Originally posted by Karthik1981
You know there was another fighter bomber Aircraft called HAL Marut in the 1960's. That fighter jet had a similar problem of being underpowered.
I will blame it on IAF, because, their Top-Brass never specify the Optimum power level they are looking at for an engine.
Yea well I have to disagree unless you give me proof in that particular case. Now I don't mean documented evidence, whitepapers, articles etc..
But you cannot make claims based on nothing but analogies to your situation.
You are right about the a/c being underpowered, wouldn't get off the ground nearly on full load. I can't see how an aircraft T/W ratio is something
that is too hard to figure out. When you build an a/c, you KNOW its ferry weight, and so unless the IAF demanded a substandard T/W or decided to
overload it later on. The HF-24 is a fighter bomber, so I rest my case.
Moreover, I have heard personal accounts of lowly fighter pilots (people who will not get any % of any $ deals) who claimed that EVERY single Marut
was a different plane. Instrumentation, dials etc. ; nothing was the same in every aircraft and this proved to be a maintenance nightmare for IAF
ground crew. I've heard of instances where instrument parts have to custom remade/ re-fitted to fit the plane.
And then we have the straight up screw ups: Tools left in the innards of planes sent to HAL for upgrades (real example of a Jaguar DARIN upgrade,
instrumentation failures in bomb wiring fuses causing detonation on wing point (loss of plane and pilot).
They have vested interests.
The scientists in DRDO proposed development of every IP Core from the scratch in their own premises. but the Top Officials ridiculed the
scientists.
especially ASDSP and USB 2.0 OTG and JTAGs.
The Top Officials simply suffocated the development, now you would want to know why?>
Well this is more of a chicken and egg problem. Can they develop those cores to the same specs and quality that are available in the intl market?
And even if they are not, then its fair to invest in the generation of that capability, in order to produce a self sufficient military industry.
Answer: Foreign companies if provide alternate solutions, the lobby masters will get 10-15% which easily sum up as 2000,000-3000,000 INR per
lobby-master. These masters own 200 Acres of Land on an average, they run educational institutes. Some even became one of the biggest service
providers for the defence organizations.
Yea, but what are you going to do about that? Defence procurement, expensive as it is, is rife with corruption and slush funds and the likes. Anywhere
in the world.
The big defence companies in the world as where they are today because they got a free hand in investment from their host countries at opportune times
like hot wars, cold wars, proxy wars. At times when countries could not depend on foreign sources. Wars of survival. Wars of attrition. And in these
times, certain countries made their scientists and technicians work under lock and key, under threat of harm to self or family. And EVERYONE did that:
the west, the east, the facists, the racists etc. etc.
That is where the real progress was made. India or Indians have never worked in that kind of pressure.
There is another variable here. The fact that countries like India are playing catchup in technology. That robs them of the luxury of giving a blank
cheque to their local establishments because time and money to build a credible defence are painfully short.
However, one cannot solely depend foreign material, and so a balance has to be maintained and it can shift towards homegrown as it plays catch up with
the rest.
That is why pilots fly underpowered homegrown jets, ground crews retrofit design flaws, and people give their lives because of screwups.
The point you make about people skimming off the big defence deals is true, but those people are always going to be there.
When the HALs and DRDOs become all powerful and technologically adept in the future, when the become world players: they will have people that will
also skim off the top or bribe the decision makers in a competitive bid; say in another country like Indonesia (e.g.), and thus cripple the local
industries there competing in that bid.
So what you complain off is inevitable. It can be controlled by RFIs, Media pressure etc etc., but it will always be there.
