When India’s Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), > Tejas, was finally inducted into the Indian Air Force (IAF), two things seemed remarkable. One was that only a couple of the planes, over a dozen short of a full squadron, had actually been delivered to the IAF, and this too 22 years after the first was originally supposed to have been handed over, thus exuding a faint air of anachronism. The other was discernible only to the LCA cognoscenti: the bird which had been handed over was probably only the 20th LCA to have been made by the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). The question arises: how soon can HAL deliver more and in what numbers?
It is not as if the two Tejases that have been delivered have been fitted with the weapon systems they are supposed to carry and have got full operational clearance and are squadron-ready. Probably not: it will take more than two Tejases to make a squadron. HAL is certainly not about to spit out these planes a squadron at a time so we have them flying sorties in the same numbers as we had MiGs, or anywhere near that number, in a hurry. According to available reports, two more will join in about a month.
Not stealthy enough Coincidentally, about a couple of weeks before the Tejases roll-out, another fighter plane, the Gripen E, made by the Swedish company Saab, that had been in development for almost the same span of time, was being hailed in Europe. It is a plane that can carry more fuel, heavier weapons payload, and is easily more versatile than Tejas, on a platform that is already proven. Tejas is not quite there, yet. Air force test pilots who have flown the plane gush that its control harmony is really good, but the radar, the gunsights? They may have been good enough for the late nineties, possibly even in the early 2000s, but the fact remains that the Tejas is not a fifth-generation fighter jet. People who have seen the plane grow baby legs, and metamorphose with compound delta wings and take flight, say that if push comes to shove, it could possibly be a four-and-a-quarter generation fighter jet at the most. Although it presents a smaller cross section than the MiG-29, it is hardly stealthy enough. Our nanoscience and material science may not be quite there yet. But all that is a matter of fine-tuning, and now may be the time to clearly count the blessings.
The plane designers say that other than the Gnat, the Tejas has the highest number of components per cubic metre, and accessibility of the parts is like a dream. Designers claim operability and maintainability have been kept dead centre. The digital avionics architecture and modular software, where the possibility of upgrades is inbuilt, will keep the Tejas from going extinct. Unlike MiGs, Jaguars and Mirages which have more than 12,000 components, the Tejas has about 6,000; the lesser the components the easier the maintenance. According to the folklore, it took three days for a MiG-21 engine to be taken out of the aircraft. The Tejas engine comes off in less than 15 minutes. You could time it. It might be a bit of a sales pitch but even if it took an hour, it says something for Tejas. As in an F1 pit stop, the Tejas can get back into action fast enough, almost without missing a beat. The flight control system is designed for not more than one failure in a million. In the case of Gripen, the very first prototype crashed, but on the other hand it has been in squadron service for over a decade, all the while when Tejas was struggling to get off the drawing board.
Cart ahead of the horse The designers say Tejas is a multirole fighter aircraft. One test variant even had an additional seat — that only ate into the fuel capacity. Tejas is missile-capable and once it is airborne can detect and shoot down enemy targets 120 km away; it can give close air support to the Army; it can do combat air patrol for six hours if refuelled in air; it can do deep penetration roles day and night and in all weather; it has been tested to operate in Ladakh; it can carry nuclear weapons if necessary. For the end users, some of this might sound too much like a brochure. They might limit this scope rather more modestly: Flying three or four squadron operation sorties every summer day in Jaisalmer or winter night in Ladakh will not be the same as test-flying a plane. What has happened in the case of Tejas is that the cart has sort of been placed slightly ahead of the horse. A plane is inducted after full operational clearances have been given. Once the squadron exists, it is all systems go. There will be niggles and the user will use it differently, more rigorously. Also a flight line is not like a car production conveyor belt, and HAL which has produced the HF-24 (Marut), Kiran jet trainer, the Gnat in hundreds, the Advanced Light Helicopter, the bedding down process of the Tejas where the niggles are sorted out could take longer than is being forecast, and that includes product team support and infrastructure at the place of ultimate deployment. (The first prototype flew in January 2001, the second took off a year later). It is going to take some time before we have the first full squadron of Tejas operating from some Air Force tarmac. If the present parameters persist, it would be not much more than half a dozen Tejases a year or so. At that speed, both obsolescence and threat perceptions may prove more dynamic than the rate at which the Tejas is produced.
sudarshan.v@thehindu.co.in
