Sure co-developing it with Brazil [….] would be good option for France but I doubt if the sentiment is reciprocated.

Brazil is no hurry to acquire a next generation aircraft let alone develop one.

Brazil is about to buy Rafale, operates a CATOBAR carrier with air wing, plans to build nuclear submarines in cooperation with France and has a National Defense Strategy that explicitly lays out a path to indigenous 5th gen via co-production and technology transfer with an as-yet-unspecified-partner.

EDIT: Pages 30-31

Brazil may not be in a rush, but nor is France.

One has to pick and choose the essential areas where money is required and what capabilities are advanced enough that they can sustain with simple but effective upgrades..

I agree, and that’s what’s not happening here. The “essential areas” where money needs to be spent is on long-range R&D so that one can field, for example, a world-class AAM when the time comes that such a thing is needed, i.e. in the post-2025 timeframe where the United States can count on neither numerical superiority in theatre nor an overwhelming technology gap in fielded assets.

What is non-essential is a significant proportion of the existing aircraft inventory and personnel and much of the existing basing and organisational infrastructure, i.e. the same places where most of that precious money is actually tied up. If cuts are to be made — as they should be — they should be made there. But we all know why that doesn’t happen: because the armed services are just like any other government bureaucracy, only largely shielded from external pressure from the legislature that other departments are subject to.

It is about staying up to date with relevant technology, Upgrades give you the ability to add a lot of cutting edge technology into the existing design thereby keeping both the manufacturing base up n running as well as upping your standard missile to latest technology standard.There is no CONFLICT with china, and both US and China are developing their military to be better prepared , against a possible conflict .. The continuous upgrade of the Aim-120 platform that is combat proven , not only adds constant technology upgrade to the US armory but also saves money which can be spent elsewhere….And we dont loose out on developing new technology in the A2A missile arena..

Right, let’s cut R&D and thereby compromise future operational effectiveness viz. peer threats so that we can keep a few more strategically irrelevant ANG F-16s flying around for another five years. :rolleyes:

The priorities are so backwards here it’s laughable. And yeah, the PLAAF is laughing as they go ahead with PL-12D et al.

taking from pakistan defence forum

From that angle it looks like they stole an F-35. 😀

That doesn’t read like a delay to me. I mean, obviously FOC was going to come some time after IOC, yes?

2) It seems extra ordinary that the mighty USAF and even the VVS in its prime, chose to have a much higher proportion of light figthers than heavies such as the F-15, and surely they were far better prepared to support their fleets than India presently is.

The leaning towards heavy fighters seems a result of working with rather limited choices/constraints available rather than some need to match some strategic security situation.

Look at the global trends: everyone is going heavy, or at least heavier than ever before. USAF/PLAAF/RuAF don’t even have modern light fighter programs; hell, the F-35 barely even qualifies as a ‘medium’ fighter!

Thanks for these updates Mildave, been real useful. =)

Agree to the points on the Eastern front. But we are likely to have over 270 x Su-30MKI for the duty. Western front will hardly require heavy fighters in large numbers and the light-medium will do the job. And then there is 250 more PAK-FA/FGFA coming which is going to that make it a good 520 x Heavy MRCA in few decades.

At least the latter half of the FGFA run will be replacing the older MKIs (i.e. those built to date) not supplementing them. I doubt the total number of ‘heavies’ in the IAF will ever surpass 400.