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Air Chief Bhadauria’s focus on homegrown AMCA shows IAF learnt nothing from Tejas failure

The only reason Indian pilots still use the "flying coffin" MiG 21 is because of the delay in acquiring Tejas, about two decades on.

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Air Marshal Rakesh Kumar Singh Bhadauria, the new Chief of Air Staff, claimed in a press conference that the days of importing jets were over and that the Indian Air Force will now throw its entire weight behind the fifth generation Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft. This seemingly innocuous statement reveals the deep malaise in our defence thinking, born from a lack of institutional handover of knowledge.

To understand what could go wrong with the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA), we need to look at what went wrong with the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), the homegrown Tejas. After all, the only reason we still fly the “flying coffin” MiG 21s is because of the inordinate delay in the induction of the fourth generation Tejas – the aircraft whose maiden flight took place in 2001 but which is yet to be operationalised 18 years later. This is when the US, Russia, and China have started fielding fifth generation fighters with the US operationalising the F22 back in 2005.

Misplaced priorities

To start with, both “light” and “indigenous” had become anachronistic even before the Tejas took its first flight. When the aircraft was conceived in an era before fly by wire (fbw) system was introduced, “light” denoted manoeuvrability. Recall how the original Maruti 800 was once considered much easier to drive than the bulky Ambassador, but the entry of electronic steering made even a huge BMW 7 Series just as easy to drive as a minuscule Tata Nano.

This obsession with “light” meant that when, within the 4th generation, the emphasis shifted from kinetics to electronics, sometime in the mid-1990s, Tejas had neither the extra power nor the space to accommodate the additional electronics such as data boxes, secure network devices, built-in countermeasures and associated wiring. Moreover, it became painfully obvious that India, still a third world pre-industrial country, did not possess either the industrial depth or width to produce the entire gamut of electronics required to facilitate this change of focus in fourth generation aircraft.

Additionally, the need to be “indigenous” was born in an era before the collapse of the USSR, when India was subject to severe technology transfer restrictions, which were rapidly and progressively lifted after US President Bill Clinton’s visit in 1999. In short, by the time the very first Tejas flight came around in 2001, the rationale to be light and indigenous had both evaporated. More significantly, 18 years on, we still haven’t internalised these changes or learnt from our mistakes.


Also read: Indian Air Force should drop its plan to make more Tejas Mark-2s & focus on AMCA fighter jets


Rooting for a ‘deeply flawed’ AMCA

While Britain is moving forward with a sixth-generation aircraft, India is pondering rudimentary and deeply flawed designs for a fifth generation Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft, despite being so far behind the technology curve. Why is AMCA flawed?

For starters, much like the Tejas, the AMCA seems to focus on paradigms of combat that have long since been bypassed. Defence and foreign policy expert Pushan Das and I had written about this extensively in 2015.

A summary of the findings from our analysis are as follows: 1) Too much emphasis on engine thrust and thrust vectoring despite close-range air combat having moved away from G force manoeuvring to get into an attack position to Angle of Attack, which emphasises maintaining power and recovery from a steep manoeuvre.

2) A continuing emphasis on kinetics as opposed to understanding that a fifth generation aircraft is essentially a computer in the air, able to cut short the processing time, and reduce the ‘detect to kill chain’ (the time taken between detecting and killing an aircraft – essentially the ability to detect first and shoot first, and in the case of stealth, hopefully avoid being detected) by several tens of seconds (the difference between life and death).

3) The lack of emphasis on deep networking with other detection and attack assets, which form the basis of the fifth generation combat that allow it to hand over time-critical information to assets that may be better positioned or equipped to fire the first shot.

4) No thought was given to a new range of smaller but long-range weapons to be carried in sufficient numbers concealed within the body of the aircraft.

5) No thought was given to conformal sensors that blended into the aircraft’s body or new materials like cockpit canopies that allow the pilot to look outside but prevent radars from detecting the cockpit (which is a major problem as it is not stealthed up like the rest of the aircraft’s body) or frequency selective radome materials that perform the same function for the radar (allow the radar to function unimpeded, while preventing the radar’s flat surface from being detected by other radars).

6) A range chart that seemed horrendously muddled, implying that the twin-engine AMCA would cover the same range in twice the amount of fuel that an F-35 would with half the fuel.


Also read: Time to run IAF in a sleek, corporate way. It’s the Force that counted in Kargil, Balakot


Given these serious conceptualisation flaws that do not bode well from a project and risk management point of view, besides the industrial supply chain problems inherent in the Tejas, we now run a very high risk of chasing another white elephant. It’s one thing that the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) did not learn anything from its failures — natural given it is a public sector undertaking with no accountability or risk. But the Indian Air Force’s failure to internalise these lessons after so many crashes and deaths and capability shortages is simply appalling.

The author is a senior fellow at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies. He tweets @iyervval. Views are personal. 

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67 COMMENTS

  1. Please see a point to point rebuttal to this article @ the excellent website: delhidefencereview. I am not associated with this website, but am certainly an avid reader and hence felt it be best that I post this here.

  2. If Air Force is expecting HAL to develop any new aircraft, they must be prepared to wait for the next 30 years. And at the end of it they will get an egg that is obsolete and which no one wants to use. After starting Tejas in the early 80s these blokes took 30 or more years and at the end of it, the engine is imported, the avionics are imported, the radar is imported, even the ejection seat they couldnt manage to develop in India.

  3. No major battle is won by imported weapons. When supplies are cut off or the supplier nation finds that our conflicts are not in their favour then it becomes complicated. You call Tejas a failure, well F35 is a failure too. Nobody in the world has a perfect 5th gen. HAL is so idiot that they’ll make internal weapons bay without having missiles?? Is that even a point? F4 phantom didn’t have Cannons because they thought cannon fight is outdated but after what happened in vietnam they had to fit them with cannons. Why Astra missile separation launch was tested if there are no plans for a missile to launch from an internal weapons bay? Attacking ground units is one thing but when air to air fights break out stealth aircrafts play the role of a sniper, using radars to detect and using long range missiles to engage… If the opponent has a better radar it doesn’t matter because it wouldn’t be able to see a stealth aircraft from 60-40 kms. But what happens when the battle is not on your terms, you are forced to do dogfights, then you are dead already. I can see IRST already in the design how much sensors does a plane need? Data fusion is going to be in that design but not much info is made public. As far as Engines go, we can’t make that much powerful engine as the F35 that’s a fact. Defence Industries indeed needs a push but we’re not going to remain a market forever.

  4. Mr Iyer are you listening to all the comments. Please do so.
    Attention “The Print’: — Why waste time on such article which does not go well with the readers.
    And request to the sponsor of this paid article (May be CIA/Lockheed Martin):— You guys do not hold such power any more, that you can influence India’s strategic decisions to your favour.

  5. Article by Abhijit Iyer Mitra in The Print makes point against indigenous fighter programs and admires F35. Delay (both development as well as production) and limitations (electronics, engine power and space) in Tejas are valid criticisms. But “Tejas being a ‘failure’ so provocatively mentioned in the title” OR ‘light weight and indigenous became anachronistic even before Tejas took first flight’ OR “ ‘India … still a third world pre-industrial country’ unable to produce electronics for 4th gen fighters” OR “Technology barrier has been removed and India will get western technology” OR “AMCA is seriously flawed (and by inference we should opt for F35 instead)” are grossly incorrect and biased in favour of import of foreign fighters. I’ve crystalised the criticism in three buckets and tried to address them:

    Is Tejas a failure?: In my opinion, Tejas program would be a success if it can replace MiG 21, for which it was designed, and if it can successfully challenge its PAF rival i.e. JF 17. Thankfully Tejas does both even though it is severely delayed. Tejas programme will be a big success if Tejas MWF is inducted in IAF killing the prospects of its rivals, F21 and Gripen E. It will be a huge success if it creates the fighter ecosystem that can create AMCA even with all the deficiencies pointed here. Going by the criticism, Tejas is likely to achieve the remaining two. It really creates significant barrier for F21 and Gripen E and their sympathisers and lobbyists are rattled.

    Is there no barrier to technology transfer & Indigenisation is not needed or worse still India is just incapable?: It’s really hard for me to believe that an analyst of Abhijit’s caliber claiming technology barrier is gone and Indigenisation is not needed. The best case is, technology barrier has been lowered for finished products (e.g. import of Predator drone is feasible), but it continues to exist in all spheres of core technologies (engine, radar, EW, networking, armaments, sensors and data fusion). Worse, the western powers continue to treat India as the dumping ground for their outdated technologies. Proposal to transfer F16 (it’s so old that it had to be renamed to F21 to sound modern!) production line and even with this relocation, denial of any meaningful technology transfer of even F16 components are case in point. Lockheed Martin (LM) did not even pitch any of their flagship product for any of the Indian tenders (MMRCA or Naval fighters), forget about transfer of any 5th gen technology.

    Fact is simple – no country will transfer their core defence technology even to their closed allies. Besides, no country has ever become a great power on imported weapons. Consequently indigenisation is a continued necessity. It is fair to say that India is behind the technology curve but just importing the finished platforms will merely increase this gap, whereas the indigenisation is helping narrow the gap. It’s a matter of time when India catches up. Tejas and AMCA and their associate programs (even with all their limitations) are steps in the right direction. In my opinion, India is no longer a ‘third world pre-industrial country’ and it can not just send satellites to the moon and the mars, but can shoot them down too.

    Is AMCA so bad and should we opt for F35 instead? In AMCA, there could be overemphasis on engine and kinetic aspects and even computing and networking aspects might have been ignored or range benchmarking is half of F35. It might be even delayed (and Pakistan too might field 5th gen fighter earlier). These criticism in themselves may be fair and should be incorporated wherever feasible. However problem arises with the conclusion – He seems to conclude that AMCA be shelved in favour of imported 5th gen fighter, F35 from Lockheed Martin. Computing and networking deficiencies are independent of platform under development and work on them can and will continue till they mature. In any case, these deficiencies are to be addressed (external help is fine too) and project itself must never be shelved in favour of say F35. Delayed AMCA would still replace the ageing fighters (say MiG 29, Jaguars and Mirage) in IAF fleet and chances are that it will be at least a match for Chinese 5th gen fighters, the real threat. Again AMCA creates significant barrier for F35 in IAF and their sympathisers and lobbyists are rattled.

  6. The writer abijit iyer is paid by lockheed from usa. He pretends to be “right wing” or pro Hindu to wriggle into the BJP sphere (ie nationalist/ patriotic). He only pretends.

  7. I really am totally losing respect for Abhijit Iyer-Mitra. He seemed like a sensible guy earlier, but of late, his articles are showing him up to be a really poor analyst.. and he seems like a guy with an axe to grind against the IAF and Indian programs in general. He’ll be happily extolling the virtues of other 4th generation jets, while they retain all the disadvantages of the indigenous jets that he’s running down. This is probably the last article he’s written that I’m going to read. Already a waste of 10 minutes of my life reading and responding to this article. A total hack job.

  8. ABHIJIT IYER-MITRA is the same guy who does not know whether the satellite A-SAT brought down was a geo-stationary or not. LOL this takalu guy is BS

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