with the program knew even back then knew that a reasonable induction date would be nearer 2010, i.e 20 years from the start date. DRDO officials did put forward widely optimistic dates but that was well understood to be a funding tactic, India’s myopic politicians won’t have funded the project otherwise.
compare with the rafale or the EF, consider that a 4th gen program posed as much of a challenge to India’s MIC as rafale did to the french one or EF did to the consortium, 20 years is not extraordinary in anyway.
count in the 1-2 year delay due to the control laws being held back in US and the 2011 induction date sounds very reasonable indeed.

That is indeed an answer. But I think yo should add that IAF made during te development the specifications tougher. And for a nation to be able to produce a plane like LCA costs time, labour and lot of cash. That DRSO gave very positive data is normal. Indeed otherwise no one would join and certainly not finance the project. Same happens with huge construction projects and certainly military projects in the west. Besides that, the plane had to move around the original engine, did a lot with composites (one step extra forward) and one needs decades to build industry. No exeption for India. We cannot say what it is or will become but it is completely different from building something that is produced and tested somewhere else. Look at the bright side. We plane lovers have another plane to see. Something that becomes rare after every nation going for the same (F104 -> F16 -> JSF etc etc)

In every society (even dictatorial regimes) you have a certain political process where this happens. South Africa was just in the news (read the vary valuable posts of our poster Tango) where was written that there were more visitors in de dual Gripens then pilots… India is no exception. There is finance, decission making (political powers) and the forces… Pretty logical that now and then some people end up flying plane. She did a minimal flight. Good. I think it is a win for boh IAF and the person that flew as a visitor.

In some nations you even have journalists (Sophie in the Netherlands/Shiv in the Gripen etc etc) doing it… Call it marketing. Good concept.

Last thing on Kaveri was that it was going to power ships…

Is that even a serious question?

A few more seconds reading what you Ctrl+C’ed would tell you that a) This missile is “still in development” b) Any access to AIM-9X tech would help c) Its not even sure what the specs or even the designation is (look at the question mark next to PL-10 within the brackets.

Yes I am serious. Give me an opponent with a better WVR at this moment. And you said they had nothing and now you agree that it is developed. Whether it is operational or not… I have no idea. We often do not see the latest. JF17 in Pakistan is not seen with SD10. I have no clue whether they have it besides that it was ordered. Whether that is reliable? Unfortunately news items like these are not more detailed.

Cheaper yes, but there are a lot of folks who are still afraid of Chinese quality. It will take some time before they create room in the market on some western nations(I don’t think Artgentina i.e. would buy JF-17, but they would probalby buy form the russians). Russia is more consolidated at this point. (Hope I didn’t steal the thread)

Well, I doubt that it is that risky as some Russian planes or exported Russian planes. Spare part problems, political strings, coffins and you can name a few other headlines. China has exported more then a few planes and sofar they do not have problem with being Chinese.