Indian Military Aviation News and Discussion

[Arun_S]

[quote name='ramana' date='24 May 2011 - 11:47 PM' timestamp='1306260598' post='111678']

Aruun for you,



Excellent progress report on the night flight trials of LCA from Aviation Week:



[url="http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story.jsp?id=news/awst/2011/05/16/AW_05_16_2011_p26-321521.xml&headline=Tejas%20LCA%20Enters%20Key%20Test%20Phase&channel=defense"]Tejas LCA enters key test phase[/url]





[/quote]



Tejas-II has all the trappings of being equivalent to MMRCA because its peer Swedish Grippen was a worthy competitor in MMRCA race.



IMHO there are two major reason IAF went for MMRCA race was:

1. Back in 1999 IAF was not sure LCA will see light of day. But as LCA did beat its detractors and its performance was close to what IAF asked for 20 years ago. It saw the very attractive possibility of having another advanced variant of LCA to serve a new sets of requirements for next 3 decades, albeit with new set of ASR(Air Staff Requirements). And that is Tejas Mk-II
2. Tejas Mark-II will be fully developed will all possible Air to Air and Air to Ground weapons tested, and multi sensor network fusion done perhaps 7 years after IOC in 2015) viz 2022. That kind of time gap IAF cant afford to be naked and disarmed, thus an MMRCA that is primed for battle now is so critical; and ability to have 80 of these aircraft in active service in next 5 years is most critical.

JMT