To show off basically, the Soviets sent their AC to various Airshows near the end of the cold war as well, i doubt it was to sell them.

AFAIK all aircrafts sent by soviets were ones they were actually hoping to sell to someone, possibly even opening up new markets beyond their traditional buyers. don’t forget it was the time of glasnost and perestroika.
IIRC the only time russians(not soviets) brought aircraft they were not going to sell was backfire bombers to farnborough in ’92.
the motives and attitude of Russian and Indian co’s are quite different in this aspect, the comparison is thus not an apples to apples one.

Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE….you get it.

these are republics now are they ? I had no idea.

The reason for no mention of LCA at HAL is because its a ADA product and not HAL. Dhruv is a HAL product.

ADA is the lead, yes but HAL is a junior partner in development as well as primary manufacturer.

The Oil republics

such as ?

I wouldn’t give that much credit to any Pakistani political element, especially given the current regime. The only way to know the reasons for the change in display would be to ask the PAF. There hasn’t been any further details yet, as far as I know anyway.

did PAF make any statement on the issue of the air show at all in the last few weeks ? it’s usual for at least one press conference to precede an event like this.
p.s. is the high commissioner a political appointee or a politician ? isn’t he a career diplomat ? in the later case one can expect a certain level of reliability.

but didn’t people here who are said to be in the know assure us that there was going to be a flying display even a week before the show ? assuming they were correct, what changed in that short period ?

witcha, existed for 50 years and done nothing (very roughly speaking) is true but it is difficult for one to do ANYTHING with NO FUNDING. get my point ?

the kaveri is the only thing that was funded to a reasonable level but even in that, the management was taken away from DRDO and severely interfered in by MOD bureaucrats. for an industry with no background, designing and developing a turbo-fan engine with higher performance than the then state-of-the-art F404, is not trivial, the chinese experience should tell us that. with all these constraints, many of which are still present, that they have managed 70-80% of their original intent is enough to earn at least pass marks in my book.
do keep in mind that one of the biggest constraints is SC blades, which is DMRL’s responsibility, not GTRE.

think of NLCA Mk1 single seater as a TD, the 2 seater is useful as a trainer.

OK, understood. I would just point out that airlines will order aircraft of an older design if they can’t get hold of those of a new design fast enough. If the older design does the job, it can be better to order it than to wait for availability on the newer design. As I understand it, IAF needs to replace MiG21’s. As I understand it, Tejas Mk1 is perfectly able to do that. Will Mk2 be able to do that in a timely fashion?

you are not getting the point !

IAF does not need to order today if it finds in 2013 that MRCA production has been held up somehow and Mk2 is 2 years away, it can order then. just like it came up with the additional 20 order after the initial 20. it will send a proposal to MOD who will pass on to the CCS after which it goes to HAL and the contract is signed. the whole process takes 2 weeks at most if IAF pushes it through.
don’t just look at the datapoints, extrapolate them reasonably ! the trends are clearly visible.

that’s the advantage of building within country, you don’t have to account for n number of bureaucratic procedure and just cut through the red-tape.

Boom says there are comments that the IAF is strongly in support of the Tejas. Would that be Mk1 or Mk2? If the IAF does truly want the Mk1, why not increase the order very substantially to allow MiG-21 retirement? This would (presumably) cannibalise some sales from Mk2 but from the viewpoint of supporting “the home side” it would be better to see that than to see increased MMRCA orders to cover late availability of the Mk2. Given that Mk2 engine selection was reported as being due autumn 2008, the risk of Mk2 being late appears quite high.

why should support of tejas mean either Mk1 or Mk2,
if I say ‘USAF supports F-16’ does it mean block 15, block 50 or the complete series ?

Mk1 as it stands now does not match all of IAF’s updated requirements (which however much maskirovka might squirm under his painted camouflage, puts it in the league of pre-NG gripens in most aspects and at par with NG for others) but it is still far better than a host of aircrafts like the mig-27 in IAF which it can easily replace.

the IAF would not order substantially because by the time the current order is completed the Mk2 would be ready, which air force in the right state of mind would order aircraft of an older version when the newer one is available ? in any case IAF rarely if ever orders from domestic manufacturers in bulk, unless it’s part of a larger license manufacturing deal.
case in point, the jaguar orders in batches of 17 and 20, similar orders for mig-21 in 70’s and 80’s and so on.
people who say these things have no idea how manufacturing works in a country like India, it is not possible for HAL to start production of 20 LCA Mk1’s per year from day 1, assemblies would have to be set up, technicians have to be trained in batches and then only can production pick up. the current order of 40 (which incidentally is about the same number of mirage-2000 we have, so much for it being a small order) will take between 3-4 years to complete, well in time for the Mk2 to start production.

the engine is but one aspect of the Mk2, the work can proceed with the engine accounted for but not in place.

As for NLCA Mk1, won’t it really only be useful as a systems testing platform? Should focus not be on NLCA Mk2?

don’t you read the thread before commenting ? two additional NLCA with higher powered engine has already been sanctioned last december, to follow after NP1 and NP2. that is but an euphemism for NLCA Mk2.

Also, I don’t know from where the rumours of an N-Tejas Mk.2 have emerged. So far, there has been no such announcement. What’s certain is that the 6 units ordered by the navy too shall fly with the GE-F404-IN engines, since the new engine tender is for the IAF only.

read this
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showpost.php?p=1608512&postcount=78

Two more LCA(Navy) prototypes has been sanctioned by the Govt in Dec 2009 with a higher thrust engine to enable meeting the Mission objectives set out by the Navy.

this is nothing but NLCA Mk2.