October 29,2008:
Despite 25 years of delays and
failures, India has decided to buy 140 of the locally designed "Light
Combat Aircraft" (LCA or "Tejas"). This was originally an
attempt to build a jet fighter to replace their Russian MiG-21s. Building
something better than the 1950s era MiG-21 didn't seem too difficult. But a
quarter century later, the Tejas is still in development. The aircraft has
become something of a zombie project. It can't be killed, or really brought to
life. Even with 500 test flights, there are still serious problems that prevent
putting the aircraft into production. The MiG-21s are still in service, and
falling apart. The situation is getting critical.
But over the past two years, the LCA has made
considerable progress. India believes that the LCA will be ready in two years,
and aircraft will enter service a year later. The Tejas will be cheap, costing
about $25 million each. The bad news is that most of the key elements of the
Tejas development have moved at a glacial pace. The final design was not
finished until 1990. The most critical part of the aircraft, the engine, was to
have been Indian made, but the "Kaveri" engine, designed and built
with Russian assistance, was slow to come together. The Tejas has been flight
tested mainly with the American F404 engine, which is also used in the U.S.
F-18 and F-117A, and the Swedish Gripen. The Indians finally agreed to
collaborate with foreign engine makers, to get the Kaveri engine working. This
is what the Swedes did, licensing F404 technology from U.S. manufacturer
General Electric, to build their own engine. The Indians currently plan to have
the Tejas in service next year, even though the first two squadrons have to use
American made F404 engines.
The Tejas is smaller than the F-16 and nearly
the same size as the Swedish Gripen. Unlike the Gripen, Tejas has less capable
electronics and has not been in service for over a decade already. India had
hoped to export the Tejas, but with competition like Gripen, and continuing
problems designing components, it's going to be rough going. Since India only
needs 140 Tejas, lack of export orders means higher per-aircraft cost (as fewer
aircraft absorb the development cost). Thus, there will be charges that it
would have been cheaper to buy the Gripen, or Mirage 2000, or even the many
second-hand F-16s available, than to develop Tejas. On the plus side, the Tejas
project also created an Indian capability to develop jet fighters, including
the complex engines. China also found that developing this kind of capability
is not cheap, and projects like Tejas are how you pay for your new skills.