India could develop 5 Tejas fighter Jets in 35 years while Pakistan developed 105 JF 17 fighter jets in a decade: Report
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ISLAMABAD- India has been struggling to develop the Tejas fighter jet for last 35 years that too with the help of Russia while Pakistan has developed its indigenous fighter jet JF 17 within a span of 15 years.
India could only induct 5 Tejas fighter jets while Pakistan has developed 105 JF 17 in last one decade.
After being critical of the Tejas fighter jets for last 35 years, the Indian Air Force <link>has now agreed to induct as many as 324 indigenously developed light combat aircraft (LCA), reports said on Thursday.
The induction of 324 Tejas fighter jets will make up for the IAF's depleting number of squadron strength.
The IAF has, for years, maintained that the Tejas jets are not combat-ready even after three decades of development given its limited range.
However, the Indian Air Force has now committed to buy at least123 Tejas fighter jets at the cost of Rs 75,000 crore from the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL).
The IAF, however, demands that the Tejas Mark II jets should be entirely “new fighters” with “better avionics, radars, enhanced weapons carrying capacity and powerful engines”.
“The Tejas Mark-II is still on the drawing board. But if DRDO, Aeronautical Development Agency and Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd deliver the required Mark-II fighter, IAF has agreed to have a total of 18 Tejas squadrons,” a highly-placed source was quoted as saying by the Times of India.
According to report, the IAF has already issued the request for proposal (RFP) to the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) for the acquisition of 83 fighters which are scheduled to join the IAF from 2019-20 after completion of Final Operational Clearance (FOC) contract for 20 Tejas jests.
The existing single-engine Tejas has limited “endurance” of just an hour, with a “radius of action” of only 350-400-km and weapon-carrying capacity of 3-tonne. While the other single-engine fighters such as Swedish Gripen-E have triple the endurance and double the weapon-carrying capacity.
IAF's readiness to buy more LCA jets is based on its assessment that buying and inducting expensive foreign fighters “in large numbers” is simply not an option.
