Tejas flies, but IAF dithers

Air Force chief says LCA not yet a fourth-generation fighter

On the Tejas’ Red Letter day, the IAF chief’s statement that the indigenously built LCA was not yet a “fourth generation” aircraft assumes significance even as the defence establishment continues to push ahead amid concerns over the programme’s cost over-runs and its ambitious development schedule.

Pegged to be the country’s fourth generation fighter plane, and being developed for over 23 years, Tejas got its initial operation clearance (IOC) here on Monday with Defence Minister A K Antony handing over the ‘Release to Service Certificate’ to Naik.

But  immediately after receiving the certificate, Naik said: “Tejas is not yet a fourth generation aircraft. It can of course come up to that level given the technology, but it needs more work,” an indication that the programme’s ambitious schedule and technological challenges were raising concerns, especially for the IAF.

Surprisingly, even as Naik was in full flow in exposing the project’s shortcomings, neither Antony nor team Tejas countered him, adding authenticity to the IAF chief’s assessment.
The LCA programme has so far incurred an expenditure of about Rs 25,000 crore of which Rs 12,000 crore was spent only on development. While eight limited series Tejas fighters have been produced by HAL for testing, only two flew over Bangalore’s old airport on Monday. HAL will supply four of the first fleet of 20 fighter aircraft by the end of 2011.
Of these, two will be delivered in June and two other by December this year. But it is doubtful whether the first squadron will be operational by 2012.

Naik said there were some problems related to the LCA that the IAF has discussed with the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) and other project stakeholders and that it had set a June deadline for them to comply with the requirements.

But overlapping the testing with early production could easily backfire and result in delays and cost overruns should problems in the design or manufacturing arise.

“There are problems with the wake penetration (testing ability to cope with turbulence), all-weather clearance, lightning clearance among others and they (team Tejas) should be able to correct it by June,”  Naik said.

In this context, it is noteworthy that a low intensity blast, on December 30, 2010, had occurred during a lightning rod testing for Tejas.

The aircraft has part compliance in all these matters, but the IAF is firm on a 100 per cent compliance before induction.

Given the situation, Air Marshal Naik said that the final operational clearance (FOC), the last hurdle before induction, will take place in a couple of years. Antony, however, said the FOC will be scheduled by December this year and HAL will deliver four aircraft by then.

HAL sources told Deccan Herald that the IAF had made the assessments sometime last year after the user tests and that the team was confident of full compliance in time for induction next year.

Bringing some cheer for team Tejas, Air Marhsal Naik described the LCA as a “MiG-21++”.
Responding to a query on whether the aircraft, which was being developed to replace the aging MiG-21s, was good, he said: “Having checked and compared the endurance, performance, load carrying capacity, weapons delivering ability, accuracy, avionics and the radars, I think it is a MiG-21++.”

Appreciating the team he said that projects of such magnitude were always difficult to execute and the IOC was, after having read and heard about Tejas for over two decades, “a dream come true. The untiring efforts need to be complimented.”

He said that the project will help change the research and development scenario in the country and programmes in the future will not have to go through the hardships the LCA went through having to develop everything from scratch besides financial issues and subject to restriction policy of foreign countries.