Media's dirty crusade against indigenous weapons part 1 - LCA Tejas

Many a time media behaves like the Bikini  of a woman. What it shows is suggestive but what it conceals is vital. Needless to say, a perception based upon such selective information is farther from truth than Pluto is from Sun.

For many years, some sections of the Indian media have been spitting venom against the indigenous Indian weapons, thereby, creating a very skewed and a false image of the same. The purpose of this article is to bring forward the facts about indigenous weapons, which are often not mentioned (deliberately or inadvertently) in the articles emanating from the mainstream Indian media.

In a series of three articles, I shall discuss in detail:
(1). Light Combat Aircraft (also known as Tejas)
(2) Arjun Main BattleTanks
(3) INSAS Small Arms


Light Combat Aircraft (Tejas):
In modern times, the outcome of a war depends largely upon the strength of a nation's Air Force. Stronger is it's Air Force, more are it's chances of winning the war. Therefore, in order to enjoy a superiority over Pakistan and maintain a balance with China, it is imperative for India to pay lot of attention towards strengthening it's Air Force.

India embarked upon the development of  LCA Tejas with the aim of replacing the ageing Mig 21 fighter Aircrafts. Today LCA is all set to add some teeth to the fire power of the Indian Air  Force. However, many people consider LCA to be a failure and have a very negative perception about this bird. So it's time, some one pooh-poohs the propaganda pertaining to this lean and the mean fighting machine.

LCA Tejas -The lethal machine

Propaganda No 1: LCA is an ordinary aircraft and hence it poses no threat to India's adversaries:
Before the advent of LCA, India's experience of designing & manufacturing fighter aircraft had been limited  to HAL Marut, which is now a vintage plane. Moreover, right since it's inception, LCA was branded as the replacement of the MIG 21. A combination of both these facts often given an impression to some people that LCA is just as good (or only a slightly better) aircraft than the MIG 21. However, there is not an iota of truth in such a notion. LCA shall indeed be replacing MIG 21, but it's a different class of fighter altogether. Comparing LCA with MIG 21 is akin to comparing the present day smart mobile phones with the basic telephone sets of yesteryears.

LCA is a 4th/4.5th generation, state of the art multi role fighter aircraft with extremely advanced features. LCA is the smallest fighter Aircraft of the world and bulk of its airframe is made out of composites, as a result of which, it has very low RCS (Radar Cross Section)*. The lower RCS of LCA reduces its detectability by enemy radars. This means that in a war scenario, the pilot of LCA will be able to detect his adversaries and hence fire missiles at them, much before they will be able to detect his aircraft. This aspect of LCA will do wonders to its survivability and kill ratio during a war. Moreover, LCA has a very powerful radar which is a hybrid of Israel's Elta 2032 and India's MMR. LCA Mark II shall come with even a more powerful AESA radar. Finally, the avionics of LCA  uses the open architecture concept which would enable hassle free hardware and software upgrades in future, and would thus ensure that LCA does not become obsolete for a long- long time.  Apart from these, LCA has a plethora of other features that make it one of the most advanced and lethal fighter Aircrafts of its class.

Comparing fighter aircrafts is a very difficult task. However, looking at the features of LCA, it would not be an exaggeration to state that LCA shall be able to rub its shoulder with any fighter Aircraft that Pakistan or China has in its arsenal at the moment. The only drawback of LCA is its limited range and payload. But then, the Indian Air Force does not even want LCA to go deep inside Pakistan or China and act as a bomber. That role shall be taken by SU 30 MKI and in future by the fifth generation FGFA. LCA has been developed for specific roles such as point defence (thwarting the attack of enemy aircrafts on Indian property), Combat Air Support or Combat Air Patrol in a Kagil like situation etc. And in all these roles, LCA fully meets the requirements of the Indian Air Force.


Propaganda No 2: It took India a long time to develop LCA:
Many critics of LCA often use the term 'Late Combat Aircraft' for LCA and point out that it took India more than 25 years to design LCA! However, such an argument is absolutely baseless. Work on LCA started in the year 1990. Before that LCA was merely a drawing room aircraft! Infact full scale funding for the LCA project was released as late as 1993. And within nearly 17 years of the funds being released, LCA is all set to receive its IOC (Initial Operation Clearance) within hours of this article being published.

It is also worth mentioning that despite France's decades of experience in the field of designing and manufacturing fighter Aircrafts, it took Rafale nearly 16 years to enter service! Even Eurofighter entered service after nearly 17 years of its first test flight!

One must also remember that most of the fighter Aircrafts like the American F 22, Chinese J 10 or European Eurofighter have met with unfortunate accident during their flight tests. However, LCA has had an impeccable safety record as of now. One needs to understand that extra precautions with respect to safety also lead to some delays.

Taking into considerations all the above mentioned facts, and keeping in mind the American sanctions post the Pokharan blast, which delayed the LCA  project by few years,  for a country which had very little experience in designing a Fighter Aircraft, a time line of 17 years is nothing short of an achievement.

LCA at LEH. If the internet rumours are to be believed then unlike LCA, some birds of the MMRCA competition could not clear their LEH flight test. 

Propaganda No 3: LCA should not be called indigenous:
Some people argue that since LCA uses an American engine and a partly Israeli radar, so it is not right to state that LCA is an indigenous fighter aircraft. However, these people people forget that even the Chinese J F 17 uses a Russian engine, and the Swedish Gripen which is one of the contenders of the Indian MMRCA competition also uses an American engine. So don't we call them Chinese and Swedish aircrafts respectively? If yes, then why this step motherly attitude towards LCA?


Indirect benefits of the LCA project:
Apart from the direct benefit of providing the country with a very lethal aircraft, the LCA project has many indirect benefits as well. The experience gained during the LCA project helped India modify the SU 30 from Russia into SU 30 MKI - arguably the then second best fighter aircraft of the world after the F 22 of USA. It has also helped us in upgrading various other aircrafts in the arsenal of the Indian Air Force. India's expertise in the field of composites (gained during the LCA project) shall help us in designing the FGFA (the fifth generation fighter aircraft being developed by India in collaboration with Russia). Finally, the overall experience of the LCA project shall act as the baby steps for many  future projects, the first of which is AMCA** - India's indigenous fifth generation fighter aircraft.

Conceptual design of AMCA-India's indigenous 5th generation fighter aircraft

Final words:
Casting aside all the apprehensions that were raised on the LCA program, Tejas (as LCA is better known as) is about to get its IOC in few hours from now. At this juncture my heart goes out to every individual involved in the LCA program who burnt midnight candles, let go off their holidays, worked at a meagre salary in comparison to their counterparts from many other countries, faced acute criticism and pressure from the media and yet continued to work towards the success of this project!  The only words which I can think for these wonderful men and women with a never say die spirit are - Jai Hind.

*(RCS is the amount of radar waves reflected back by an object. It is used to measure the detectability of a an object with a radar. Lower is the RCS, lower are the chances of the object being detected by a radar). 


**(At this moment, F 22 of USA is the only operational fifth generation fighter aircraft of the world)




Related reading:
(1). Website on LCA Tejas
(2). Wikipedia's article on LCA Tejas
(3). J F 17 not as advanced as LCA - Nawaz Sharif
(4). Tejas MK 2 will incorporate 5 Gen fighter elements
(5). Tejas cockpit will be a pilot's delight
(6). Pictures of the roll out ceremony of Naval LCA


Video on LCA Tejas: