India’s next-gen stealth fighter, the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA), just got a massive push from the government with Defence Minister Rajnath Singh clearing an execution model for the jet’s design and development.
On this episode of In Our Defence, veteran defence journalist Sandeep Unnithan breaks down what this means for the future of Indian airpower, how private players like Tata and L&T could shape the aircraft production ecosystem, and what role the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited is likely to play.
Sandeep also decodes the different generations of fighter aircraft, detailing what makes a fifth-generation jet stand out from the current crop of Indian Air Force jets such as the Rafales, Tejas, Sukhois and Mirages, among others.
The episode also features a discussion on India’s attempts to develop its own fighter jet engine and how that quest -- unsuccessful so far -- becomes all the more important for the AMCA.
Produced by Prateek Lidhoo
Sound mix by Rohan Bharti
On this episode of In Our Defence, veteran defence journalist Sandeep Unnithan breaks down what this means for the future of Indian airpower, how private players like Tata and L&T could shape the aircraft production ecosystem, and what role the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited is likely to play.
Sandeep also decodes the different generations of fighter aircraft, detailing what makes a fifth-generation jet stand out from the current crop of Indian Air Force jets such as the Rafales, Tejas, Sukhois and Mirages, among others.
The episode also features a discussion on India’s attempts to develop its own fighter jet engine and how that quest -- unsuccessful so far -- becomes all the more important for the AMCA.
Produced by Prateek Lidhoo
Sound mix by Rohan Bharti
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is India Today Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hello and Welcome to Another Defense, a weekly podcast on
all things well defense, where I They've go Swami, your host,
along with senior journalist Shivarur, break down the world of
conflicts that range from the subtle to the brutal. We
bring you nuances and perspectives that will inform and at
times provoke. This is in our Defense. Welcome to Another Defense.
(00:31):
This week, India's quest to design and develop its own
true blue Indian fifth generation fighter jet got a big
push with the government clearing what's what they what they
call the execution model. The way I see it, that's
just a term I think they used to sort of
say that the roadmap of how this project will now
go forward in terms of who will be involved for
(00:53):
designing and developing this fighter jet that has been sort
of cleared by defense Manstrajna saying this clearance comes around
on a year after the Cabinet Committee on Security cleared
piece fifteen thousand corore for this project. That money will
be used to design and develop, if I'm not wrong,
on five prototypes of what is known as the AMKA,
the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft. Very very crucially, the statement
(01:17):
on the execution model. Clearance sort of opened this project
up for the private sector, allowing the private sector to
enter territory that was previously the sole domain of the
Hindustan a tax limited a state owned aerospace company. So
why is this such a big deal? What is the AMCA?
(01:38):
Can the AMCA even see the light of day without
India being able to develop its own fighter jet engine.
We're going to be discussing this and a lot more
on this episode and for that I have sandipunan Y.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Thanks for being with me, Hi there, thanks for having
me back.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Sandy, before we begin, tell me, if, if, if I
would be wrong to say that the length of your
career has sort of spanned the exact time in India's
quest to develop its own fighter jet. Not the AMCA,
but whether it's atages Mark one A and so on
and so forth. So you probably have seen this from
(02:13):
maybe the time you started off as an intern somewhere
to now where you've finished around thirty years covering the
world of defense and you've seen this project.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
That's an interesting way to frame that question today, but yeah,
you know it is. You know, aviation is a very
very time intensive business and it's taken the rest of
the Western world decades to each where they are today
in the way they've designed their own engines and they're
making their fifth and even sixth generation fighter aircraft. In
(02:45):
our case, we began this journey well in the sixties
with the Maruts, which we abandoned in the seventies because
of the engine worries, and then we restarted that, we
rebooted the program. I would say that with the light
combat aircraft in nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
So it's around the time that I entered journalism, which
was in the nineties, the light combat aircraft started to
get developed, and you saw the first glimmer of hope
when finally in two thousand and one, the LCA finally flew.
But that's you know, it's more than twenty five years
now the LCAs entered squad in service, and the Mark
(03:21):
one A hopefully should be entering the Air Force in
large numbers.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Before we get into the ANCA. And why this statement
on the exhibution models was significant. I want to actually
first get you to decode this generation confusion that I have.
It's like, you know, understanding Gen Alpha, Gen Z millennials,
it's sort of like that for me when you have
generation four, Generation four point five, Generation five, and very interestingly,
(03:49):
by the event, this is something that missed my RADA.
In February when the when a full scale display model
of the AMCA was put up at the Aero India Shore,
there was a PIB press release on that in which
they called it five point five. So I want to understand,
what are these different aircraft generations? Yeah, and how do
you end up putting a particular aircraft in one particular slot.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Well, yeah, interesting question they've you know, given the fact
that you're talking about a fifth generation fighter aircraft. Now,
these generations are used to refer to fighter jets, which
began to be introduced beginning in the closing stages of
the Second World War. That is when you saw the
first first generation fighter jets entering squad in service, the
(04:32):
two six two Schwalb that the Germans produced and of
course the Gloucester Meteor. These are the first two fighter
jets to enter squad in service. And then you had
the Vietnam War, well south the Korean War before that
in the fifties, where you had the first fighter jets
actually that you know dueled in the skies over Korea
(04:53):
where you had the Meek fifteens and then later the
Meek seventeens, and you had the eighty six Saber jets.
Those were the second generation, you know, fighter jets. Vietnam
War you saw possibly the third generation of fighter jets,
which were bigger, which had more combat.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Endurance, you know, larger payloads.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
And this continued till the seventies when you saw what
you have today in most air forces of the world.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
I mean, we of course.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Operate some third generation modified aircraft the mid twenty ones.
It's probably one of the last of those air forces
operating the mid twenty ones. But then you had in
the seventies the fourth generation fighter aircraft coming in, which
was primarily the F fourteens, F fifteenths, the Sukhoi twenty sevens,
the mid twenty nine These are all fourth generation aircraft.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
But somewhere in the.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Late nineties you began this a lot of countries started
going towards what is called the fifth generation fighter aircrafts,
which is basically a generation jump over the fourth generation.
So if you look at the third and fourth generations
aircraft didn't have you know, a very big gap between them,
you know, but in terms of capabilities and whether it's
(05:59):
ordinary capability stealth, Now, stealth was very important. That was
the X factor in all of these fifth generation aircraft
that started to be developed in the late nineties on.
And the United States of course, was way ahead of
the curve when they developed two fifth generation aircraft F
twenty two and the F thirty five, and of course
the Russians followed suit, but the Chinese caught up rather quickly.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
So you have fifth.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
Generation aircraft which have stealth is the most important characteristic,
and you have supercrews, which is the ability to fly
at extended supersonic speeds without firing your after burners, and
a whole lot of other capabilities like sense of fusion
and those kinds of things, very advanced electronics and communications
and data links and all of that. So it's primarily
(06:45):
the United States that's way ahead of the world in
fifth generation fighters. The Chinese are catching up. They have
two fifth generation fighter aircraft in squad and service, and
they have a sixth generation working on two sixth generation
pro types as well. The Russians have, you know, been
a little slope because of primarily resource constraints, technology constraints.
(07:09):
They've built a SOO fifty seven, which a lot of
people argue is not a true fifth generation fighter aircraft.
It has certain limitations. But we have been in the game.
They've from around two thousand and eight or nine when
we began the quest for a fifth generation fighter aircraft
with the AMCA, which you mentioned, the Advanced Medium Combat
Aircraft program, which is still we've only seen a prototype.
(07:33):
We've only seen, you know, a model model, a scale model.
We yet to see a prototype, I must clarify. And
we are in twenty twenty five. We're still a decade
away from getting these planes into service. So it's a dream.
It's been in the pipeline for very long. And you know,
we are wrestling with a lot of issues. I mean,
(07:55):
squad in numbers, we are yet to even get Gen
four and Gen four point five fighter jets. So the
fifth generation is a is a little way down the line.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Yeah, so it's better on the line, but it's happening,
and I think India is solidly behind the idea that
it's gonna at at some point end up developing its
own fifth generation fighter jet, and it does not does
not want to depend on foreign supplies for obvious reasons.
The very significant thing of the government statement that came
(08:29):
out a couple of days ago was that it did
not mention Hindusanatics Limited even once. Now that's strange because
in media headlines you can do a basic Google search,
you will always see this term HAL because it was
always believed it was a given kban I got to HL,
(08:49):
and I'm guessing people within the h also believe that,
which is probably why what is happening is happening. So
the statement basically says a consortion come together. It can
be public companies, it can be private companies. So basically
Halsale has has has has a way in into this project.
But what the government is saying is that we will
take it on merits. Whoever since the best bid, whoever
(09:12):
seems the most competent, whoever gives the promises the best timeline,
and perhaps you know is realistic enough in terms of
what they're offering and what they're proposing, they'll get the
contract to design and develop this generation fighter chat. I
want your overview of how did we reach how long
was it coming uh, and whether what's happened in the
(09:33):
last couple of years with respect to delays of the
Danges Mark one a UH and the grounding of the
Droove helicopters after a series of crashes that took raise UH.
In both cases there have been fingers pointed at HL Withdrew.
There have been allegations, very very very quiet though, that
(09:53):
DHL was not very receptive to feedback from the Air Forces,
that from the forces that were using through helicopters in
terms of some technical issues that they felt the helicopters
had and with tages, even though HL said it was
a supply chain issue, there has been questions about what
was hl's role itself in terms of the delays to
taches mark my name. The reason I say that and
mentioned that is just this morning before we recorded this,
(10:15):
Air Force Chief Air Marshal Singh wasn't it at an
event where he gave a very nice quote where he said,
once a timeline is given. Sorry, he said, timeline is
a big issue. Not a single project that I can
think of has been completed on time. That's a huge statement.
And then he went on to say that at times
while signing the contract, we are sure it is not
(10:37):
going to come up on time. So yes, and the
your overview of how did we reach a point where
hl which so far thy sault setting, but.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Absolutely their fight for it.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
But but you know, they didn't mention the other fight
which is actually the Blackstone event in the middle of
all this, which is Operations Sindur. Yes, and that is
the Blackstone event. That's actually I think it's accelerated a
whole lot of programs. It's changed mindsets also in the
government because you know, they finally you have a political
(11:15):
leadership that understands airpower. And it's very significant because you know,
if you look at the way airpar has been used
since nineteen forty seven nineteen sixty two, you had Prime
Minister Nehru not authorizing the use of airparw because he
was afraid of escalating the conflict, whereas there are people
who are arguing now with the benefit of hindsight of course,
(11:38):
that had the Indian Air Force been deployed, then the
outcome of the sixty two war would have been entirely different.
You know, we had a far superior air force than
the Chinese Air Force at that time, which was their
fighter jets were grounded because the Soviets had pulled out
of their cooperation, so you could have recovered lost ground
in nineteen sixty two. Now you jump to seventy one,
(11:59):
perfect X book application of airpower, no questions, no debates.
You come to nineteen ninety nine, where again the government
of the day is very restrained in the use of
air power, where the Prime Minister says, you can use
the air Force, but do not cross the LC whereas
the Air Force said, look, this is not the way
to use airpower. Air power means you have to you
(12:21):
cannot draw a line of control in the sky, right,
you have to go across the border. But now what
you're seeing in the last five years is a better
understanding of airpower with this government. Six years to be precise,
twenty nineteen when Balacote used, I have fighter jets for
the first time crossing over into Pakistan, bombing one terror camp,
one mission, one target. And in twenty twenty five, of course,
(12:45):
operations in the multi phase multi level escalation where air
force is used as coursive airpower for the first time
since nineteen seventy one, and also prior to that in
twenty twenty, when China mobilizes opposite Ladak, you have the
Indian Air Force going in right away, and I was
there on the ground. I saw those fighter jets landing
in lay a big understanding of airpar on the part
(13:09):
of this government. So operations in there, I feel, is
that black swan event that will really reshape the way
airpower is understood, air assets are looked at. The Air
Force is going to be taken very, very seriously from now.
Not that it wasn't earlier, but now you've actually seen
a demonstration of airpower.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
You've seen the way the.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
IF fighter jets standof attacks precision strikes on eleven thirteen targets,
nine targets taken out on the first day of counter terrors.
You know, missions in conjunct with the Indian Army, of course,
but the tenth of may belonged entirely to the Indian
Air Force. So I think a lot of how the
(13:52):
government is going to react is going to be shaped
by the events of Operations INDO and the fact that
the IFS requirement for fighter aircraft, stealthy fighter aircraft is
going to be top priority now on. So while earlier
it was a given that HL would be the default
setting when it came to productionizing the AMCA, it's no
longer the case because there's been a considerable discussion within
(14:17):
the government and the points that you made a Chief
Marshall Apcing's criticism of the HL. There are other service
chiefs also who believe that HL has not been delivering
as promised. So there's a lot of angst within the services,
among the service chiefs about hal's ability to deliver as promised.
(14:37):
So they're saying that, look, give the private sector a chance,
you know, bring them also on board, create competition. You
can't have a monopoly of aircraft production and helicopter production.
HL is loaded with work, you know, they have multiple
fighter jet programs to deliver on. They have the LCA
(14:58):
Mark one A, they have the Mark two and of
course many other helicopter programs as so they have a
lot of orders. They're not short of orders. It's not
that you take the Amka away from them, they're going
to stop functioning or they'll go into bankruptcy. They have
plenty of orders. There is an order for a possible
program for the Sukhoi thirty upgrade right which is something
(15:19):
we should have started working on twenty years ago, which
we did. But that's possibly a discussion for another day.
But you know, here the services, in their wisdom, have
looked at different models. The government also has been looking
at different models, and I can only think of the
Advanced Technology Vessel, the Nuclear submarine project, you know, everything
(15:41):
would have suggested that Mazagon Docs be given the contract
to build submarines because they were the only shipyard that
had the ability to be you know, build submarines at
that time, smaller subs. Of course, they'd built two German submarines,
but the government brought in Larsen and to Brow as
the main partner to actually fabricate the press hulls of
the nuclear submarines. And today you have four submarines for
(16:04):
your four nuclear submarines over six thousand tons displacement in
the water to commission to be commissioned in the next
year or two huge program possibly our most complex defense
programs platforms as well. So here you're looking at the
government possibly looking at another model like this one, like
the Arihant class, the ATV project, where you'll have the
(16:26):
private sector either working in competition with or in cooperation
with the public sector. Hall is not completely out of
the race, right, They're still there, but it's not a
guarantee order for them, they will have to compete with
Larsan and two Bro, They'll have to compete with Tassel,
Tata Advanced Systems Limited, all of these private sector players
(16:48):
and whoever gets gives the best bid wins. So it's
it's a sense of the government bringing in competition into
the aviation space military aviation space.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
But of course the dice is heavily loaded in hl's favor.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Right they have plant, machinery, train, manpower, all of that. Right,
they have facilities in Mara Shrine in Bengaluru, of course,
it's in the news last couple of days. And of
course Cora put in Orisha where they make the fighter
jet engine. So you're looking at a behemoth. HL is
a behemoth. It's a public sector behemoth, of course, and
(17:24):
you have the private sector saying, hey, give us a chance.
Tatas has been building up very slowly over the last
fifteen years. They've started small, and today they're in a
position where're you know, actually assembling major aircraft, transport aircraft,
not fighter jets, of course, but for them to make
that leap again, they will have to the government will
have to take that leap of faith with them, whether
(17:46):
TASEL actually has hesit in them to deliver a fifth
generation fighter aircraft. So it's a very complicated program and
you know, as you mentioned, it's not so much about
the technology, it's about the model as well. While that
statement from the Defense Minister is welcome, we've still not
got a lot of clarity on how they're going to
(18:06):
go about it. For instance, who's going to allocate workshare
if there is a partnership. If there is say the
government says, look, we want HL to make the AMCA
in partnership with TASSEL, But then who decides the work
allocation because the tatas will say, look, I don't want
to work with HL, that that is a possibility, right,
I want to have this work share, and you know so,
(18:29):
And they will not trust Defense Ministry because HL is
a Defense Ministry child, right, it's a child of the
Department of Defense Production. So there are arguments that they're
very strong arguments being made for the NSAYS Office to
be brought in. The National Security Council Secretary at NSCs
should be the body that will actually be a neutral
(18:52):
judge who will decide who gets the work share, how
this program is to move. It's an extremely complicated program,
as I mean, and not just for the technology reasons,
the fact that you need this kind of cutting edge
technology to be developed in the platform itself, with the stealth,
with a super cruise, with your in you know, your
(19:13):
weapon base, sense of fusion, all of these cutting edge technologies.
You have to develop it in parallel with this conundrum
of public sector and private sector. So it's it is
a kind of challenges that is going to make the
LCA look like a walk in the park, and it is.
And to add to all of this, you have your
(19:34):
two front war threat where you have China which has
what three hundred plus fifth generation fighters, which would very
happily transfer forty of them to the Pakistan Air Force
to put us on tenter hooks. So it is a
very very complicated set of you know, problems, and the
AMCA is flying straight into this heavy weather if it
(19:56):
actually manages to fly in the timelines that we envisage
it to.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
I very like your point a lot, the one you
said right now that this is more than just developing
this advanced fighter jet about sort of. It's like, you know,
because for so many years you've had this set system
of how things work in India when it comes to
production of aviation equipment for for defense for the military. Uh.
And now you're trying to sort of, you know, shake
(20:22):
that up and bring in new people and bringing new
players and bring in a new way of working WORKSHAP
allocation like you said that sort of like you know,
makes me. It reminds me of the time you know,
I used to make the roster for my team and
have those this device right.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
How is HL taking the statement that came out from
from from the government And the reason I asked that
is uh for somebody who's been doing this podcast for
around two and a half years now, Uh, and has
the benefit of having had having chatted with defense journalists
like you. Honestly, I am not surprised with the path
the government has chosen. Yes, it's a it's a controversial decision. Yes,
(21:05):
it requires uh, it requires that you know Kara attitude.
But they've done it, and they've done it in this
in the sense they've said that's what we're going for
right now. But you never know what the ultimate decision
is going to be. By the way, it could aryable
for under hl's umbrella, like you know, supposed to make
we don't know that yet, but the intent has been signaled.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Uh so did HL also see this coming? Are they
prepared for this challenge or are they you know taking
that negative look gay, what is happening with us? You know,
how can this this happen? I think HL is very
mature company. I mean it's been around for almost one
hundred years so and I think they saw this coming
with a kind of uh, you know, deep dissatisfaction that
(21:44):
the services had, especially over the Advanced light Helicopter LH,
the grounding of the fleet. There were some serious issues there,
technical issues which the services have you know, raised with HL.
And as you mentioned, it just happened since that all
of these things happened at the same time, they converged,
and you know it was what is it that they
(22:08):
say about troubles they come in battalions, so something like
that for HL. But I think HL is is a
very mature player. It is a strategic asset, There's no
doubt about it. It's a national strategic asset. It's been
created over several decades. There is a reason why it
was built and it continues. But there is also a
need for competition to be brought in right, and this
(22:30):
has worked well in the past.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
It has served the national interest. So I'm saying that
there is an interest above hl or what they think
about it. There is a supreme national interest that we
need a fifth generation fighter aircraft to be flying in
squadrons less than a decade from now, given the kind
of pressure that you know we're facing on our borders
with both Pakistan and China, and the fact that we
(22:54):
have no option but to develop our own fifth generation
fighter aircraft because otherwise what is going to happen is
that you will be in a perennial import mode.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Right.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
I think the other countries are friends, our allies see that,
which is why you see this very intense jocking from
the Americans to sell us the F thirty five, from
the Russians to sell us the two fifty seven. Right,
the Americans, they want to offload the F thirty five
on us. But I think after operations, Indur, I get
(23:25):
the sense that there is a rethink in the government.
Is the United States a reliable strategic partner when it
comes to fighter jets? So we've bought everything from the
Americans except fighter aircraft. That's always been you know, the
Crown Jewel that we don't want to give the Americans. Russians, yes,
the French, of course, but the Americans maybe not now.
(23:47):
And I think President Trump's statements during operations Sindur might
have contributed to this alarm that's been raised in the government.
So I think they'll be looking at developing our own craft.
It is, of course, it's a critical requirement, like I said,
and they will possibly look at a small number of
(24:07):
fifth generation fighter aircraft imported, like two squadrons, perhaps just
to bridge a certain gap, right, But the rest of it,
it is, there is no option. It's a ten factor
for us. There is no alternative to indigenous aircraft. So
I mean to answer your question in short, I'm sure
HL saw this coming. There's been plenty of uh surround
(24:29):
sound to suggest that this was indeed happening. And there
is the drd chief, the former DRDO chief is submitted
to report some months back to the government which actually
spoke of a model, a consortium kind of model.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
That's uh. That that's Sarasworth, doctor V. K.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Saraswort's report, And there've been a number of reports, you know,
from the government. Rajas Kumar Sing's report which was submitted
in March the Defense Secretary. The serving Defense Secretaries asked
for h need to focus on the Air Force. Very
unusual for a single service report to be prepared by
(25:06):
the government looking at the Indian Air Forces, warries, wars.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
And all of that.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
So there is a greater understanding of a the threat
that we face, be the ways forward, the options before
the government. So I think it's this is it like
you said, now or never?
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Yeah, Uh, I want to talk about the other side
as well, the Indian Air Force because of something that
the Air Air Chief said a few months ago when
he was at airoind actually and video went viral of
him giving a dressing down to HL officials. So he
did not quite like that. Actually, he was at a
conclave a few months later, our conclave a few months
(25:42):
a few weeks later, and he basically said that was
like you know, it was sort of a constructive discussion
between me and HL, the HL guys and you the
media kind of to get a.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Different hot moment.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Yeah, but in that in that in that video, there
was a point when he said, key, this is not
about blame gaming. This is because when I point a
finger at you, they are pointing at me, uh, and
he basically went on to refert to I forgot his
exact words, but he went on to refort refer to
the time of the TAGES development when there's a lot
of controversy about and HL says this that Air Force
(26:12):
also played a huge role in the delays because they
kept changing the requirements. Not quite possible, right, So, how
involved and how clear is the Air Force about what
it wants from its fifth generation aircraft? And do you
(26:33):
see something? Do you see a model of what's happened
with the Indian Navy happening for the AMCA, where the
Navy has been deeply involved in the designing, uh developing,
trialing and commissioning of almost any project, because of which
I personally believe all their ships, all their submarines that
have been Indian made, have been usually you know, the projects,
(26:54):
projects have been flawless, not not major not know, no
major issues over there. So yeah, how clear as the
Air Force with its ANCHA dreams and or do you
see what happened with the day is happening once again?
Is that also a.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Well you know again they've you've hit the nail on
the head with the THEAGES I think the Air Force
took a slightly stand offish point of view, and you
know the emphasis on indigenous platforms was not as much
then as it is now today. It's an article of
faith for this government, right, there's no escaping the fact that,
and it's been said time and again, and you have
(27:29):
seen with operations in the indigenous solutions really coming off age.
And one solution was something that Bramos Corporation suggested to
the Indian Air Force a long time ago, which was
an air launched Bramos and that was an entirely Bramoscop
idea which the Air Force of course picked up, embraced
and then developed for two scadns, inducted it in two
(27:52):
scadns and that has been used with devastating efficiency in
the second second wave of OPS indoor, second and third
waves of opsindors. So indigenous solutions for Indian wars that
is an article of faith now. It wasn't the case
a couple of years back, which explains why the Air
Force had a stand offish kind of attitude. They weren't
(28:14):
as closely involved with the LCA program as possibly the
Navy was in developing the naval version of the LCA
and pure. The important part to understand, Dave is whenever
I talk to the ADA and the aircraft developers and designers,
they always emphasize on the spiral development issue, which is
(28:38):
that you take an aircraft at Mark one, you develop
it to Mark one A, possibly even Mark one B,
and then you go on to Mark two. Don't ask
for everything on the first Mark one should be Mark
five or Mark six. There are other countries, you know,
countries that have you know, very rich long lineage of
(29:01):
fighter aircraft development development. Understand it that you gradually induct
aircraft and then you keep on improving them through their lifetimes.
So in our case, for instance, we've not done that.
It was for Parika to intervene and then work out
this one alpha program for the LCA, where he said
he told the Air Force he understood technology. So he
(29:23):
told the airfos, look, don't make all these requirements on
the LCA for the Mark one. Let the Mark one
be inducted in smaller numbers. There is going to be
a gap between Mark one and Mark two while they
work on Mark two. You induct the Mark one alpha
in limited numbers again, so you have that eighty three
or so Mark one A is coming in. So this
(29:45):
kind of spiral development model is understood, and I think
the Air Force now gets it, and I think they
would have seen the lessons from the LCA and they
would imbibe those in the AMCA. And it's really important
here as well, because in AMCO also you have two models.
You have the Mark one, which is not as effective
(30:05):
and as stealthy as the Mark two. The Mark two
is supposed to be the final configuration with you know,
the full works, the internal weapon base, some of the
external you know, payload external hard points as well. So
that is going to be the final version of the AMCA,
and possibly that would come in the late twenty thirties. Now,
(30:27):
you know, this is a question you ask about the
five point five. So this Gen five point five is
a way of saying that we are fully aware of
the fact that we are behind the curve on the
fifth generation fighter aircraft, but we are going to load
the fifth generation with a little more than what a
normal fifth generation aircraft would be. It won't be like
(30:48):
a base model. It'll be a base model plus a
lot of other enhancements that have you know, like artificial intelligence,
those kind of things. Sense of fusion. We will make
sure that it is better than of his generation fighter
that exists in the world.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Right, we'll talk more about this, especially about a crucial
component that is at the heart of fighter jet, which
is the jet itself. But after a quick break, what is.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
The coolest back of the two thousandth oh me? It
was the Pulse Pulse also two hundred that no, actually no,
what else other? So the CBC was the coolest? What
else could you have? Piero Pharo that one motorcycle. That's
one motorcycle from TVs which was so underrated. Hero Honda sleek.
(31:37):
Why do you always pick the most the eighties?
Speaker 2 (31:42):
What is that pic? What is ALEX hundred? ALEX hundred
came in nineteen What are you talking about? My uncle
uh booked hero Honda C hundred SS in the eighties. Yes,
that's a fourth row. Yes, of course you're no. Yes,
he booked a CD hundred s s late eighties. I'm
(32:05):
talking about eighty six eighty seven ESD.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
Created the enthusiast.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Yes, India at some level, or maybe at a very
big level, Yes, I think so. What about the Pulser
one thirty five LS?
Speaker 1 (32:17):
That was? That?
Speaker 4 (32:18):
Was that that at the Genes.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Welcome back, Sandip. I now want to talk about the
engine because I think that's one topic that often gets
missed when talking about fighting fighter jets, and it only
gets highlighted when you have something of the sort that
happened with they just mark one in the delays, because
that is when people realized, oh, hey, by the way,
engine in the US can have oh look a pin,
Oh my god, what is going on Cavery. I thought
(32:52):
it was shelved. I thought that project got of to
know where it was it was. The engine was designed
by d rd O Lab. I forgot the name. Got
the GTR the g gr GR Sorry, yes, the g t
R E Gas turbine research and something establishment establishment, yes, right?
Uh it I think that there were trials but never
got anywhere.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
And I think.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
I I I thought it had been shelved. But for
the last year or so, especially after you saw delays
for the TS mark one, because we are waiting for
engines from the US, which now I think started arriving. Uh.
There was some chatter about Kavery and as recently as
this week there was this huge social media trend or
fund the Carver Engineer, like you know I'll help fund
(33:33):
the cat, but get it going. How crucial do you
think developing an Indian jet engine is for the AMCA project?
Or do you think there's no point reinventing the wheel
when you have global behemoths who can who can you know,
designer and can give you a jet engine? But then
but then you obviously run into problems like the kind
(33:53):
you saw with the s Mark one A. So how
important is it for us to have our own you know?
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (34:01):
They I cannot but overemphasize the point that without your
own engine, you are nowhere in the fighter jet business
without Without your own engine, all you're designing are airframes.
You're just building airframes and you're waiting for a foreign
jet engine to come there and fit into your airframe
(34:22):
and uh, you know, fly your fighter jet fighter jet.
It's like it's the heart of your uh you know,
fighter aircraft program. If you're not you know, building those
jet engines yourself, you're in serious trouble. And you know,
fighter jet engine it's easier said than done, because only
four countries have done it now and the fifth countries
(34:43):
just joined the club after much struggle and blood and
treasure and store you know, stealing I pr is Chinese.
They finally got it with their W series jet engines.
But this is literally the crown jewels of any countries,
you know, secrets, defense secrets. They will never part with it.
(35:05):
We've been friends, allies almost with the Russians for so
many decades. They've never given us the fighters, that engine
know how or know why. All we've been doing for
the last twenty twenty five years is we've been assembling
the AL thirty one FP engines for the SOO thirties.
We don't have the know how to build our own
engines for two decades, we've just been building those engines, right,
(35:28):
So this even the French for that matter, the French,
the Russians, whoever are closest allies, they will never give
you the engine technology. So the short answer is you
have no option but to build your own. And Kaveri
was a great project it began, but it didn't meet
the required can trust that they wanted the neutants that
(35:48):
they wanted, which is almost touching ninety. It could only
get to about fifty or so, which is why the
government shelled that program in twenty fourteen. And they've decided
to use the KAVERI the dry rust engine. You don't
need after burnus for the UKF So the UK which
was called the Kata also at some point that is
going to be powered by this version of the cavery,
the dry thrust engine. And in the future you're going
(36:12):
to look at a CAVERY two point zero with either
the Russian collaboration or the French you know, helping you out.
But the short thing is that you have no way
but to develop your own fighter jet engines. And you
know it's not it's not such a big hurdle as well,
if you put your mind to it, if you decide
(36:34):
that this is a national strategic program and it is
not just a GTR program, that's the problem. You know,
you can't say, oh, GTRE, you was supposed to develop
the cavery. They have not done it. We gave them
all the resources. It cannot be a GTRY program. It
has to be an all of nation approach. You have
to identify the problem. You have to look at it.
(36:55):
Where am I hitting hurdles? Is it the testing? Do
I have the testing facilities for the engine? Firstly we don't.
That's a problem. The metallurgy, Who can get me the
metallurgy who can do this. It has to be an
all of government approach. It has to be driven top down.
All of these countries that have built it so far,
the Chinese being the fifth, they understood it, they got it,
(37:16):
which is why they went helpful leather.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
In our case.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
I'll give you another example of how we went about
getting the nuclear reactor for the nuclear submarine.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
Right.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
This is again a technology that only five countries in
the world have perfected. We got ours because we decided
somewhere in the nineties, in the late nineties, that we've
tested nuclear weapons. The best way to launch nuclear weapons
is from under the water. Nuclear submarine is the way
to do it. But our nuclear subrane design hasn't gone anywhere.
(37:46):
We don't have the reactor. The most important thing of
a nuclear sub is the reactor. Compacting a huge reactor
into a pressure hull of a submarine is the ultimate
engineering marvel in defense. We didn't have the technology, so
we went to the Russians. The Russians helped us, but
with an earlier version of the nuclear reactor. Now the
(38:07):
Chinese have also been helped by the Russian similarly, and
they've built on that expertise. Now I'm coming back to
that spiral development thing. You don't just take an engine,
use it and then throw it and said, no, I'm
now going to start, you know, DiNovo start a new engine.
You go spiral development. You keep improving that engine, you know,
improving its output, which is what they've done with the
(38:27):
nuclear reactor design. Now that is an insurmountable you know target.
At some point it appeared that, oh, we'll never get
our own reactor. But today, I mean, look at it.
We have four nuclear subs in the water, two are
on deployment, a third is on and two more around
sea trials. Right, So if we could do it with
(38:48):
nuclear submarin it's the most complex reactor technology, we can
certainly do it with the fighter jet and start small
and then keep building on it, pushing, pushing, and then
we'll get it. We have no option, like I said,
we have no option but to design and develop our
own fighter jet engines.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Yeah, like you point that, Yeah, of course you can
do it, just to set your mind to it. Because
again you've developed, like you said, the miniaturized reactor for
nuclear subs. You send rockets, you've sent a rover to
the moon, You've developed the Brumos missile, which that is
something that comes close to sort of the engine.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
But you know, my friends and Ada would be very
unhappy with that comparison because they say, look or g try, Uh,
a fighter jet engine has to work all the time, right,
Bramos is a one way ticket. The Mars rocket, the
Moon rockets, these are all one way mission. You know,
you're not coming back. But here the jet engine has
(39:45):
to you know, be it has to run all the time.
It has to you know, variations of speed and you know, acceleration,
all of those things.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Uh, it has to you know, it's the heart. It's
the heart, right, it has to go on for several years.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Yes, all right, but a quick follow up, so we
have no option but to do it. Yeah, are we
doing it? So? The reason I asked that is is
it part of this rupiece fifteen thousand core project that
the engine will be developed simultaneously as part of this
project or is this disbursement of money or only going
to be for developing like you said, the airframes the
(40:20):
technology that will sort of work on that plane, et cetera,
et cetera, and the engine development will happen separately. Or
do we have no knowledge about this we have as
far as.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
I understand that the engine development is separate from this,
and that is where we're looking at the foreign collaborators.
Foreign collaborations, partnerships with either France or with Russia. We
have a tech agreement with the US as well with
the G four one four. That's one a third line
of possibility that we're looking at. So now the hope
(40:51):
is that these countries will give us the technology to
build our own engine. But if you are to develop
your own engine, I believe you have to go you
have to go solo, and you have to get some
kind of consultancy, design assistance and all that. Without that,
it's not going to happen. Because the reason we bailed
out of the Soup fifty seven, yes, fifth generation of
(41:13):
fighter aircraft. We were part of it to begin within
two thousand and nine or so, and we had a
joint venture.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
We put down a lot of money. I think it was.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
A couple of hundred million dollars if I remember correctly,
And in twenty seventeen or eighteen, the government decided to
pull out of the fifth generation fighter aircraft because the
Russian program, because they felt that Russia was not giving
us the technology we wanted. We were already coming into
an aircraft that had already been developed and designed, so
(41:46):
there was nothing for us to learn from that, so
which is why they pulled out and said, look, we
will go our independent part with AMCAR. So here we
are twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Five, right, So what happens to the Air Force is
current and pressing need for fighter jets. So you have
the mark one is coming eighty three ninety seven more
or if I'm not wrong on the order, but there
is still the question of what do you do with
the number of fighters that you need right now, because,
(42:16):
like you said, is going to take around a decade
or so at least to sort of see the light
of day. And that I'm guessing is what you say
for the prototyping of it. Then if you're happy with it,
you place orders, then the production comes at that there's
more more delays. There's there's this talk that there might
be a new MRFA that tender global competition once again
(42:38):
between different fighter jets. You have the US software of
F thirty five, so you have always had the option
of buying morephile jets because you already have them in service.
So make sense to get a couple of more squadrons
from there. They just mark two. Is it even coming?
Is that shelved? So while we talk of ANKA, what
about these other questions other projects, Like I said, they
(42:58):
just mark two?
Speaker 1 (42:58):
Is it there?
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Is it not? Do we know about that? And or
rather what's your outlook on that?
Speaker 3 (43:04):
Well, you know, interesting question they've Now the fact is
that the air force isn't a crisis. If you talk
to which will why you look at it? I mean
thirty one squadns sanctioned strength of forty point two threats are.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
Increasing by the day.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
The PLA Air Force at one point was a pretty
down market air force in the two thousand and ones
when India had a one is to three ratio with
a Pakistan Air Force, and now almost a quarter century later,
that ratio has come down to one is to one
point five because the Pakistan Air Force has been steadily
(43:42):
building up its capabilities. It's been upgrading its fighter aircraft,
it's been acquiring new fighter aircraft, primarily Chinese the J
tens and the JF seven's and JF seventeen's. So you're
looking at an Indian air force that has been acquiring
fighter jets through a method that I can only call interprrogation, right,
(44:06):
Whereas what you need is actually you need a dam
burst of fighters. You have the Air Force Chief saying
I need something like forty to fifty fighter jets to
be inducted every year if I am to just stand
here right to maintain my thirty one squad in numbers.
Because you're looking at twenty thirty five. You said AMCA
starts coming in a decade from now. What will the
(44:26):
Air Force look like without the AMCA, without you know,
more fighters. You're looking at all your MIK twenty nine's
out of service. You're looking at most of the Mirages going,
all your Jaguars going Mike twenty ones will just retire
and a year or two, two squadns that's left. So
every aircraft but for your Raphael and your Sokhoys are
(44:48):
going to mean service. So you need something like two
to three hundred fighter aircraft to come in. That's a
very large number, so which is why they're saying we
need forty aircraft a year. That's a very very ambitious target.
And to add to that now the Air Force is
saying forty two aircraft are not forty two fighter aircraft
squadons are not going to be enough for us. They're
(45:10):
projecting a requirement of something like sixty fighter aircraft squadons
by two zero four to seven. It's a very ambitious number.
You're going to hear more of this action in the
next couple of months, given how concerned the Indian Air
Force is about following scadon numbers. There's another view that
says that they're projecting a higher number sixty squadns in
(45:31):
the hope that they at least get to maybe forty
to forty five squadrons lasting.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Yeah. So well, but if you look at it, there
is a serious thread.
Speaker 3 (45:40):
You're looking at the PLA Air Force, which has got
three hundred plus fifth generation fighters and which is inducting
fifth generation fighter aircraft at the rate of forty.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
To fifty a year.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
So you have them focusing only on Gen five aircraft
park air forces at Gen four Gen four point five.
They're looking at two score terns of fifth generation fighter aircraft,
and why do you need fifth fighter aircraft?
Speaker 1 (46:04):
Now? The interesting thing is that.
Speaker 3 (46:08):
Sell the aircraft like this have the ability to look
at to penetrate air spaces which are heavily guarded by gbads,
the ground based air defense networks like the S four hundred,
the HQ nines and all of that. So the role
of sell the fifth generation fighter aircraft become all the
more critical in such heavily you know, defended air spaces.
(46:30):
The only way you can penetrate a D bubbles, for instance,
is through stell the aircraft, which is why the Americans
are going helpful leather for the sixth generation new generation
air dominance fighters. The Chinese are building up on all
of their things. It's a technology race at the end
of the day. You know, ground based air defenses are
becoming more complex, more sophisticated. Therefore the fighter jets will
(46:54):
have to be you know, stay a step ahead of them.
So it's a big race for nonnumbers. The Air Force
is looking at larger numbers. They're looking at as an
expanding hole in their fighters cord and capabilities. And like
you mentioned, the the mr MMRCA is being revived as
(47:14):
the Multi Role Fighter Aircraft requirement.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
There is a requirement.
Speaker 3 (47:17):
The Air Force believes that they would need something like
seventy or seventy two fighters to come in very quickly.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
But the problem, again they was that these are very
very expensive.
Speaker 3 (47:27):
You know how much the Navy spent for that twenty
six aircraft Rafael rafaele M.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
They spent seven billion dollars. That's that's a lot of money.
Speaker 3 (47:37):
If you look at seven into you know, seven into
three times that thing, you're looking at anything about twenty
billion dollars twenty twenty five billion dollars for just that
seventy two aircraft requirement for the Indian Air Force. So
then it becomes, you know, a battle for resources. Then
the government will have to sit and look, look do
(47:59):
I need to import these aircraft? How many can I
build within the country. So it's it is it's going
to be a very complex, you know, argument for the
Indian Air Force to.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
Make a quick follow up there as well. I get
that it's complex in terms of how many can we
afford right now? But why are we still thinking about
which one to go?
Speaker 1 (48:18):
For?
Speaker 2 (48:18):
The reason I asked that is key. You already had
a competition that a file was the winner. Your Air
Force is very happy with it perform exceptionally the recent
conflict with Pakistan. You also bought the same the naval
version for the for the navy, so you have that
fighter and service. You have the necessary repair equipment and
all the ecosystem that you need to support a fighter.
(48:40):
Yet they know how, etcetera. So why are you even
considering any other aircraft? Why just do like you figure
out the finances, go to the balance sheet they according
and just place more orders for the I wish it
was that easy. Why is it not?
Speaker 1 (48:55):
But you know so?
Speaker 3 (48:57):
Yeah, Now again the raphile is down, choice, down, select
for the Indian Air Force when the MRC was selected,
which they didn't go through, finally they just bought thirty
six of them. The Navy's got twenty six of them.
So yes, there is a strong case to be made
for buying more rafiles that you just do seventy two
more transfer technology built you know in country, get a
(49:20):
production line going, bring down costs, bring in MROs, those
kind of things, find a way of building it indigenously.
There's another voice that says that, look, if you do that,
you're going to kill our LC Mark two for instance,
because you know, finally, at the end of the day,
you know, resources are not infinite, and when the government
(49:40):
is looking at the pie, he's going to decide, look,
do I import these aircraft? Do I build them indigenously,
Do I develop the engines here?
Speaker 1 (49:50):
Do I import?
Speaker 3 (49:51):
You know, it's a complex, complicated argument for the government
to make when it's deciding on imports such high end import,
big ticket items like this seventy plus imports are going
to be looked at with very, very great alarm by
the government. So if you look at it all historically,
(50:13):
all the purchases historically, I mean the last ten years
have been smaller numbers. The requirements projected were much larger.
Air Force wanted one hundred and twenty six. Government came
down to thirty six. Navy wanted fifty plus for the
deck based fighters. Imported ones they came down to twenty six.
So my sense is that they will go for a
mix of a smaller number of rafiles with a larger
(50:36):
number of indigenous fighters. Like the LCA Mark two. The
numbers will always come from indigenous fighters. They will never
come from imports because those imports, I mean, the cost
is horribly you know, there is no comparison. It's like,
for the price of one raphile, you could buy probably
three LCAs Mark twos.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
Right right, last point on this episode, uh, and I'm
going to talk about the Indian Navy because I think
when it comes to fighter jets, the Navy gets the
short end of the stick because of its small requirements. Right,
so never no one talks about it. But the Navy
also has equal concerns. Right, because you have two aircraft
carried in service, the Victim, the vikrant U. There is
(51:21):
a thought that the Navy will go in for a
report reports is but another order of grant type of
aircraft carrier.
Speaker 1 (51:28):
I see one alpha.
Speaker 2 (51:31):
Yeah, yeah, slightly more weight, if I'm not wrong, is
what it has been talked about. We don't know the
specifics yet, but there is some talk about that.
Speaker 3 (51:38):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
Right now you have around, if I'm not wrong, forty
five odd mcroin and case the naval variants, we don't
know the exact number. For some reason, I don't know why
you've placed orders for. You are about to place orders
for the file from from from France. But the Navy
also needs fighter jets other caerau. The AMCA is I'm
(52:01):
guessing solely for the air force. The Navy has rejected
the LC enable naval variant. They wanted what is now
is known as the ted BEV, the twin engine deck
based Right, So Where is that in all of this
or is the AMCA development going to lead to something
for the Navy as well? What does Navy get out
of whatever we are investing in when it comes to.
Speaker 3 (52:21):
Right, So theve as you mentioned, the Navy has the
requirement for fighter jets, but it's much smaller than what
the air forces requirements are. So they have to basically
replace the mid twenty nines forty odd mid twenty nines
that are in service mid twenty nine case, and the
Navy would look at air wings for two carriers and
possibly the third, So you're looking at something like about
(52:42):
sixty fighter jets. That's not a lot of fighters, it's
about three squadns plus. Naval requirements are usually much smaller
than what it is for the Indian Air Force. So
the way forward is the twenty six rapiles are going
to be the interim which will replace the first of
the mid twenty nines as the out of service the
mid twenty nine I have been in service for about
(53:02):
two decades now. It's not been a very happy experiment
for the Indian Navy because these were completely untested aircraft
when they were bought the Russian Navy, the Soviet Navy
actually pioneered the use of the mid twenty nine K,
but it was not purpose built for aircraft carrier operations.
It was a land based fighter which was then converted
(53:22):
into a carrier based fighter in our case, you know,
a Stowbar fighter jet. Now they believe that the twenty
six rafiles will be an interim and then you will
have the ten BF coming at some point, that twin
engine deck based fighters. Because you know, the life of
an aircraft carrier, as you know, is much longer than
(53:44):
the life of a fighter jet. So an aircraft carrier
has a life of about almost half a century fifty years,
and a fighter jet would have a you know thing
of effective combat life for twenty five thirty years. So
you possibly would have an aircraft carrier looking at two
different fighter variants, and here in this case, the WIKA
(54:04):
and of course the new I SV grant came with
the mic twin ene case, they will switch over at
some point to the raphaile ms and they will also
possibly have that ted BF. Now there is a requirement
for an AMCA fifth generation fighter jet. We're looking at
smaller numbers again, but that's not a high priority. It's
not a top priority for the ADA or for the
(54:28):
Indian Navy right now, though if you ask me, they
they should have started with developing a naval variant of
the AMCU first, given how complex this platform is. Carrier
operations are very, very extremely complex. To develop aircraft that
can withstand, you know, the the stresses of landing on
(54:49):
a deck, all of those those problems would have been
solved first, and then adapting them for land based uses
not as com you know, it's not as def reicult
as it is the other way around. So you're you're
going to have a challenge now to take a fighter
jet that's you know, developed for land based operations for
(55:09):
the Indian Air Force and then marinizing it and you know,
strengthening the undercarriage and doing all of that. That's going
to be a big, big task. But I think it
is primarily the amcar. You should look at it primarily
as an Indian Air Force requirement. Small numbers for the
Indian Navy, I mean, if it comes well and good,
but focuses to get it for the air Force because
(55:31):
the numbers are much air Force needs something like ten
squadrons of amcars. They committed to buying about between eight
and ten squadrons. Navies requirements, of course, don't matter as
much as the Air Force requirements.
Speaker 1 (55:42):
Right.
Speaker 2 (55:43):
One final, very quick point. If I could ask you
to speculate and do just plain guests work, based on
just your gut feeling, based on what you know of
the situation now and based on whatever you've seen over
the years. How do you see the Project ANKA project
panning out over the next fifteen year. Whom do you
see the contract being given to. When do you see
(56:03):
the first flight happening, whether the test flight or the
Air Force flight and stuff like that's just plain guestswork
from you. What do you see for the project future?
Speaker 3 (56:11):
You know, I wish I'm an optimist eternal optimist there.
I mean, I think the first flight they're promising twenty
twenty eight in the next three years. They must do it.
We have no option. We have to do it. This
has to be a top down kind of thing. Dictats
have to be passed like you cannot because we've already
lost a lot of time on this. We have to
(56:32):
develop that aircraft. You have to get it flying in
the next year, to get the prototypes flying in the
next three years, and you know, start the induction process
and try and compress deadlines as much as possible. See
where you know again that all of government approach needs
to come in. It has to be treated as a
national project. It cannot be treated as oh, it's just
(56:53):
an Air Force project or it's a DADO project or something.
You have to get a consortium going and it has
to be steered.
Speaker 1 (56:59):
At a very top lint. So I think if.
Speaker 3 (57:03):
All goes well, if given the new prominence to airpower
that this government has given, I would think twenty thirty
five is not an impossible, unsurmountable problem to get the
AMCA inducted by twenty thirty three. Twenty thirty three is
ideally the time that you should be looking at, which
(57:24):
is the next eight years or so to start inducting
the AMCA. And again i'll emphasize mark one. Start with
Mark one and then slowly build up on Mark one.
Don't emphasize that we need everything in the first marketself
right in the first couple of squadns itself. So I
think given all of this and the new enlightenment that's
(57:45):
come on with airpower and the consortium approach, I would
think it would be if I were to have that,
I guess. I think it would be a consortium of
HL and datas that will execute this project. I don't
see HL being completely out of it's it's it's impossible.
You cannot, you know, uh, cut out your biggest aircraft manufacturer,
(58:07):
your only aircraft, only fighter jet manufacturer from this contract.
So I think it will be a consortium of HL,
Tassel and possibly other private players are also kind of
pitching it. It will be a consortium approach to the
government will follow.
Speaker 2 (58:23):
I think the I'd rather put it out. It will
be a sort of a national building model. Yes, everything
every know how that you have in the country will
be used for this to ensure that it happens, and
it happens all the time. Absolutely great Sandy, great chat.
I had got lots of insights from you. I had
a lot of I had a lot of fun. So
thanks so much for you, Thanks for having me there.
(58:44):
That's it for this week's Defense Doors For more, tune
in next week. Till then, stay safe and do not
cross any boundaries without a passport.
This is India Today Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hello and Welcome to Another Defense, a weekly podcast on
all things well defense, where I They've go Swami, your host,
along with senior journalist Shivarur, break down the world of
conflicts that range from the subtle to the brutal. We
bring you nuances and perspectives that will inform and at
times provoke. This is in our Defense. Welcome to Another Defense.
(00:31):
This week, India's quest to design and develop its own
true blue Indian fifth generation fighter jet got a big
push with the government clearing what's what they what they
call the execution model. The way I see it, that's
just a term I think they used to sort of
say that the roadmap of how this project will now
go forward in terms of who will be involved for
(00:53):
designing and developing this fighter jet that has been sort
of cleared by defense Manstrajna saying this clearance comes around
on a year after the Cabinet Committee on Security cleared
piece fifteen thousand corore for this project. That money will
be used to design and develop, if I'm not wrong,
on five prototypes of what is known as the AMKA,
the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft. Very very crucially, the statement
(01:17):
on the execution model. Clearance sort of opened this project
up for the private sector, allowing the private sector to
enter territory that was previously the sole domain of the
Hindustan a tax limited a state owned aerospace company. So
why is this such a big deal? What is the AMCA?
(01:38):
Can the AMCA even see the light of day without
India being able to develop its own fighter jet engine.
We're going to be discussing this and a lot more
on this episode and for that I have sandipunan Y.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Thanks for being with me, Hi there, thanks for having
me back.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Sandy, before we begin, tell me, if, if, if I
would be wrong to say that the length of your
career has sort of spanned the exact time in India's
quest to develop its own fighter jet. Not the AMCA,
but whether it's atages Mark one A and so on
and so forth. So you probably have seen this from
(02:13):
maybe the time you started off as an intern somewhere
to now where you've finished around thirty years covering the
world of defense and you've seen this project.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
That's an interesting way to frame that question today, but yeah,
you know it is. You know, aviation is a very
very time intensive business and it's taken the rest of
the Western world decades to each where they are today
in the way they've designed their own engines and they're
making their fifth and even sixth generation fighter aircraft. In
(02:45):
our case, we began this journey well in the sixties
with the Maruts, which we abandoned in the seventies because
of the engine worries, and then we restarted that, we
rebooted the program. I would say that with the light
combat aircraft in nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
So it's around the time that I entered journalism, which
was in the nineties, the light combat aircraft started to
get developed, and you saw the first glimmer of hope
when finally in two thousand and one, the LCA finally flew.
But that's you know, it's more than twenty five years
now the LCAs entered squad in service, and the Mark
(03:21):
one A hopefully should be entering the Air Force in
large numbers.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Before we get into the ANCA. And why this statement
on the exhibution models was significant. I want to actually
first get you to decode this generation confusion that I have.
It's like, you know, understanding Gen Alpha, Gen Z millennials,
it's sort of like that for me when you have
generation four, Generation four point five, Generation five, and very interestingly,
(03:49):
by the event, this is something that missed my RADA.
In February when the when a full scale display model
of the AMCA was put up at the Aero India Shore,
there was a PIB press release on that in which
they called it five point five. So I want to understand,
what are these different aircraft generations? Yeah, and how do
you end up putting a particular aircraft in one particular slot.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Well, yeah, interesting question they've you know, given the fact
that you're talking about a fifth generation fighter aircraft. Now,
these generations are used to refer to fighter jets, which
began to be introduced beginning in the closing stages of
the Second World War. That is when you saw the
first first generation fighter jets entering squad in service, the
(04:32):
two six two Schwalb that the Germans produced and of
course the Gloucester Meteor. These are the first two fighter
jets to enter squad in service. And then you had
the Vietnam War, well south the Korean War before that
in the fifties, where you had the first fighter jets
actually that you know dueled in the skies over Korea
(04:53):
where you had the Meek fifteens and then later the
Meek seventeens, and you had the eighty six Saber jets.
Those were the second generation, you know, fighter jets. Vietnam
War you saw possibly the third generation of fighter jets,
which were bigger, which had more combat.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Endurance, you know, larger payloads.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
And this continued till the seventies when you saw what
you have today in most air forces of the world.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
I mean, we of course.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Operate some third generation modified aircraft the mid twenty ones.
It's probably one of the last of those air forces
operating the mid twenty ones. But then you had in
the seventies the fourth generation fighter aircraft coming in, which
was primarily the F fourteens, F fifteenths, the Sukhoi twenty sevens,
the mid twenty nine These are all fourth generation aircraft.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
But somewhere in the.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Late nineties you began this a lot of countries started
going towards what is called the fifth generation fighter aircrafts,
which is basically a generation jump over the fourth generation.
So if you look at the third and fourth generations
aircraft didn't have you know, a very big gap between them,
you know, but in terms of capabilities and whether it's
(05:59):
ordinary capability stealth, Now, stealth was very important. That was
the X factor in all of these fifth generation aircraft
that started to be developed in the late nineties on.
And the United States of course, was way ahead of
the curve when they developed two fifth generation aircraft F
twenty two and the F thirty five, and of course
the Russians followed suit, but the Chinese caught up rather quickly.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
So you have fifth.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
Generation aircraft which have stealth is the most important characteristic,
and you have supercrews, which is the ability to fly
at extended supersonic speeds without firing your after burners, and
a whole lot of other capabilities like sense of fusion
and those kinds of things, very advanced electronics and communications
and data links and all of that. So it's primarily
(06:45):
the United States that's way ahead of the world in
fifth generation fighters. The Chinese are catching up. They have
two fifth generation fighter aircraft in squad and service, and
they have a sixth generation working on two sixth generation
pro types as well. The Russians have, you know, been
a little slope because of primarily resource constraints, technology constraints.
(07:09):
They've built a SOO fifty seven, which a lot of
people argue is not a true fifth generation fighter aircraft.
It has certain limitations. But we have been in the game.
They've from around two thousand and eight or nine when
we began the quest for a fifth generation fighter aircraft
with the AMCA, which you mentioned, the Advanced Medium Combat
Aircraft program, which is still we've only seen a prototype.
(07:33):
We've only seen, you know, a model model, a scale model.
We yet to see a prototype, I must clarify. And
we are in twenty twenty five. We're still a decade
away from getting these planes into service. So it's a dream.
It's been in the pipeline for very long. And you know,
we are wrestling with a lot of issues. I mean,
(07:55):
squad in numbers, we are yet to even get Gen
four and Gen four point five fighter jets. So the
fifth generation is a is a little way down the line.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Yeah, so it's better on the line, but it's happening,
and I think India is solidly behind the idea that
it's gonna at at some point end up developing its
own fifth generation fighter jet, and it does not does
not want to depend on foreign supplies for obvious reasons.
The very significant thing of the government statement that came
(08:29):
out a couple of days ago was that it did
not mention Hindusanatics Limited even once. Now that's strange because
in media headlines you can do a basic Google search,
you will always see this term HAL because it was
always believed it was a given kban I got to HL,
(08:49):
and I'm guessing people within the h also believe that,
which is probably why what is happening is happening. So
the statement basically says a consortion come together. It can
be public companies, it can be private companies. So basically
Halsale has has has has a way in into this project.
But what the government is saying is that we will
take it on merits. Whoever since the best bid, whoever
(09:12):
seems the most competent, whoever gives the promises the best timeline,
and perhaps you know is realistic enough in terms of
what they're offering and what they're proposing, they'll get the
contract to design and develop this generation fighter chat. I
want your overview of how did we reach how long
was it coming uh, and whether what's happened in the
(09:33):
last couple of years with respect to delays of the
Danges Mark one a UH and the grounding of the
Droove helicopters after a series of crashes that took raise UH.
In both cases there have been fingers pointed at HL Withdrew.
There have been allegations, very very very quiet though, that
(09:53):
DHL was not very receptive to feedback from the Air Forces,
that from the forces that were using through helicopters in
terms of some technical issues that they felt the helicopters
had and with tages, even though HL said it was
a supply chain issue, there has been questions about what
was hl's role itself in terms of the delays to
taches mark my name. The reason I say that and
mentioned that is just this morning before we recorded this,
(10:15):
Air Force Chief Air Marshal Singh wasn't it at an
event where he gave a very nice quote where he said,
once a timeline is given. Sorry, he said, timeline is
a big issue. Not a single project that I can
think of has been completed on time. That's a huge statement.
And then he went on to say that at times
while signing the contract, we are sure it is not
(10:37):
going to come up on time. So yes, and the
your overview of how did we reach a point where
hl which so far thy sault setting, but.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Absolutely their fight for it.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
But but you know, they didn't mention the other fight
which is actually the Blackstone event in the middle of
all this, which is Operations Sindur. Yes, and that is
the Blackstone event. That's actually I think it's accelerated a
whole lot of programs. It's changed mindsets also in the
government because you know, they finally you have a political
(11:15):
leadership that understands airpower. And it's very significant because you know,
if you look at the way airpar has been used
since nineteen forty seven nineteen sixty two, you had Prime
Minister Nehru not authorizing the use of airparw because he
was afraid of escalating the conflict, whereas there are people
who are arguing now with the benefit of hindsight of course,
(11:38):
that had the Indian Air Force been deployed, then the
outcome of the sixty two war would have been entirely different.
You know, we had a far superior air force than
the Chinese Air Force at that time, which was their
fighter jets were grounded because the Soviets had pulled out
of their cooperation, so you could have recovered lost ground
in nineteen sixty two. Now you jump to seventy one,
(11:59):
perfect X book application of airpower, no questions, no debates.
You come to nineteen ninety nine, where again the government
of the day is very restrained in the use of
air power, where the Prime Minister says, you can use
the air Force, but do not cross the LC whereas
the Air Force said, look, this is not the way
to use airpower. Air power means you have to you
(12:21):
cannot draw a line of control in the sky, right,
you have to go across the border. But now what
you're seeing in the last five years is a better
understanding of airpower with this government. Six years to be precise,
twenty nineteen when Balacote used, I have fighter jets for
the first time crossing over into Pakistan, bombing one terror camp,
one mission, one target. And in twenty twenty five, of course,
(12:45):
operations in the multi phase multi level escalation where air
force is used as coursive airpower for the first time
since nineteen seventy one, and also prior to that in
twenty twenty, when China mobilizes opposite Ladak, you have the
Indian Air Force going in right away, and I was
there on the ground. I saw those fighter jets landing
in lay a big understanding of airpar on the part
(13:09):
of this government. So operations in there, I feel, is
that black swan event that will really reshape the way
airpower is understood, air assets are looked at. The Air
Force is going to be taken very, very seriously from now.
Not that it wasn't earlier, but now you've actually seen
a demonstration of airpower.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
You've seen the way the.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
IF fighter jets standof attacks precision strikes on eleven thirteen targets,
nine targets taken out on the first day of counter terrors.
You know, missions in conjunct with the Indian Army, of course,
but the tenth of may belonged entirely to the Indian
Air Force. So I think a lot of how the
(13:52):
government is going to react is going to be shaped
by the events of Operations INDO and the fact that
the IFS requirement for fighter aircraft, stealthy fighter aircraft is
going to be top priority now on. So while earlier
it was a given that HL would be the default
setting when it came to productionizing the AMCA, it's no
longer the case because there's been a considerable discussion within
(14:17):
the government and the points that you made a Chief
Marshall Apcing's criticism of the HL. There are other service
chiefs also who believe that HL has not been delivering
as promised. So there's a lot of angst within the services,
among the service chiefs about hal's ability to deliver as promised.
(14:37):
So they're saying that, look, give the private sector a chance,
you know, bring them also on board, create competition. You
can't have a monopoly of aircraft production and helicopter production.
HL is loaded with work, you know, they have multiple
fighter jet programs to deliver on. They have the LCA
(14:58):
Mark one A, they have the Mark two and of
course many other helicopter programs as so they have a
lot of orders. They're not short of orders. It's not
that you take the Amka away from them, they're going
to stop functioning or they'll go into bankruptcy. They have
plenty of orders. There is an order for a possible
program for the Sukhoi thirty upgrade right which is something
(15:19):
we should have started working on twenty years ago, which
we did. But that's possibly a discussion for another day.
But you know, here the services, in their wisdom, have
looked at different models. The government also has been looking
at different models, and I can only think of the
Advanced Technology Vessel, the Nuclear submarine project, you know, everything
(15:41):
would have suggested that Mazagon Docs be given the contract
to build submarines because they were the only shipyard that
had the ability to be you know, build submarines at
that time, smaller subs. Of course, they'd built two German submarines,
but the government brought in Larsen and to Brow as
the main partner to actually fabricate the press hulls of
the nuclear submarines. And today you have four submarines for
(16:04):
your four nuclear submarines over six thousand tons displacement in
the water to commission to be commissioned in the next
year or two huge program possibly our most complex defense
programs platforms as well. So here you're looking at the
government possibly looking at another model like this one, like
the Arihant class, the ATV project, where you'll have the
(16:26):
private sector either working in competition with or in cooperation
with the public sector. Hall is not completely out of
the race, right, They're still there, but it's not a
guarantee order for them, they will have to compete with
Larsan and two Bro, They'll have to compete with Tassel,
Tata Advanced Systems Limited, all of these private sector players
(16:48):
and whoever gets gives the best bid wins. So it's
it's a sense of the government bringing in competition into
the aviation space military aviation space.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
But of course the dice is heavily loaded in hl's favor.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Right they have plant, machinery, train, manpower, all of that. Right,
they have facilities in Mara Shrine in Bengaluru, of course,
it's in the news last couple of days. And of
course Cora put in Orisha where they make the fighter
jet engine. So you're looking at a behemoth. HL is
a behemoth. It's a public sector behemoth, of course, and
(17:24):
you have the private sector saying, hey, give us a chance.
Tatas has been building up very slowly over the last
fifteen years. They've started small, and today they're in a
position where're you know, actually assembling major aircraft, transport aircraft,
not fighter jets, of course, but for them to make
that leap again, they will have to the government will
have to take that leap of faith with them, whether
(17:46):
TASEL actually has hesit in them to deliver a fifth
generation fighter aircraft. So it's a very complicated program and
you know, as you mentioned, it's not so much about
the technology, it's about the model as well. While that
statement from the Defense Minister is welcome, we've still not
got a lot of clarity on how they're going to
(18:06):
go about it. For instance, who's going to allocate workshare
if there is a partnership. If there is say the
government says, look, we want HL to make the AMCA
in partnership with TASSEL, But then who decides the work
allocation because the tatas will say, look, I don't want
to work with HL, that that is a possibility, right,
I want to have this work share, and you know so,
(18:29):
And they will not trust Defense Ministry because HL is
a Defense Ministry child, right, it's a child of the
Department of Defense Production. So there are arguments that they're
very strong arguments being made for the NSAYS Office to
be brought in. The National Security Council Secretary at NSCs
should be the body that will actually be a neutral
(18:52):
judge who will decide who gets the work share, how
this program is to move. It's an extremely complicated program,
as I mean, and not just for the technology reasons,
the fact that you need this kind of cutting edge
technology to be developed in the platform itself, with the stealth,
with a super cruise, with your in you know, your
(19:13):
weapon base, sense of fusion, all of these cutting edge technologies.
You have to develop it in parallel with this conundrum
of public sector and private sector. So it's it is
a kind of challenges that is going to make the
LCA look like a walk in the park, and it is.
And to add to all of this, you have your
(19:34):
two front war threat where you have China which has
what three hundred plus fifth generation fighters, which would very
happily transfer forty of them to the Pakistan Air Force
to put us on tenter hooks. So it is a
very very complicated set of you know, problems, and the
AMCA is flying straight into this heavy weather if it
(19:56):
actually manages to fly in the timelines that we envisage
it to.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
I very like your point a lot, the one you
said right now that this is more than just developing
this advanced fighter jet about sort of. It's like, you know,
because for so many years you've had this set system
of how things work in India when it comes to
production of aviation equipment for for defense for the military. Uh.
And now you're trying to sort of, you know, shake
(20:22):
that up and bring in new people and bringing new
players and bring in a new way of working WORKSHAP
allocation like you said that sort of like you know,
makes me. It reminds me of the time you know,
I used to make the roster for my team and
have those this device right.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
How is HL taking the statement that came out from
from from the government And the reason I asked that
is uh for somebody who's been doing this podcast for
around two and a half years now, Uh, and has
the benefit of having had having chatted with defense journalists
like you. Honestly, I am not surprised with the path
the government has chosen. Yes, it's a it's a controversial decision. Yes,
(21:05):
it requires uh, it requires that you know Kara attitude.
But they've done it, and they've done it in this
in the sense they've said that's what we're going for
right now. But you never know what the ultimate decision
is going to be. By the way, it could aryable
for under hl's umbrella, like you know, supposed to make
we don't know that yet, but the intent has been signaled.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Uh so did HL also see this coming? Are they
prepared for this challenge or are they you know taking
that negative look gay, what is happening with us? You know,
how can this this happen? I think HL is very
mature company. I mean it's been around for almost one
hundred years so and I think they saw this coming
with a kind of uh, you know, deep dissatisfaction that
(21:44):
the services had, especially over the Advanced light Helicopter LH,
the grounding of the fleet. There were some serious issues there,
technical issues which the services have you know, raised with HL.
And as you mentioned, it just happened since that all
of these things happened at the same time, they converged,
and you know it was what is it that they
(22:08):
say about troubles they come in battalions, so something like
that for HL. But I think HL is is a
very mature player. It is a strategic asset, There's no
doubt about it. It's a national strategic asset. It's been
created over several decades. There is a reason why it
was built and it continues. But there is also a
need for competition to be brought in right, and this
(22:30):
has worked well in the past.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
It has served the national interest. So I'm saying that
there is an interest above hl or what they think
about it. There is a supreme national interest that we
need a fifth generation fighter aircraft to be flying in
squadrons less than a decade from now, given the kind
of pressure that you know we're facing on our borders
with both Pakistan and China, and the fact that we
(22:54):
have no option but to develop our own fifth generation
fighter aircraft because otherwise what is going to happen is
that you will be in a perennial import mode.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Right.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
I think the other countries are friends, our allies see that,
which is why you see this very intense jocking from
the Americans to sell us the F thirty five, from
the Russians to sell us the two fifty seven. Right,
the Americans, they want to offload the F thirty five
on us. But I think after operations, Indur, I get
(23:25):
the sense that there is a rethink in the government.
Is the United States a reliable strategic partner when it
comes to fighter jets? So we've bought everything from the
Americans except fighter aircraft. That's always been you know, the
Crown Jewel that we don't want to give the Americans. Russians, yes,
the French, of course, but the Americans maybe not now.
(23:47):
And I think President Trump's statements during operations Sindur might
have contributed to this alarm that's been raised in the government.
So I think they'll be looking at developing our own craft.
It is, of course, it's a critical requirement, like I said,
and they will possibly look at a small number of
(24:07):
fifth generation fighter aircraft imported, like two squadrons, perhaps just
to bridge a certain gap, right, But the rest of it,
it is, there is no option. It's a ten factor
for us. There is no alternative to indigenous aircraft. So
I mean to answer your question in short, I'm sure
HL saw this coming. There's been plenty of uh surround
(24:29):
sound to suggest that this was indeed happening. And there
is the drd chief, the former DRDO chief is submitted
to report some months back to the government which actually
spoke of a model, a consortium kind of model.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
That's uh. That that's Sarasworth, doctor V. K.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Saraswort's report, And there've been a number of reports, you know,
from the government. Rajas Kumar Sing's report which was submitted
in March the Defense Secretary. The serving Defense Secretaries asked
for h need to focus on the Air Force. Very
unusual for a single service report to be prepared by
(25:06):
the government looking at the Indian Air Forces, warries, wars.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
And all of that.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
So there is a greater understanding of a the threat
that we face, be the ways forward, the options before
the government. So I think it's this is it like
you said, now or never?
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Yeah, Uh, I want to talk about the other side
as well, the Indian Air Force because of something that
the Air Air Chief said a few months ago when
he was at airoind actually and video went viral of
him giving a dressing down to HL officials. So he
did not quite like that. Actually, he was at a
conclave a few months later, our conclave a few months
(25:42):
a few weeks later, and he basically said that was
like you know, it was sort of a constructive discussion
between me and HL, the HL guys and you the
media kind of to get a.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Different hot moment.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Yeah, but in that in that in that video, there
was a point when he said, key, this is not
about blame gaming. This is because when I point a
finger at you, they are pointing at me, uh, and
he basically went on to refert to I forgot his
exact words, but he went on to refort refer to
the time of the TAGES development when there's a lot
of controversy about and HL says this that Air Force
(26:12):
also played a huge role in the delays because they
kept changing the requirements. Not quite possible, right, So, how
involved and how clear is the Air Force about what
it wants from its fifth generation aircraft? And do you
(26:33):
see something? Do you see a model of what's happened
with the Indian Navy happening for the AMCA, where the
Navy has been deeply involved in the designing, uh developing,
trialing and commissioning of almost any project, because of which
I personally believe all their ships, all their submarines that
have been Indian made, have been usually you know, the projects,
(26:54):
projects have been flawless, not not major not know, no
major issues over there. So yeah, how clear as the
Air Force with its ANCHA dreams and or do you
see what happened with the day is happening once again?
Is that also a.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Well you know again they've you've hit the nail on
the head with the THEAGES I think the Air Force
took a slightly stand offish point of view, and you
know the emphasis on indigenous platforms was not as much
then as it is now today. It's an article of
faith for this government, right, there's no escaping the fact that,
and it's been said time and again, and you have
(27:29):
seen with operations in the indigenous solutions really coming off age.
And one solution was something that Bramos Corporation suggested to
the Indian Air Force a long time ago, which was
an air launched Bramos and that was an entirely Bramoscop
idea which the Air Force of course picked up, embraced
and then developed for two scadns, inducted it in two
(27:52):
scadns and that has been used with devastating efficiency in
the second second wave of OPS indoor, second and third
waves of opsindors. So indigenous solutions for Indian wars that
is an article of faith now. It wasn't the case
a couple of years back, which explains why the Air
Force had a stand offish kind of attitude. They weren't
(28:14):
as closely involved with the LCA program as possibly the
Navy was in developing the naval version of the LCA
and pure. The important part to understand, Dave is whenever
I talk to the ADA and the aircraft developers and designers,
they always emphasize on the spiral development issue, which is
(28:38):
that you take an aircraft at Mark one, you develop
it to Mark one A, possibly even Mark one B,
and then you go on to Mark two. Don't ask
for everything on the first Mark one should be Mark
five or Mark six. There are other countries, you know,
countries that have you know, very rich long lineage of
(29:01):
fighter aircraft development development. Understand it that you gradually induct
aircraft and then you keep on improving them through their lifetimes.
So in our case, for instance, we've not done that.
It was for Parika to intervene and then work out
this one alpha program for the LCA, where he said
he told the Air Force he understood technology. So he
(29:23):
told the airfos, look, don't make all these requirements on
the LCA for the Mark one. Let the Mark one
be inducted in smaller numbers. There is going to be
a gap between Mark one and Mark two while they
work on Mark two. You induct the Mark one alpha
in limited numbers again, so you have that eighty three
or so Mark one A is coming in. So this
(29:45):
kind of spiral development model is understood, and I think
the Air Force now gets it, and I think they
would have seen the lessons from the LCA and they
would imbibe those in the AMCA. And it's really important
here as well, because in AMCO also you have two models.
You have the Mark one, which is not as effective
(30:05):
and as stealthy as the Mark two. The Mark two
is supposed to be the final configuration with you know,
the full works, the internal weapon base, some of the
external you know, payload external hard points as well. So
that is going to be the final version of the AMCA,
and possibly that would come in the late twenty thirties. Now,
(30:27):
you know, this is a question you ask about the
five point five. So this Gen five point five is
a way of saying that we are fully aware of
the fact that we are behind the curve on the
fifth generation fighter aircraft, but we are going to load
the fifth generation with a little more than what a
normal fifth generation aircraft would be. It won't be like
(30:48):
a base model. It'll be a base model plus a
lot of other enhancements that have you know, like artificial intelligence,
those kind of things. Sense of fusion. We will make
sure that it is better than of his generation fighter
that exists in the world.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Right, we'll talk more about this, especially about a crucial
component that is at the heart of fighter jet, which
is the jet itself. But after a quick break, what is.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
The coolest back of the two thousandth oh me? It
was the Pulse Pulse also two hundred that no, actually no,
what else other? So the CBC was the coolest? What
else could you have? Piero Pharo that one motorcycle. That's
one motorcycle from TVs which was so underrated. Hero Honda sleek.
(31:37):
Why do you always pick the most the eighties?
Speaker 2 (31:42):
What is that pic? What is ALEX hundred? ALEX hundred
came in nineteen What are you talking about? My uncle
uh booked hero Honda C hundred SS in the eighties. Yes,
that's a fourth row. Yes, of course you're no. Yes,
he booked a CD hundred s s late eighties. I'm
(32:05):
talking about eighty six eighty seven ESD.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
Created the enthusiast.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Yes, India at some level, or maybe at a very
big level, Yes, I think so. What about the Pulser
one thirty five LS?
Speaker 1 (32:17):
That was? That?
Speaker 4 (32:18):
Was that that at the Genes.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Welcome back, Sandip. I now want to talk about the
engine because I think that's one topic that often gets
missed when talking about fighting fighter jets, and it only
gets highlighted when you have something of the sort that
happened with they just mark one in the delays, because
that is when people realized, oh, hey, by the way,
engine in the US can have oh look a pin,
Oh my god, what is going on Cavery. I thought
(32:52):
it was shelved. I thought that project got of to
know where it was it was. The engine was designed
by d rd O Lab. I forgot the name. Got
the GTR the g gr GR Sorry, yes, the g t
R E Gas turbine research and something establishment establishment, yes, right?
Uh it I think that there were trials but never
got anywhere.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
And I think.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
I I I thought it had been shelved. But for
the last year or so, especially after you saw delays
for the TS mark one, because we are waiting for
engines from the US, which now I think started arriving. Uh.
There was some chatter about Kavery and as recently as
this week there was this huge social media trend or
fund the Carver Engineer, like you know I'll help fund
(33:33):
the cat, but get it going. How crucial do you
think developing an Indian jet engine is for the AMCA project?
Or do you think there's no point reinventing the wheel
when you have global behemoths who can who can you know,
designer and can give you a jet engine? But then
but then you obviously run into problems like the kind
(33:53):
you saw with the s Mark one A. So how
important is it for us to have our own you know?
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (34:01):
They I cannot but overemphasize the point that without your
own engine, you are nowhere in the fighter jet business
without Without your own engine, all you're designing are airframes.
You're just building airframes and you're waiting for a foreign
jet engine to come there and fit into your airframe
(34:22):
and uh, you know, fly your fighter jet fighter jet.
It's like it's the heart of your uh you know,
fighter aircraft program. If you're not you know, building those
jet engines yourself, you're in serious trouble. And you know,
fighter jet engine it's easier said than done, because only
four countries have done it now and the fifth countries
(34:43):
just joined the club after much struggle and blood and
treasure and store you know, stealing I pr is Chinese.
They finally got it with their W series jet engines.
But this is literally the crown jewels of any countries,
you know, secrets, defense secrets. They will never part with it.
(35:05):
We've been friends, allies almost with the Russians for so
many decades. They've never given us the fighters, that engine
know how or know why. All we've been doing for
the last twenty twenty five years is we've been assembling
the AL thirty one FP engines for the SOO thirties.
We don't have the know how to build our own
engines for two decades, we've just been building those engines, right,
(35:28):
So this even the French for that matter, the French,
the Russians, whoever are closest allies, they will never give
you the engine technology. So the short answer is you
have no option but to build your own. And Kaveri
was a great project it began, but it didn't meet
the required can trust that they wanted the neutants that
(35:48):
they wanted, which is almost touching ninety. It could only
get to about fifty or so, which is why the
government shelled that program in twenty fourteen. And they've decided
to use the KAVERI the dry rust engine. You don't
need after burnus for the UKF So the UK which
was called the Kata also at some point that is
going to be powered by this version of the cavery,
the dry thrust engine. And in the future you're going
(36:12):
to look at a CAVERY two point zero with either
the Russian collaboration or the French you know, helping you out.
But the short thing is that you have no way
but to develop your own fighter jet engines. And you
know it's not it's not such a big hurdle as well,
if you put your mind to it, if you decide
(36:34):
that this is a national strategic program and it is
not just a GTR program, that's the problem. You know,
you can't say, oh, GTRE, you was supposed to develop
the cavery. They have not done it. We gave them
all the resources. It cannot be a GTRY program. It
has to be an all of nation approach. You have
to identify the problem. You have to look at it.
(36:55):
Where am I hitting hurdles? Is it the testing? Do
I have the testing facilities for the engine? Firstly we don't.
That's a problem. The metallurgy, Who can get me the
metallurgy who can do this. It has to be an
all of government approach. It has to be driven top down.
All of these countries that have built it so far,
the Chinese being the fifth, they understood it, they got it,
(37:16):
which is why they went helpful leather.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
In our case.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
I'll give you another example of how we went about
getting the nuclear reactor for the nuclear submarine.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
Right.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
This is again a technology that only five countries in
the world have perfected. We got ours because we decided
somewhere in the nineties, in the late nineties, that we've
tested nuclear weapons. The best way to launch nuclear weapons
is from under the water. Nuclear submarine is the way
to do it. But our nuclear subrane design hasn't gone anywhere.
(37:46):
We don't have the reactor. The most important thing of
a nuclear sub is the reactor. Compacting a huge reactor
into a pressure hull of a submarine is the ultimate
engineering marvel in defense. We didn't have the technology, so
we went to the Russians. The Russians helped us, but
with an earlier version of the nuclear reactor. Now the
(38:07):
Chinese have also been helped by the Russian similarly, and
they've built on that expertise. Now I'm coming back to
that spiral development thing. You don't just take an engine,
use it and then throw it and said, no, I'm
now going to start, you know, DiNovo start a new engine.
You go spiral development. You keep improving that engine, you know,
improving its output, which is what they've done with the
(38:27):
nuclear reactor design. Now that is an insurmountable you know target.
At some point it appeared that, oh, we'll never get
our own reactor. But today, I mean, look at it.
We have four nuclear subs in the water, two are
on deployment, a third is on and two more around
sea trials. Right, So if we could do it with
(38:48):
nuclear submarin it's the most complex reactor technology, we can
certainly do it with the fighter jet and start small
and then keep building on it, pushing, pushing, and then
we'll get it. We have no option, like I said,
we have no option but to design and develop our
own fighter jet engines.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Yeah, like you point that, Yeah, of course you can
do it, just to set your mind to it. Because
again you've developed, like you said, the miniaturized reactor for
nuclear subs. You send rockets, you've sent a rover to
the moon, You've developed the Brumos missile, which that is
something that comes close to sort of the engine.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
But you know, my friends and Ada would be very
unhappy with that comparison because they say, look or g try, Uh,
a fighter jet engine has to work all the time, right,
Bramos is a one way ticket. The Mars rocket, the
Moon rockets, these are all one way mission. You know,
you're not coming back. But here the jet engine has
(39:45):
to you know, be it has to run all the time.
It has to you know, variations of speed and you know, acceleration,
all of those things.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Uh, it has to you know, it's the heart. It's
the heart, right, it has to go on for several years.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Yes, all right, but a quick follow up, so we
have no option but to do it. Yeah, are we
doing it? So? The reason I asked that is is
it part of this rupiece fifteen thousand core project that
the engine will be developed simultaneously as part of this
project or is this disbursement of money or only going
to be for developing like you said, the airframes the
(40:20):
technology that will sort of work on that plane, et cetera,
et cetera, and the engine development will happen separately. Or
do we have no knowledge about this we have as
far as.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
I understand that the engine development is separate from this,
and that is where we're looking at the foreign collaborators.
Foreign collaborations, partnerships with either France or with Russia. We
have a tech agreement with the US as well with
the G four one four. That's one a third line
of possibility that we're looking at. So now the hope
(40:51):
is that these countries will give us the technology to
build our own engine. But if you are to develop
your own engine, I believe you have to go you
have to go solo, and you have to get some
kind of consultancy, design assistance and all that. Without that,
it's not going to happen. Because the reason we bailed
out of the Soup fifty seven, yes, fifth generation of
(41:13):
fighter aircraft. We were part of it to begin within
two thousand and nine or so, and we had a
joint venture.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
We put down a lot of money. I think it was.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
A couple of hundred million dollars if I remember correctly,
And in twenty seventeen or eighteen, the government decided to
pull out of the fifth generation fighter aircraft because the
Russian program, because they felt that Russia was not giving
us the technology we wanted. We were already coming into
an aircraft that had already been developed and designed, so
(41:46):
there was nothing for us to learn from that, so
which is why they pulled out and said, look, we
will go our independent part with AMCAR. So here we
are twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Five, right, So what happens to the Air Force is
current and pressing need for fighter jets. So you have
the mark one is coming eighty three ninety seven more
or if I'm not wrong on the order, but there
is still the question of what do you do with
the number of fighters that you need right now, because,
(42:16):
like you said, is going to take around a decade
or so at least to sort of see the light
of day. And that I'm guessing is what you say
for the prototyping of it. Then if you're happy with it,
you place orders, then the production comes at that there's
more more delays. There's there's this talk that there might
be a new MRFA that tender global competition once again
(42:38):
between different fighter jets. You have the US software of
F thirty five, so you have always had the option
of buying morephile jets because you already have them in service.
So make sense to get a couple of more squadrons
from there. They just mark two. Is it even coming?
Is that shelved? So while we talk of ANKA, what
about these other questions other projects, Like I said, they
(42:58):
just mark two?
Speaker 1 (42:58):
Is it there?
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Is it not? Do we know about that? And or
rather what's your outlook on that?
Speaker 3 (43:04):
Well, you know, interesting question they've Now the fact is
that the air force isn't a crisis. If you talk
to which will why you look at it? I mean
thirty one squadns sanctioned strength of forty point two threats are.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
Increasing by the day.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
The PLA Air Force at one point was a pretty
down market air force in the two thousand and ones
when India had a one is to three ratio with
a Pakistan Air Force, and now almost a quarter century later,
that ratio has come down to one is to one
point five because the Pakistan Air Force has been steadily
(43:42):
building up its capabilities. It's been upgrading its fighter aircraft,
it's been acquiring new fighter aircraft, primarily Chinese the J
tens and the JF seven's and JF seventeen's. So you're
looking at an Indian air force that has been acquiring
fighter jets through a method that I can only call interprrogation, right,
(44:06):
Whereas what you need is actually you need a dam
burst of fighters. You have the Air Force Chief saying
I need something like forty to fifty fighter jets to
be inducted every year if I am to just stand
here right to maintain my thirty one squad in numbers.
Because you're looking at twenty thirty five. You said AMCA
starts coming in a decade from now. What will the
(44:26):
Air Force look like without the AMCA, without you know,
more fighters. You're looking at all your MIK twenty nine's
out of service. You're looking at most of the Mirages going,
all your Jaguars going Mike twenty ones will just retire
and a year or two, two squadns that's left. So
every aircraft but for your Raphael and your Sokhoys are
(44:48):
going to mean service. So you need something like two
to three hundred fighter aircraft to come in. That's a
very large number, so which is why they're saying we
need forty aircraft a year. That's a very very ambitious target.
And to add to that now the Air Force is
saying forty two aircraft are not forty two fighter aircraft
squadons are not going to be enough for us. They're
(45:10):
projecting a requirement of something like sixty fighter aircraft squadons
by two zero four to seven. It's a very ambitious number.
You're going to hear more of this action in the
next couple of months, given how concerned the Indian Air
Force is about following scadon numbers. There's another view that
says that they're projecting a higher number sixty squadns in
(45:31):
the hope that they at least get to maybe forty
to forty five squadrons lasting.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Yeah. So well, but if you look at it, there
is a serious thread.
Speaker 3 (45:40):
You're looking at the PLA Air Force, which has got
three hundred plus fifth generation fighters and which is inducting
fifth generation fighter aircraft at the rate of forty.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
To fifty a year.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
So you have them focusing only on Gen five aircraft
park air forces at Gen four Gen four point five.
They're looking at two score terns of fifth generation fighter aircraft,
and why do you need fifth fighter aircraft?
Speaker 1 (46:04):
Now? The interesting thing is that.
Speaker 3 (46:08):
Sell the aircraft like this have the ability to look
at to penetrate air spaces which are heavily guarded by gbads,
the ground based air defense networks like the S four hundred,
the HQ nines and all of that. So the role
of sell the fifth generation fighter aircraft become all the
more critical in such heavily you know, defended air spaces.
(46:30):
The only way you can penetrate a D bubbles, for instance,
is through stell the aircraft, which is why the Americans
are going helpful leather for the sixth generation new generation
air dominance fighters. The Chinese are building up on all
of their things. It's a technology race at the end
of the day. You know, ground based air defenses are
becoming more complex, more sophisticated. Therefore the fighter jets will
(46:54):
have to be you know, stay a step ahead of them.
So it's a big race for nonnumbers. The Air Force
is looking at larger numbers. They're looking at as an
expanding hole in their fighters cord and capabilities. And like
you mentioned, the the mr MMRCA is being revived as
(47:14):
the Multi Role Fighter Aircraft requirement.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
There is a requirement.
Speaker 3 (47:17):
The Air Force believes that they would need something like
seventy or seventy two fighters to come in very quickly.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
But the problem, again they was that these are very
very expensive.
Speaker 3 (47:27):
You know how much the Navy spent for that twenty
six aircraft Rafael rafaele M.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
They spent seven billion dollars. That's that's a lot of money.
Speaker 3 (47:37):
If you look at seven into you know, seven into
three times that thing, you're looking at anything about twenty
billion dollars twenty twenty five billion dollars for just that
seventy two aircraft requirement for the Indian Air Force. So
then it becomes, you know, a battle for resources. Then
the government will have to sit and look, look do
(47:59):
I need to import these aircraft? How many can I
build within the country. So it's it is it's going
to be a very complex, you know, argument for the
Indian Air Force to.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
Make a quick follow up there as well. I get
that it's complex in terms of how many can we
afford right now? But why are we still thinking about
which one to go?
Speaker 1 (48:18):
For?
Speaker 2 (48:18):
The reason I asked that is key. You already had
a competition that a file was the winner. Your Air
Force is very happy with it perform exceptionally the recent
conflict with Pakistan. You also bought the same the naval
version for the for the navy, so you have that
fighter and service. You have the necessary repair equipment and
all the ecosystem that you need to support a fighter.
(48:40):
Yet they know how, etcetera. So why are you even
considering any other aircraft? Why just do like you figure
out the finances, go to the balance sheet they according
and just place more orders for the I wish it
was that easy. Why is it not?
Speaker 1 (48:55):
But you know so?
Speaker 3 (48:57):
Yeah, Now again the raphile is down, choice, down, select
for the Indian Air Force when the MRC was selected,
which they didn't go through, finally they just bought thirty
six of them. The Navy's got twenty six of them.
So yes, there is a strong case to be made
for buying more rafiles that you just do seventy two
more transfer technology built you know in country, get a
(49:20):
production line going, bring down costs, bring in MROs, those
kind of things, find a way of building it indigenously.
There's another voice that says that, look, if you do that,
you're going to kill our LC Mark two for instance,
because you know, finally, at the end of the day,
you know, resources are not infinite, and when the government
(49:40):
is looking at the pie, he's going to decide, look,
do I import these aircraft? Do I build them indigenously,
Do I develop the engines here?
Speaker 1 (49:50):
Do I import?
Speaker 3 (49:51):
You know, it's a complex, complicated argument for the government
to make when it's deciding on imports such high end import,
big ticket items like this seventy plus imports are going
to be looked at with very, very great alarm by
the government. So if you look at it all historically,
(50:13):
all the purchases historically, I mean the last ten years
have been smaller numbers. The requirements projected were much larger.
Air Force wanted one hundred and twenty six. Government came
down to thirty six. Navy wanted fifty plus for the
deck based fighters. Imported ones they came down to twenty six.
So my sense is that they will go for a
mix of a smaller number of rafiles with a larger
(50:36):
number of indigenous fighters. Like the LCA Mark two. The
numbers will always come from indigenous fighters. They will never
come from imports because those imports, I mean, the cost
is horribly you know, there is no comparison. It's like,
for the price of one raphile, you could buy probably
three LCAs Mark twos.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
Right right, last point on this episode, uh, and I'm
going to talk about the Indian Navy because I think
when it comes to fighter jets, the Navy gets the
short end of the stick because of its small requirements. Right,
so never no one talks about it. But the Navy
also has equal concerns. Right, because you have two aircraft
carried in service, the Victim, the vikrant U. There is
(51:21):
a thought that the Navy will go in for a
report reports is but another order of grant type of
aircraft carrier.
Speaker 1 (51:28):
I see one alpha.
Speaker 2 (51:31):
Yeah, yeah, slightly more weight, if I'm not wrong, is
what it has been talked about. We don't know the
specifics yet, but there is some talk about that.
Speaker 3 (51:38):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
Right now you have around, if I'm not wrong, forty
five odd mcroin and case the naval variants, we don't
know the exact number. For some reason, I don't know why
you've placed orders for. You are about to place orders
for the file from from from France. But the Navy
also needs fighter jets other caerau. The AMCA is I'm
(52:01):
guessing solely for the air force. The Navy has rejected
the LC enable naval variant. They wanted what is now
is known as the ted BEV, the twin engine deck
based Right, So Where is that in all of this
or is the AMCA development going to lead to something
for the Navy as well? What does Navy get out
of whatever we are investing in when it comes to.
Speaker 3 (52:21):
Right, So theve as you mentioned, the Navy has the
requirement for fighter jets, but it's much smaller than what
the air forces requirements are. So they have to basically
replace the mid twenty nines forty odd mid twenty nines
that are in service mid twenty nine case, and the
Navy would look at air wings for two carriers and
possibly the third, So you're looking at something like about
(52:42):
sixty fighter jets. That's not a lot of fighters, it's
about three squadns plus. Naval requirements are usually much smaller
than what it is for the Indian Air Force. So
the way forward is the twenty six rapiles are going
to be the interim which will replace the first of
the mid twenty nines as the out of service the
mid twenty nine I have been in service for about
(53:02):
two decades now. It's not been a very happy experiment
for the Indian Navy because these were completely untested aircraft
when they were bought the Russian Navy, the Soviet Navy
actually pioneered the use of the mid twenty nine K,
but it was not purpose built for aircraft carrier operations.
It was a land based fighter which was then converted
(53:22):
into a carrier based fighter in our case, you know,
a Stowbar fighter jet. Now they believe that the twenty
six rafiles will be an interim and then you will
have the ten BF coming at some point, that twin
engine deck based fighters. Because you know, the life of
an aircraft carrier, as you know, is much longer than
(53:44):
the life of a fighter jet. So an aircraft carrier
has a life of about almost half a century fifty years,
and a fighter jet would have a you know thing
of effective combat life for twenty five thirty years. So
you possibly would have an aircraft carrier looking at two
different fighter variants, and here in this case, the WIKA
(54:04):
and of course the new I SV grant came with
the mic twin ene case, they will switch over at
some point to the raphaile ms and they will also
possibly have that ted BF. Now there is a requirement
for an AMCA fifth generation fighter jet. We're looking at
smaller numbers again, but that's not a high priority. It's
not a top priority for the ADA or for the
(54:28):
Indian Navy right now, though if you ask me, they
they should have started with developing a naval variant of
the AMCU first, given how complex this platform is. Carrier
operations are very, very extremely complex. To develop aircraft that
can withstand, you know, the the stresses of landing on
(54:49):
a deck, all of those those problems would have been
solved first, and then adapting them for land based uses
not as com you know, it's not as def reicult
as it is the other way around. So you're you're
going to have a challenge now to take a fighter
jet that's you know, developed for land based operations for
(55:09):
the Indian Air Force and then marinizing it and you know,
strengthening the undercarriage and doing all of that. That's going
to be a big, big task. But I think it
is primarily the amcar. You should look at it primarily
as an Indian Air Force requirement. Small numbers for the
Indian Navy, I mean, if it comes well and good,
but focuses to get it for the air Force because
(55:31):
the numbers are much air Force needs something like ten
squadrons of amcars. They committed to buying about between eight
and ten squadrons. Navies requirements, of course, don't matter as
much as the Air Force requirements.
Speaker 1 (55:42):
Right.
Speaker 2 (55:43):
One final, very quick point. If I could ask you
to speculate and do just plain guests work, based on
just your gut feeling, based on what you know of
the situation now and based on whatever you've seen over
the years. How do you see the Project ANKA project
panning out over the next fifteen year. Whom do you
see the contract being given to. When do you see
(56:03):
the first flight happening, whether the test flight or the
Air Force flight and stuff like that's just plain guestswork
from you. What do you see for the project future?
Speaker 3 (56:11):
You know, I wish I'm an optimist eternal optimist there.
I mean, I think the first flight they're promising twenty
twenty eight in the next three years. They must do it.
We have no option. We have to do it. This
has to be a top down kind of thing. Dictats
have to be passed like you cannot because we've already
lost a lot of time on this. We have to
(56:32):
develop that aircraft. You have to get it flying in
the next year, to get the prototypes flying in the
next three years, and you know, start the induction process
and try and compress deadlines as much as possible. See
where you know again that all of government approach needs
to come in. It has to be treated as a
national project. It cannot be treated as oh, it's just
(56:53):
an Air Force project or it's a DADO project or something.
You have to get a consortium going and it has
to be steered.
Speaker 1 (56:59):
At a very top lint. So I think if.
Speaker 3 (57:03):
All goes well, if given the new prominence to airpower
that this government has given, I would think twenty thirty
five is not an impossible, unsurmountable problem to get the
AMCA inducted by twenty thirty three. Twenty thirty three is
ideally the time that you should be looking at, which
(57:24):
is the next eight years or so to start inducting
the AMCA. And again i'll emphasize mark one. Start with
Mark one and then slowly build up on Mark one.
Don't emphasize that we need everything in the first marketself
right in the first couple of squadns itself. So I
think given all of this and the new enlightenment that's
(57:45):
come on with airpower and the consortium approach, I would
think it would be if I were to have that,
I guess. I think it would be a consortium of
HL and datas that will execute this project. I don't
see HL being completely out of it's it's it's impossible.
You cannot, you know, uh, cut out your biggest aircraft manufacturer,
(58:07):
your only aircraft, only fighter jet manufacturer from this contract.
So I think it will be a consortium of HL,
Tassel and possibly other private players are also kind of
pitching it. It will be a consortium approach to the
government will follow.
Speaker 2 (58:23):
I think the I'd rather put it out. It will
be a sort of a national building model. Yes, everything
every know how that you have in the country will
be used for this to ensure that it happens, and
it happens all the time. Absolutely great Sandy, great chat.
I had got lots of insights from you. I had
a lot of I had a lot of fun. So
thanks so much for you, Thanks for having me there.
(58:44):
That's it for this week's Defense Doors For more, tune
in next week. Till then, stay safe and do not
cross any boundaries without a passport.
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