Although I am not an Indian, I have been observing LCA for a long time (close to 2 decades). As an ordinary military plane fan, here's my 2 cents casual review of LCA project. A bit lengthy because I do feel that it's not fair to judge any plane with a one-liner:
To examine the whole project in a more detailed level (rather than throwing claims around about small bits and pieces of technical achievments or difficulties), I split the project development into 4 phases: Initiation, R&D and Test Build, Production&Operation, Upgrade&Finalization
1. Initiation phase.
This phase started from the 70s. IA and India's Aero industtry worked together from initial informal queries to a formal agreed and detailed requirement. It ends sometime in the mid 80s.
For this phase, I put IAF as the main responsible entity.
My Verdict: Not bad at all. Compared to China, as far as I know, India followed a more formal and standard process. whereas most of China's 50-70s projects were started in very adhoc ways and lack proper project management procedures.
The only thing negative I can see is that, similar to many other Indian defence projects, India thinks too much and spends too much time thinking. There are many things that can only be find out or sort out when you move to the next step. Keep on thinking just waste your time and resources.
2. R&D and Test Build phase.
I split this phase into Research, Design and Test sub phases. I know many indian forumites argue that LCA only started in 1993 when the governemnt sanctioned the money to make test planes. But I don't want to struggle on the definition of a project's beginning. In my view, all projects have similar phases starting from Initiation. We need to examine all of them to have a complete view.
I put the Indian Aero industry as the main responsible entity for this phase.
A. Research sub-phase
This is roughly between 1983 to late 80s.
Verdict: not too bad. I don't see many negative news or evidences in this phase. Most modern plane projects take this amount of time or event longer to finish this stage. But, problems and delays showed up in the later stages indicate that this step's works may not be deep enough to reveal all the uncertainties and critical difficulties.
B. Design sub-phase
This is from late 80s to 1993 (when the design was freezed).
Verdict: Good, even compared to any other countries' projects. The project progressed relatively smooth and fast, although arguablely people may say afterwards that it'd better to spend longer time to review the design and the required technical preparations.
C. Test build and trial sub-phase
This is from 1993 till now.
Verdict: Delayed significantly, Problems and grey areas hidden in the previous stages starting to be exposed but not managed very well.
This is the stage that got most critics for:
a. Maiden Flight took 5 years (1996-2001) to happen after the first planse rolled off the assembly line in 1996. I put US sanction as the main reason behind it. But it still highlights management problems, because the santion was triggered by India's own nuke test action. LCA was not prepared for it.
b. Then since 2001's maiden flight, the test flight process is progressing very slow, comparing to most other similar projects. I put the project management as the main reason for these problems. The most quoted arguements are:
1) IAF changes requirments. But sorry, this is normal in any projects' development and happens a lot. That's exactly the management team's job to negotiate and to reach a new agreed plan. Then once the IAF's new requirements are accepted, you only got yourself to be blamed for any unplanned delays.
2) "You fans don't konw how difficult it is to do this or do that in LCA". This question should really be raised to the LCA management rather than to fans, especially Indian tax payers. The management are the ones who really need to know the answer. But unfortunetely they seem to have a problem here, otherwise they wouldn't come up with all the unrealistic deadlines repeatedly. Seriously, I believe the management team do know the challenges, if not 100%. But the worring thing is, (only to Indians), they still keep on giving out deadlines that can not be met. Has anyone cross checked the new "To happen" list in the AFM's March or April issue?
3) IAF does not drive, push or support the project enough. This is a typical excuse. ADA or DRDO are not 5-year old boys who needs somebody to kick
tail to do things. This R&D phase is mainly in their court. Also, frankly speaking, compared to many other countries's project, IAF and Indian government's support have been very strong if not among the strongest. It would've been cancelled in many other countries;On the contrary, IAF has ordered 20 LCAs when LCA only clocked 700 flights and no radar and weapon in flights yet. That's really a huge show of support. It's really up to the whole project team to return the favour with a speedy progress.
4) Not enough fund. This is an understandable excuse for delays in the 90s. But it's not a good one for the repeated delays in the recent years. At the end of the day, you need to give the governement a realistic figure for the required fund, if you know what you are doing. That's exactly the management's job.
Now, in the last 1 or 2 years, I start to see good signs of improvements, e.g. collaberation with external helps, decisions on using mature foreign critial sub components (e.g. engine, radar and weapons) to get block 0 ready ASAP, eventhough they should've been done 10 years ago.
Unless new deadlines are declared, I am waiting to see when the full flight envelop is tested, when the basic radar and weapon integrated tests finish, when the first LCA is handed to IAF's airbase AND when the first squadron of LCA is formed, which I believe is 2010. That will mark the complettion of the R&D phase.
C. Production and Operation phase
This phase is scheduled to start in 2010 and will last to the final days of LCA.
Obviously no verdict yet, especially this is mostly an unknown stage. But looking at any other projects, the first 5-10 years can be quite a hectic period: LCA will be built and used by average joe blokes. The LCA team needs to have a very very proactive and "never say die" attitude because LCA may be the most critisied plane in IAF intitially. Strong nerve, will and attitude are needed to pass that stage.
D. Upgrade and Finalisation phase
No date lines. No Verdicts.
A relevant question is that whether LCA will be obsolete in the next decade. I really don't think so.
1) Techinically speaking LCA has most of the 4th gen features comparable to others, when it's finished. 2) 4th gen fighters will be in service with all countries beyond 2030 baring USA.
So generally speaking, LCA won't be obsolete in the next decade at least. The ideas of jumping directly to UACV because LCA is not on time and obsolete is too naive. You don't use an even more unerealistic idea to replace something you think is not realistic.
Having said that, there's quite a chance that LCA will be the last 4th gen fighter entering service. That will put extra burden on the upgrade works planned for LCA. This will be especially true after 2020 when early 4th gen fighters are comfortabely going into retirement. LCA's upgrade plans will be under lots of spotlights again after 2025-2030 because most other planes may be either retired or on final life caring support.
So, LCA's upgrade needs to be planned and started very early, otherwise last runner of a marathon usually recieves special attensions.
To summarise, From India's aero industry's point of view, what India has achieved in the LCA project is quite impressive, especially when you consider from where they started the development. But from IAF's point of view or just looking at the project itself, it has many problems and it's yet to prove the project's success.
Put it this way, a project is like a soccer match, if you can't reach your goal in 90 mins, you failed no matter how much individual briliance you showed up here or there during the match. of course, if LCA can't be inducted in 2010, I'd say there's still a 30 min extra time. After 2015, it will be penalty shoot out if no sudden death allowed
Anyway, just some thoughts. I do welcome comments and critics, but no simple one liners please.
