not a big deal but avoiding it would have saved them (and you :p ) some embarrassment !

/spoken in jest, in case people misunderstood.

tax != GDP. as % of GDP US defence spending will still be less than 5 %.

here’s a list. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures#List_of_countries_by_military_expenditure_as_a_percentage_of_GDP

and gents, while arguing over x thousand crores and so on, please remember that Rs of 1983 != Rs of 1990 != Rs of 2000 because Rs has undergone an annual inflation rate of anywhere between 3-10% from mid 80’s onwards.

if you have to compare the numbers, either convert to US $, whose value has stayed more or less stable OR consider inflation adjusted values of Rs.

remember, 10 crores in 1983 meant much more than 20 crores in 2000.

Sure – and I think you put your fingure on the crux of the problem – the difficulty of now finding a document that says what the initial envisaged budget was – and the closest I can come to it is an article linked from the LCA archives on BR – the forum that my learned friend Rahul M is a moderator on: http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/HAL-Tejas It quotes government sources so its probably accurate.

Here are a few quotes from there:

The LCA was originally expected to fly in 1993, and in May 1989 the program was projected by the government’s review committee to cost Rs. 5,600 crores (56 billion rupees or about US$1.2 billion at the time).[38] FSED Phases 1 and 2 were projected to cost, respectively, Rs. 2,188 crores (US$467 million) and Rs. 2,340 crores (US$499 million).[32] According to the 1999 Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report, the first phase of the project had by the end of 1998 consumed Rs. 2,500 crores; by the end of 2000, the total Phase 1 cost had risen to about Rs. 3,000 crores.[5] The delays have also led to further indirect costs. For instance, the unavailability of the Tejas compelled the Indian Air Force to upgrade its MiG-21bis aircraft at a cost of Rs. 2,135 crores.

So Phase 1 was budgeted at 2188 crores and by the end of 2000 had risen to 3000 crores. Never mind the additional 2135 crores to upgrade the MiGs – and if you’ve done any budgeting, any indirect costs are part of the project cost – but lets be magnanimous to Rahul and conveniently ignore those – Phase 1 about 900 crores over budget in 2000!!

Here’s another:

When FSED Phase 2 was launched in November 2001, it was authorised under a budget of Rs. 3,302 crores (about US$704 million). This financing covered not only the manufacture of the five prototypes (PV-1 to PV-5), but also eight limited series production (LSP) planes.[39] In July 2001 it was reported that beyond the FSED, HAL would require a further Rs. 400-600 crores to set up facilities for the manufacture of 12 to 14 LCAs a year.[40]

So Phase 2 was initially budgeted at 2340 crores and when launched the budget had increased to 3302 crores plus the 600 crores to set up the manufacturing facilities. Overbudget by about 1600 crores?

Phases 1 and 2 were overbudget by 2500 crores in 2001!!

Lets ignore the development costs for the naval LCA – it wasn’t envisaged when the first budget was outlined.

Lets then move on to the budget for the engine – Kaveri. Here’s what the article says:

Development of the Kaveri engine was projected in 1989 to cost Rs. 382.81 crores (nearly US$82 million). In December 2004, it was revealed that the GTRE had spent over Rs. 1,300 crores (around US$295 million) on developing the Kaveri. Furthermore, the Cabinet Committee on Security judged that the Kaveri would not be installed on the LCA before 2012, and revised its estimate for the projected total development cost to Rs. 2,839 crores (more than US$640 million).[4][18] The DRDO, however, currently hopes to have the Kaveri engine ready for use on the Tejas by 2009-10.

So initial budget 383 crore – subsequently revised to 2,839 crore in 2004 – i.e overbudget by 2450 crore.

If I stop now at 2004 without addressing all the subsequent problems that have emerged – the weight, the engines, the radar etc. etc. – we were overbudget then by 5000 crore. And Rahul’s predicatable response is going to be to deride this source because it doesn’t conform to his opinion!

In light of that fact – was the TOI really that much out of line in contemplating a figure of 10000 crore? Its probably much more than that by now – but who’s telling us all the details and who’s counting?

Rahul M? He started his response by being sarcastic, then called me a pakistani provocateur, then a troll and most recently a moron. In doing so he’s probably in breach of the rules for this forum and certainly gives you an indication of what BR has become – where he is a moderator. It used to be a forum until Rahul and his appendages turned it into their private cesspool – stifling any debate or differences of opinion by calling people names or preemptorily and capriciously deleting their posts.

I couldn’t call you a moron Rahul because that would be blatantly unfair to us morons.

But let me offer you some food for thought – anyone (and I don’t necessarily mean you!) who believes that DRDO and ADA could have been so prescient that they indicated an initial budget in 1989 and allowed for all the problems and issues that arose subsequently – the weight, the sanctions, the engine, the radar and still come out underbudget in 2009 – for him moron is probably an aspirational status – to be achieved once he grows a third synaptic node to keep the other two company!

dear dharmaputra yudhisthir, could you please show me the exact page/link from BR where you got this article from ? since you claim it was linked in BR’s LCA archives ?

vikas, glad to be of help.

If current weight is say 7200kg less 300kg = 6900kg less 200kg = 6700kg then we still have to add radar, air to air refueling equipment and some more avionics like MAWS etc which will bring it to 7200-7500kg. This will also explain the requirement for a more powerful engine compared to Gripen.

no sir, even if the aircraft does not fly with the complete radar and other instruments on board it will carry equivalent weight at appropriate locations in the form of ballasts, doing otherwise will throw off CG values from actual ones during testing.
that weight is very closely indicative of what the Mk1 will end up as, including all its bells and whistles.

abhiman, that 2 ton figure is from ajai shukla quoting a somewhat offhand comment by LCA designers. all the figures I used are reasonably correct.

@ Rahul: With most ship born fighters end up weighing a bit more than the land based counter parts surely the NLCA would have to be the first LCA MK2 varients? When you consider the extra long steel nosewheels arrester hooks and bulk up in supporting structure.

I’m not sure what exactly you mean here. if you mean that NLCA will skip the Mk1 phase and jump into Mk2 I think that’s a possibility, yes.

@ whomsoever it concerns: Obviously i remain calibrated that there are no issues and everything is wonderful and fluffy! and we do not need the MMRCA as the LCA uses more composites than any aircraft in the MMRCA contest including the EFA

problem is IAF’s original M2k requirement was more or less a hedge against any problems with LCA program. subsequent muddling by MOD means that it has become a ridiculously confused acquisition program, at the higher end it competes with the Su-30mki in terms of capability (shornet) and at the lower end it is little more than the LCA.(gripen)

at this juncture, if everything goes well with the LCA program from now on, by the time MRCA starts arriving in India the first LCA sqdn will be in the air with another one rolling off the lines. so the importance of the MRCA definitely diminishes.

however, low initial production rate of LCA and high retirement rate of IAF jets mean that even a ready LCA might not be able to be produced quick enough to plug the number shortfall in IAF. hence the MRCA, whichever version.

My understanding of current position of LCA was that it is 2 tons overweight and 6500kg is the ‘desired’ weight. Just going by ADA posters may not be enough as these postures continued to carry 5500kg even though it is known in ADA circles since atleast 10 years that LCA is overweight.

Also we hear these off and on again rumors about intake and wing redesign which would mean a very different/delayed LCA-2. Note rumours about Kaveri failure, radar problems, weight issues etc proved to be true

close enough. that 2 tons figure however includes all testing equipment and such and was the version that was used for the sea-level tests that couldn’t live up to ASR. the caveat is that the 2 ton figure is an approximate one and the accurate one will be somewhat lower.
ADA/HAL have long decided that 5500 kg is unreasonable for what the LCA carries now and have moved on to 6500 kg as target. as of now the bird is a few hundred kg heavier than that, not considering the testing equipment.

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intake re-design is a surety, nothing rumour-level about it. wing-re-design, they might tweak it a bit but major re-design is unlikely. they may incorporate lessons from the LEX studies for NLCA though.

I will fire my “3 times the speed of light” capable brahmos missiles from my mikoyan mirage-2000 under the express order of Air Marshal XYZ, AOC-in-C Southern Naval Command to destroy your puny kaveri aircraft ! 😀