June 9, 2025 • 55 mins
In this episode of In Our Defence, veteran defence journalist Sandeep Unnithan joins host Dev Goswami to break down Ukraine’s daring drone strike deep inside Russian territory — an operation that has stunned the world.
Using covertly disguised container trucks and remotely launched drones, Ukraine struck key Russian airbases housing Tu-95 bombers and A-50 AWACS, marking a significant escalation in the four-year-old war.
Produced by Prateek Lidhoo
Sound mix by Aman Pal
Using covertly disguised container trucks and remotely launched drones, Ukraine struck key Russian airbases housing Tu-95 bombers and A-50 AWACS, marking a significant escalation in the four-year-old war.
Produced by Prateek Lidhoo
Sound mix by Aman Pal
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):
Welcome to Season three of Another Defense, the podcast that
takes you inside the world of conflict. I'm your host,
Deve Goswami, and every week I sit down with experts
and retired officers from the Army, Navy and Air Force
to decode all things to do with India security and
explore what it truly means to serve. Get ready for
(00:26):
stories of strategy, sacrifice and strength. This is in our Defense.
Welcome to Another Defense. 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 call the execution model. The way I see it,
(00:49):
that's just a term I think they use to sort
of say that the roadmap of how this project will
now go forward in terms of who will be involved
for designing and developing this fighter jet that has been
sort of cleared by Defense man Estrajna saying this clearance
comes around a year after the Cabinet Committee on Security
cleared Piece fifteen thousand core for this project. That money
(01:10):
will be used to design and develop. If I'm not wrong,
on five prototypes of what is not as the AMKA
the Advanced medium Combat Aircraft. Very, very crucially, the statement
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
(01:33):
Hindustan Innats Limited, a state owned aerospace company. So why
is this such a big deal? What is the AMCA?
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 Sandy punitan Hi.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Thanks for being with me, Hi there, thanks for having
me back.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Sandy, before we begin, tell me if I, if I,
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 Amkar per, but whether it's Ages Mark one A
and so on and so forth. So you probably have
(02:17):
seen this from 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 (02:27):
That's an interesting way to frame that question today. But
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 reach 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
(02:50):
our case, we began this journey well in the sixties
with the marut 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, but yeah, you're right.
So it's around the time that I entered journalism, which
was in the nineties, the light combat aircraft started to
(03:11):
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
one A hopefully should be entering the Air force in
large numbers.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Before we get into the anchor and why this statement
on the execution models so 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,
(03:54):
by the event, this is something that missed my RADA
in February when a full skilled display model of the
AMCA was put up at the Aero India. Sure, 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 (04:15):
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
(04:36):
two 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, where
(04:58):
you had the Meek fifteens, and then later the seventeens
and you had the F eighty six saber jets.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Those were the second generation of fighter jets.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Vietnam War you saw possibly the third generation of fighter jets,
which were bigger, which had more combat endurance, you know,
larger payloads. And this continued till the seventies when you
saw what you have today in most air forces of
the world. I mean, we of course operate some third
generation modified aircraft the mid twenty ones. It's probably one
(05:27):
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 nines. These are all fourth generation aircraft. But somewhere
in the late nineties you began this a lot of
countries started going towards what is called the fifth generation
(05:49):
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 very big app between them,
but in terms of capabilities and whether it's ordnance capability.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Stealth, now, stealth was very important.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
That was the X factor in all of these fifth
generation aircraft that started to be developed in the late
nineties on.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
And the United.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
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. So you have
fifth generation aircraft which have stealth is the most important characteristic,
and you have supercrews, which is the ability to fly
(06:36):
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
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 and they
(07:00):
have a sixth generation working on two sixth generation prototypes
as well. The Russians have, you know, been a little
slope because of primarily resource constraints, technology constraints. 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
(07:24):
from around two thousand and eight or nine when we
began the quest for a fifth generation fighter aircraft, the AMCA,
which you mentioned, the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft program, which
is still we've only seen a prototype. We've only seen,
you know, a model model, a scale model. We yet
to see a prototype, I must clarify, and we are
(07:45):
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 there, I
mean numbers. We are yet to even get Gen four
and Gen four point five fighter jets. So the fifth
(08:07):
generation is a is a little way down the line.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Yeah, so it's bet 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 filed geration 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
(08:33):
out a couple of days ago was that it did
not mention hindusan Unatics Limited even once.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Now that's strange because in media headlines you can work
basic Google search, you will always see this term hal
And because it was always believed it was a given
kiban I got to h L 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
(09:02):
a consortion can come come together. It can be public companies,
it can be private companies. So basically Halsale 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 seems the most competent,
whoever gives the promises, the best timelines, and perhaps you
know is realistic enough in terms of what they're offering
(09:24):
and what they're proposing, they'll get the contract to design
and develop this tradition. Fighter chet, I want your overview
of how did we reach her, how long was it coming,
and whether what's happened in the last couple of years
with respect to delays of the Tanges Mark one a
UH and the grounding of the Droove helicopters after a
(09:45):
series of crashes that took place. In both cases, there
have been fingers pointed at HL Withdrew. There have been allegations,
very very very quiet though, that DHL was not very
receipt active 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
(10:08):
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 tages Mark
one name. The reason I say that and mentioned that
is just this morning before we recorded this Air Force
Chief Air Marshal thing, 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
(10:30):
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
going to come up on time. So yes, and the
your overview of how did we reach a point where
hl which so far thought keylting.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
But absolutely they'll fight for it.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
But but you know they if you didn't mention the
other fight, which is actually the Blackswone event in the
middle of all of this, which has operations Sindur. Yes,
and that is the blackswone 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 leadership that understands airpower and it's very
(11:23):
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
airparer because he was afraid of escalating the conflict. Whereas
there are people who are arguing now with the benefit
of hindsight of course, that had the Indian Air Force
(11:44):
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 lost ground in nineteen sixty two. Now you
jump to seventy one, perfect textbook application of airpower, no questions,
(12:07):
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 cannot draw a line of control in the sky, right,
(12:29):
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,
operations in the multi phase multi level escalation where air
(12:54):
force is used as coersive airpower for the first time
since nineteen seventy one, and also prior to that, in
twenty twenty when China mobilizes opposite Ladakh, you have the
Indian Air Force going in right away, and I was
there on the ground.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
I saw those fighter.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Jets landing in lay a big understanding of airpar on
the part 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
(13:28):
from now, Not that it wasn't earlier, but now you've
actually seen a demonstration of airpower.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
You've seen the way the.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
IA fighter jets standoff 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
(13:57):
government is going to react is going to be shaped
by the events of operations in and the fact that
the IF's requirement for fighter aircraft, for 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
(14:21):
within 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. So they're saying that, look, give the
(14:44):
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.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
They have the LCA.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Mark one A, they have the Mark two and of
course many other helicopter programs as which 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 upgrades right, which is
(15:24):
something we should have started working on twenty years ago,
which we didn't, 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
(15:45):
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 had built two
German submarines, but the government brought in Larsen and two
bro as the main partner to actually fabricate the pressure
hulls of the nuclear submarines. And today you have four submarines.
(16:08):
If your four nuclear submarines over six thousand tons displacement
in the water to commission to be commissioned in the
next year or two. A 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 Arihan class, the ATV project, where you'll have
(16:31):
the 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 Larsen and two Bro, They'll have to compete with Tassel,
Tata Advanced Systems Limited, all of these private sector players,
(16:53):
and whoever gets gives the best bid wins. So it's
a sense of the government bringing in competition into the
aviation space military aviation space.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
But of course the dice is heavily loaded in hl's favor.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Right, they have plant, machinery, train, manpower, all of that.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Right.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
They have facilities in Marashrine in Bengaluru, of course, it's
in the news last couple of days, and of course
Cora put in Urisha where they make the fighter jet engine.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
So you're looking at a behemoth. HL is a behemoth.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
It's a public sector behemoth, of course, and you have
the private sector saying, hey, give us a chance. Tata's
has been building up very slowly over the last fifteen years.
They've started small, and today they're in a position where
they'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
(17:48):
to take that leap of faith with them whether 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
(18:09):
lot of clarity on how they're going to go about it.
For instance, who's going to allocate workshare if there is
a partnership if there is to 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
(18:31):
this work share and you know so, 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 Nessays Office to be brought in, like the
National Security Council Secretary at NSCs should be the body
(18:54):
that will actually be a neutral judge who will decide
who gets the work share, how this program is to move.
It's an extremely complicated program, as I mentioned, 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 the super cruise, with
(19:14):
your in you know, your weapon based 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
(19:36):
to all of this, you have your 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
(19:58):
straight into this heavy whether if it actually manages to
fly in the timelines that we envisage it to.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Yeah, 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 Indiamene it comes
to production of aviation equipment for for defense, for the military. Uh.
(20:25):
And now you're trying to sort of, you know, shake
that up and bring in new people and bring in
new players, and bring in a new way of working
workshare 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 right
and have this device right.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
How is hil 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 and
journalists like you. Honestly, I am not surprised with the
path the government has chosen. Yes, it's a it's a
(21:08):
controversial decision. Yes, 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, to
make We don't know that yet, but the intent has
been signaled.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Uh so did HIA 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?
Speaker 3 (21:38):
You know? How can this this happen? I think h
A 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 the services had, especially over the Advanced
Light Helicopter ALH, the grounding of the fleet. There were
some serious issues there, technical issues which the services have
(22:01):
you know, raised with HL and as you mentioned, it
just happened since that all of these things happened at
the same time.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
They converged, and you know it.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Was what is it that they 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
(22:33):
brought in, right, and this has worked well in the past.
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
(22:55):
with both Pakistan and China, and the fact that we
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 (23:08):
Right.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
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, ind I get
(23:30):
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.
(23:51):
And I think President Trump's statements during operations Sindur might
have contributed to this alarm that's been raised in in
the government. So I think they'll be looking at developing
our own aircraft. It is, of course, it's a critical requirement,
like I said, and they will possibly look at a
small number of fifth generation fighter aircraft imported, like two squadrons,
(24:16):
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 sound to suggest that this was indeed happening.
And there is the drd chief, the former DRDO chief
(24:40):
is submitted to report some months back to the government
which actually spoke of a model, a consortium kind of model.
That's uh that that's Sarasworth, doctor v. K.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Saraswort's report.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
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
uh need to focus on the Air Force. Very unusual
for a single service report to be prepared by the
government looking at the Indian Air Forces, warries, wars and
(25:14):
all of that.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
So there is a.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
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 (25:26):
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 airnd 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
(25:46):
of 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 too get a.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Different hot movement.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
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. And he
basically went on to refer to I forgot his exact words,
but he went on to refort refer to the time
of the theages development when there's a lot of controversy
about and HL says this that Air Force also played
(26:18):
a huge role in the delays because they kept changing
the requirements. Not quite possible. So how involved and how
clear is the Air Force about what it wants from
its fifth generation aircraft? And do you see something? Do
(26:39):
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 submaries that have been Indian
made have been usually you know, the projects, projects have
been flawless, not not majored, not no, no major issues
(27:02):
over there. So yeah, how clear is the Air Force
with its ANCA dreams? And or do you see what
happened with the is happening once again?
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Is that also a well you know again, they've you've
hit the nail on the head with the tages. 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
(27:32):
and again, and you have seen with operations in the
Indigenous solutions really coming off age. And one solution was
something that BrahMos Corporations 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
(27:54):
two scadents, inducted it in two scadents and that has
been used with devastating efficiency in the second, second wave
of obsendor, second and third waves of obsdur So Indigenous
solutions for Indian wars, that is an article of faith now.
It wasn't the case a couple of years back, which
(28:15):
explains why the Air Force had a stand offish kind
of attitude. They weren't 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
(28:35):
aircraft developers and designers, they always emphasize on the spiral
development issue, which is 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
(28:57):
one should be Mark five or Mark six. There are
other countries, you know, countries that have a you know,
very rich, long lineage of fighter aircraft development development. Understand
that you gradually induct aircraft and then you keep on
improving them through their lifetimes. So in our case, for instance,
(29:17):
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 told the Air Force, 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
(29:37):
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 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
(29:58):
and they would imbibe those in the AMCA. And it's
really important here as well, because in AMCA also you
have two models. You have the Mark one, which is
not as effective 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,
(30:21):
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 you know, there 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
(30:41):
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 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.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Sense of fusion.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
We will make sure that it is better than a
fifth generation fighter that exists in the world.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
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 the coolest back of the two thousandth Oh? For me,
it was the Pulse Pulse Puls two hundred that no, actually, no,
what else other? So the CBC was the coolest? What
(31:29):
else could you have? Fiero Pharo that one motorcycle, that's
one motorcycle from TVs which was so underrated, Hero Honda sleek.
Why do you always pick the most eighties?
Speaker 1 (31:47):
What is that pic?
Speaker 2 (31:48):
What is Alex hundred? ALEX hundred came in nineteen What
are you talking about? My uncle uh booked Hero Honda
hundred s s in the eight tease.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Yes, that's a fourth row, Yes, of course, No, yes,
he booked a CD hundred s s late eighties.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
I'm talking about eighty six eighty seven.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
ESD created the enthusiast in India at some level, or
maybe at a very big level.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Yes, I think So, what about the pulser one thirty
five ls.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
That was that was.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
A god that learned that at the genes. 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
(32:43):
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, oh what is going Very
I thought was shelved. I thought that project got off
two nowhere it was it was the engine was designed
by d R d O Lab. I forgot the forgot
(33:04):
the g TR, the g GR GTR sorry, yes, the
g t R E Gas Turbuying research and something establishment established, yes,
right uh it I think that there were trials but
never got anywhere. And I think I I I thought
it had been shelved. But for the last year or so,
especially after you saw delays for the t S mark one,
(33:25):
because we are waiting for engines from the US, which
now I think started arriving.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
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
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,
(33:53):
designer and can give you a jet engine? But then
you obviously run into problems like the kind you saw
with the s mark one A. So how important is
it for us to have our own edg.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Yeah you know, uh.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
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
(34:26):
and uh, you know, fly your.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Fighter jet fighter jet.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
It's like it's the heart of your 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 just
joined the club.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
After much struggle.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
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 countri's you know secrets, defense secrets.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
They will never part with it.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
We've been friends, allies almost with the Russians for so
many decades. They've never given us the fighter jet 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.
(35:32):
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 neutrons that
(35:53):
they wanted, which is almost touching ninety. It could only
get to about fifty or so, which is why the
government shelve that program in twenty fourteen and they've decided
to use the Kaveri, the dry thrust engine. You don't
need after bonus for the UKF so the UK which
was called the Kathak 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
(36:17):
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
(36:38):
that this is a national strategic program and it is
not just a GTR program, that's a 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 GTR program. It
has to be an all of nation approach. You have
to identify the problem. You have to look at it.
(37:00):
Where am I hitting hurdles? Is it that 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 ol
of government approach.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
It has to be.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
Driven top down. All of these countries that have built
it so far, the Chinese being the fifth, they understood it,
they got it, which is why they went helful leather.
In our case, I'll give you another example of how
we went about getting the nuclear reactor for the nuclear submarine.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Right.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
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 submarine design hasn't gone anywhere.
(37:51):
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 altar
engineering marvel in defense. We didn't have the technology then,
so we went to the Russians. The Russians helped us,
but with an earlier version of the nuclear reactor. Now
(38:11):
the Chinese have also been helped by the Russians 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 say 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 a
(38:32):
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
(38:52):
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. And we have no option, like I said,
we have no option but to design and develop our
own fighter jet engines.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Yeah, 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 Promos missile, which that
is something that comes close to sort of the engine.
But you know, my friends and Ada would be very
(39:33):
unhappy with that comparison because they said, look, or g
try a fighter jet engine has to work all the time, right.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Bramos is a one way ticket.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
The Mars rocket, the Moon rockets, these are all one
way mission.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
You know you're not coming back.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
But here the jet engine has 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. 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 (40:03):
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 to piece 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
(40:24):
the technology that will sort of work on that plane,
et cetera. And the engine development will happen separately or
do we have no knowledge about this?
Speaker 3 (40:32):
We have as far as 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.
(40:54):
So now the hope is that these countries will give
us the technology to build our 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,
(41:17):
fifth generation of fighter aircraft. We were part of it
to begin within two thousand and nine or so, and
we had a joint venture. We put down a lot
of money up I think it was 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
(41:41):
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 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 five.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Yeah. Right, So what happens to the Air Force's 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, like
(42:20):
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 the there's this talk that there might
be a new MRFA that tender global competition once again
(42:42):
between different fighter jets. You have the US offware of
F thirty five, so you have always had the option
of buying more offhile jets because you already have them
in service, so makes sense. Just get a couple of
more squadrons from there. There is 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 just mark two?
Speaker 1 (43:03):
Is it there? Is it not?
Speaker 2 (43:04):
What do we know about that? And or rather what's
your outlook on that?
Speaker 3 (43:09):
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 where you look at it, I mean
thirty one squad's sanctioned strength of forty ft threats are
increasing by the day. The PLA Air Force at one
point was a pretty down market air force in the
(43:31):
two thousand and ones when India had a one is
to three ratio with the 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 building up its capabilities. It's
been upgrading its fighter aircraft, It's been acquiring new fighter aircraft,
(43:54):
primarily Chinese the jay 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 it rebrrogation, right, Whereas what you
need is actually you need a dam burst of fighters.
(44:14):
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 Air Force look
like without the AMCA, without you know, more fighters. You're
(44:37):
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 in a
year or two. Two squadns that's left. So every aircraft
but for your Raphael and your Sokoys are going to
mean service. So you need something like two to three
hundred fighter aircraft to come in. That's a very large number,
(45:00):
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 projecting a
requirement of something like sixty fighter aircraft squadons by two
(45:20):
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 the
hope that they at least get to maybe forty to
forty five squadrons lasting.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Yeah. So well, but if you look at it, there
is a serious thread.
Speaker 3 (45:45):
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 to
fifty a year. 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 squadns of fifth
(46:05):
generation fighter aircraft and why do you need fifth fighter aircraft?
Speaker 2 (46:09):
Now?
Speaker 1 (46:09):
The interesting thing is that sell the aircraft like this.
Speaker 3 (46:14):
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. The only way
(46:35):
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
(46:56):
and more sophisticated. Therefore the fighter jets will have to
be you know, stay a step ahead of them. So
it's a big race for numbers. The Air Force is
looking at larger numbers. They're looking at as an expanding
hole in their fighters cordon capabilities. And like you mentioned,
the the mr MMRCA is being revived as the Multi
(47:20):
Role Fighter Aircraft requirement. There is a requirement the Air
Force believes that they would need something like seventy or
seventy two fighters to come in very quickly. The problem again,
they was that these are very very expensive. You know
how much the Navy is spent for that twenty six
aircraft Rafael Deal rafaele M.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
They spent seven billion dollars. That's that's a lot of money.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
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, battle for resources. Then the
government will have to sit and look, look do I
(48:03):
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 make.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
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 for? 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.
Do you have the recent conflict with Pakistan. You also
(48:34):
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 fighters. 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 sheets, according just place more orders for.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
I wish it was that easy.
Speaker 2 (48:59):
Why is it not?
Speaker 3 (49:00):
But you know so, yeah, again, the raphile is the
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
(49:23):
in country, get a 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
(49:44):
and when the government 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?
Do I import? You know, it's a complex, complicated argument
for the to make when it's deciding on imports, such
high end imports. So big ticket items like this seventy
(50:07):
plus imports are going to be looked at with very,
very great alarm by the government. So if you look
at it all, historically, all the purchases historic, I mean,
in 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
(50:28):
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 number of indigenous fighters
like the LCA Mark two. The numbers will always come
from indigenous fighters, they will never come from imports because
(50:51):
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 LC marktos.
Speaker 2 (51:02):
Yeah, 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
(51:22):
carried in service, the vikranth Uh, there is a thought
that the Navy will go in for a report reports
is but another order of krant type of aircraft carrier.
I see one alpha 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 (51:42):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (51:43):
Right now you have around, if I'm not wrong, forty
five odd mcwein and case the naval variants. We don't
know the exact number for some reason, I don't know why. Uh,
you've placed orders for you are about to place orders
for the file from from from France. But the Navy
also needs fighter the AMCA is I'm guessing solely for
(52:07):
the air force. The Navy has rejected the LC enable
naval variant they wanted what is now as known as
the TED DEV the twin engine deck based 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 right.
Speaker 3 (52:27):
So THEVE as you mentioned, the Navy has a 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 sixty
(52:47):
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 raphiles are going to
be the intel which will replace the first of the
mid twenty nines as they go out of service. The
mid twenty nine have been in service for about two
decades now. It's not been a very happy experiment for
(53:11):
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 into
a carrier based fighter in our case, you know, a
stow Bar.
Speaker 1 (53:32):
Fighter jet.
Speaker 3 (53:33):
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 the life of a
fighter jet. So an aircraft carrier has a life of
about almost half a century fifty years, and a fighter
(53:56):
jet would have a you know thing of effective combat
life twenty five thirty years. So you possibly would have
an aircraft carrier looking at two different fighter variants, and
here in this case, the Wikma, THEA and of course
the new ions V grant came with the mid twin
end case, they will switch over at some point to
the RAPHA ale MS and they will also possibly have
(54:18):
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 Indian Navy right now.
Though if you ask me, they should have started with
developing a naval variant of the AMCAF first, given how
(54:41):
complex this platform is. Carrier operations are very, very extremely
complex to develop aircraft that can withstand, you know, the
stresses of landing on a deck, all of those those
problems would have been solved first and then adapting them
for land based uses. Not as you know, it's not
(55:04):
as difficult 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 the Indian Air Force and then marinizing it
and you know, strengthening the undercarriage and doing all of that.
Speaker 1 (55:19):
That's going to be a big, big task.
Speaker 3 (55:22):
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 the numbers are much air force
needs something like tense coadrons of amcas. They committed to
buying about between eight and ten squadrons. Navies requirements, of course,
(55:44):
don't matter as much as the Air Force requirements.
Speaker 2 (55:47):
Right. One final, very quick point, if I could ask
you to speculate and do just plain guess work based
on just your gut feeling, based on what you know
of the situation now and based on whatever you've seen
the years. How do you see the project Ancorp project
panning out over the next fifteen years. Whom do you
see the contract being given to. When do you see
(56:08):
the first flight happening, whether the test flight or the
Air Force flight and stuff like that's just plain guesswork
from you. What do you see for the project?
Speaker 3 (56:16):
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. We have to develop that aircraft.
(56:38):
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 an Air Force
project or it's a DADO project or something. You have
(57:01):
to get a consortium going and it has to be
steered at a very top lint. So I think if
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
(57:21):
AMCA inducted by twenty thirty three. Twenty thirty three is
ideally the time that you should be looking at, which
is the next eight years or so to start inducting
the AMCA. And again I'm emphasize mark one. Start with
Mark one and then slowly build up on Mark one.
Don't emphasize that. Look, we need everything in the first marketself,
(57:42):
right in the first couple of scad ins itself. So
I think given all of this and the new enlightenment
has come out 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 tatas that will execute this project. I don't
(58:02):
see HL being completely put out of it. It's it's impossible.
You cannot, you know, uh, cut out your biggest aircraft manufacturer,
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
(58:22):
pitching it will be a consortium approach to the government
will follow.
Speaker 2 (58:27):
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 on time. Absolutely great, the great chat. I
had got lots of insights from you and a lot
I had a lot of fun. So thanks so much
for me, Thanks for having me there. That's it for
(58:49):
this week's defense dose. 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):
Welcome to Season three of Another Defense, the podcast that
takes you inside the world of conflict. I'm your host,
Deve Goswami, and every week I sit down with experts
and retired officers from the Army, Navy and Air Force
to decode all things to do with India security and
explore what it truly means to serve. Get ready for
(00:26):
stories of strategy, sacrifice and strength. This is in our Defense.
Welcome to Another Defense. 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 call the execution model. The way I see it,
(00:49):
that's just a term I think they use to sort
of say that the roadmap of how this project will
now go forward in terms of who will be involved
for designing and developing this fighter jet that has been
sort of cleared by Defense man Estrajna saying this clearance
comes around a year after the Cabinet Committee on Security
cleared Piece fifteen thousand core for this project. That money
(01:10):
will be used to design and develop. If I'm not wrong,
on five prototypes of what is not as the AMKA
the Advanced medium Combat Aircraft. Very, very crucially, the statement
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
(01:33):
Hindustan Innats Limited, a state owned aerospace company. So why
is this such a big deal? What is the AMCA?
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 Sandy punitan Hi.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Thanks for being with me, Hi there, thanks for having
me back.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Sandy, before we begin, tell me if I, if I,
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 Amkar per, but whether it's Ages Mark one A
and so on and so forth. So you probably have
(02:17):
seen this from 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 (02:27):
That's an interesting way to frame that question today. But
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 reach 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
(02:50):
our case, we began this journey well in the sixties
with the marut 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, but yeah, you're right.
So it's around the time that I entered journalism, which
was in the nineties, the light combat aircraft started to
(03:11):
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
one A hopefully should be entering the Air force in
large numbers.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Before we get into the anchor and why this statement
on the execution models so 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,
(03:54):
by the event, this is something that missed my RADA
in February when a full skilled display model of the
AMCA was put up at the Aero India. Sure, 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 (04:15):
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
(04:36):
two 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, where
(04:58):
you had the Meek fifteens, and then later the seventeens
and you had the F eighty six saber jets.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Those were the second generation of fighter jets.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Vietnam War you saw possibly the third generation of fighter jets,
which were bigger, which had more combat endurance, you know,
larger payloads. And this continued till the seventies when you
saw what you have today in most air forces of
the world. I mean, we of course operate some third
generation modified aircraft the mid twenty ones. It's probably one
(05:27):
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 nines. These are all fourth generation aircraft. But somewhere
in the late nineties you began this a lot of
countries started going towards what is called the fifth generation
(05:49):
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 very big app between them,
but in terms of capabilities and whether it's ordnance capability.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Stealth, now, stealth was very important.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
That was the X factor in all of these fifth
generation aircraft that started to be developed in the late
nineties on.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
And the United.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
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. So you have
fifth generation aircraft which have stealth is the most important characteristic,
and you have supercrews, which is the ability to fly
(06:36):
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
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 and they
(07:00):
have a sixth generation working on two sixth generation prototypes
as well. The Russians have, you know, been a little
slope because of primarily resource constraints, technology constraints. 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
(07:24):
from around two thousand and eight or nine when we
began the quest for a fifth generation fighter aircraft, the AMCA,
which you mentioned, the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft program, which
is still we've only seen a prototype. We've only seen,
you know, a model model, a scale model. We yet
to see a prototype, I must clarify, and we are
(07:45):
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 there, I
mean numbers. We are yet to even get Gen four
and Gen four point five fighter jets. So the fifth
(08:07):
generation is a is a little way down the line.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Yeah, so it's bet 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 filed geration 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
(08:33):
out a couple of days ago was that it did
not mention hindusan Unatics Limited even once.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Now that's strange because in media headlines you can work
basic Google search, you will always see this term hal
And because it was always believed it was a given
kiban I got to h L 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
(09:02):
a consortion can come come together. It can be public companies,
it can be private companies. So basically Halsale 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 seems the most competent,
whoever gives the promises, the best timelines, and perhaps you
know is realistic enough in terms of what they're offering
(09:24):
and what they're proposing, they'll get the contract to design
and develop this tradition. Fighter chet, I want your overview
of how did we reach her, how long was it coming,
and whether what's happened in the last couple of years
with respect to delays of the Tanges Mark one a
UH and the grounding of the Droove helicopters after a
(09:45):
series of crashes that took place. In both cases, there
have been fingers pointed at HL Withdrew. There have been allegations,
very very very quiet though, that DHL was not very
receipt active 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
(10:08):
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 tages Mark
one name. The reason I say that and mentioned that
is just this morning before we recorded this Air Force
Chief Air Marshal thing, 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
(10:30):
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
going to come up on time. So yes, and the
your overview of how did we reach a point where
hl which so far thought keylting.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
But absolutely they'll fight for it.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
But but you know they if you didn't mention the
other fight, which is actually the Blackswone event in the
middle of all of this, which has operations Sindur. Yes,
and that is the blackswone 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 leadership that understands airpower and it's very
(11:23):
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
airparer because he was afraid of escalating the conflict. Whereas
there are people who are arguing now with the benefit
of hindsight of course, that had the Indian Air Force
(11:44):
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 lost ground in nineteen sixty two. Now you
jump to seventy one, perfect textbook application of airpower, no questions,
(12:07):
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 cannot draw a line of control in the sky, right,
(12:29):
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,
operations in the multi phase multi level escalation where air
(12:54):
force is used as coersive airpower for the first time
since nineteen seventy one, and also prior to that, in
twenty twenty when China mobilizes opposite Ladakh, you have the
Indian Air Force going in right away, and I was
there on the ground.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
I saw those fighter.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Jets landing in lay a big understanding of airpar on
the part 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
(13:28):
from now, Not that it wasn't earlier, but now you've
actually seen a demonstration of airpower.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
You've seen the way the.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
IA fighter jets standoff 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
(13:57):
government is going to react is going to be shaped
by the events of operations in and the fact that
the IF's requirement for fighter aircraft, for 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
(14:21):
within 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. So they're saying that, look, give the
(14:44):
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.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
They have the LCA.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Mark one A, they have the Mark two and of
course many other helicopter programs as which 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 upgrades right, which is
(15:24):
something we should have started working on twenty years ago,
which we didn't, 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
(15:45):
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 had built two
German submarines, but the government brought in Larsen and two
bro as the main partner to actually fabricate the pressure
hulls of the nuclear submarines. And today you have four submarines.
(16:08):
If your four nuclear submarines over six thousand tons displacement
in the water to commission to be commissioned in the
next year or two. A 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 Arihan class, the ATV project, where you'll have
(16:31):
the 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 Larsen and two Bro, They'll have to compete with Tassel,
Tata Advanced Systems Limited, all of these private sector players,
(16:53):
and whoever gets gives the best bid wins. So it's
a sense of the government bringing in competition into the
aviation space military aviation space.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
But of course the dice is heavily loaded in hl's favor.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Right, they have plant, machinery, train, manpower, all of that.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Right.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
They have facilities in Marashrine in Bengaluru, of course, it's
in the news last couple of days, and of course
Cora put in Urisha where they make the fighter jet engine.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
So you're looking at a behemoth. HL is a behemoth.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
It's a public sector behemoth, of course, and you have
the private sector saying, hey, give us a chance. Tata's
has been building up very slowly over the last fifteen years.
They've started small, and today they're in a position where
they'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
(17:48):
to take that leap of faith with them whether 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
(18:09):
lot of clarity on how they're going to go about it.
For instance, who's going to allocate workshare if there is
a partnership if there is to 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
(18:31):
this work share and you know so, 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 Nessays Office to be brought in, like the
National Security Council Secretary at NSCs should be the body
(18:54):
that will actually be a neutral judge who will decide
who gets the work share, how this program is to move.
It's an extremely complicated program, as I mentioned, 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 the super cruise, with
(19:14):
your in you know, your weapon based 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
(19:36):
to all of this, you have your 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
(19:58):
straight into this heavy whether if it actually manages to
fly in the timelines that we envisage it to.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Yeah, 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 Indiamene it comes
to production of aviation equipment for for defense, for the military. Uh.
(20:25):
And now you're trying to sort of, you know, shake
that up and bring in new people and bring in
new players, and bring in a new way of working
workshare 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 right
and have this device right.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
How is hil 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 and
journalists like you. Honestly, I am not surprised with the
path the government has chosen. Yes, it's a it's a
(21:08):
controversial decision. Yes, 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, to
make We don't know that yet, but the intent has
been signaled.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Uh so did HIA 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?
Speaker 3 (21:38):
You know? How can this this happen? I think h
A 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 the services had, especially over the Advanced
Light Helicopter ALH, the grounding of the fleet. There were
some serious issues there, technical issues which the services have
(22:01):
you know, raised with HL and as you mentioned, it
just happened since that all of these things happened at
the same time.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
They converged, and you know it.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Was what is it that they 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
(22:33):
brought in, right, and this has worked well in the past.
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
(22:55):
with both Pakistan and China, and the fact that we
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 (23:08):
Right.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
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, ind I get
(23:30):
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.
(23:51):
And I think President Trump's statements during operations Sindur might
have contributed to this alarm that's been raised in in
the government. So I think they'll be looking at developing
our own aircraft. It is, of course, it's a critical requirement,
like I said, and they will possibly look at a
small number of fifth generation fighter aircraft imported, like two squadrons,
(24:16):
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 sound to suggest that this was indeed happening.
And there is the drd chief, the former DRDO chief
(24:40):
is submitted to report some months back to the government
which actually spoke of a model, a consortium kind of model.
That's uh that that's Sarasworth, doctor v. K.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Saraswort's report.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
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
uh need to focus on the Air Force. Very unusual
for a single service report to be prepared by the
government looking at the Indian Air Forces, warries, wars and
(25:14):
all of that.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
So there is a.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
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 (25:26):
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 airnd 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
(25:46):
of 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 too get a.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Different hot movement.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
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. And he
basically went on to refer to I forgot his exact words,
but he went on to refort refer to the time
of the theages development when there's a lot of controversy
about and HL says this that Air Force also played
(26:18):
a huge role in the delays because they kept changing
the requirements. Not quite possible. So how involved and how
clear is the Air Force about what it wants from
its fifth generation aircraft? And do you see something? Do
(26:39):
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 submaries that have been Indian
made have been usually you know, the projects, projects have
been flawless, not not majored, not no, no major issues
(27:02):
over there. So yeah, how clear is the Air Force
with its ANCA dreams? And or do you see what
happened with the is happening once again?
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Is that also a well you know again, they've you've
hit the nail on the head with the tages. 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
(27:32):
and again, and you have seen with operations in the
Indigenous solutions really coming off age. And one solution was
something that BrahMos Corporations 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
(27:54):
two scadents, inducted it in two scadents and that has
been used with devastating efficiency in the second, second wave
of obsendor, second and third waves of obsdur So Indigenous
solutions for Indian wars, that is an article of faith now.
It wasn't the case a couple of years back, which
(28:15):
explains why the Air Force had a stand offish kind
of attitude. They weren't 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
(28:35):
aircraft developers and designers, they always emphasize on the spiral
development issue, which is 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
(28:57):
one should be Mark five or Mark six. There are
other countries, you know, countries that have a you know,
very rich, long lineage of fighter aircraft development development. Understand
that you gradually induct aircraft and then you keep on
improving them through their lifetimes. So in our case, for instance,
(29:17):
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 told the Air Force, 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
(29:37):
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 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
(29:58):
and they would imbibe those in the AMCA. And it's
really important here as well, because in AMCA also you
have two models. You have the Mark one, which is
not as effective 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,
(30:21):
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 you know, there 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
(30:41):
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 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.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Sense of fusion.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
We will make sure that it is better than a
fifth generation fighter that exists in the world.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
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 the coolest back of the two thousandth Oh? For me,
it was the Pulse Pulse Puls two hundred that no, actually, no,
what else other? So the CBC was the coolest? What
(31:29):
else could you have? Fiero Pharo that one motorcycle, that's
one motorcycle from TVs which was so underrated, Hero Honda sleek.
Why do you always pick the most eighties?
Speaker 1 (31:47):
What is that pic?
Speaker 2 (31:48):
What is Alex hundred? ALEX hundred came in nineteen What
are you talking about? My uncle uh booked Hero Honda
hundred s s in the eight tease.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Yes, that's a fourth row, Yes, of course, No, yes,
he booked a CD hundred s s late eighties.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
I'm talking about eighty six eighty seven.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
ESD created the enthusiast in India at some level, or
maybe at a very big level.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Yes, I think So, what about the pulser one thirty
five ls.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
That was that was.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
A god that learned that at the genes. 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
(32:43):
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, oh what is going Very
I thought was shelved. I thought that project got off
two nowhere it was it was the engine was designed
by d R d O Lab. I forgot the forgot
(33:04):
the g TR, the g GR GTR sorry, yes, the
g t R E Gas Turbuying research and something establishment established, yes,
right uh it I think that there were trials but
never got anywhere. And I think I I I thought
it had been shelved. But for the last year or so,
especially after you saw delays for the t S mark one,
(33:25):
because we are waiting for engines from the US, which
now I think started arriving.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
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
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,
(33:53):
designer and can give you a jet engine? But then
you obviously run into problems like the kind you saw
with the s mark one A. So how important is
it for us to have our own edg.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Yeah you know, uh.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
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
(34:26):
and uh, you know, fly your.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Fighter jet fighter jet.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
It's like it's the heart of your 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 just
joined the club.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
After much struggle.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
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 countri's you know secrets, defense secrets.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
They will never part with it.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
We've been friends, allies almost with the Russians for so
many decades. They've never given us the fighter jet 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.
(35:32):
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 neutrons that
(35:53):
they wanted, which is almost touching ninety. It could only
get to about fifty or so, which is why the
government shelve that program in twenty fourteen and they've decided
to use the Kaveri, the dry thrust engine. You don't
need after bonus for the UKF so the UK which
was called the Kathak 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
(36:17):
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
(36:38):
that this is a national strategic program and it is
not just a GTR program, that's a 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 GTR program. It
has to be an all of nation approach. You have
to identify the problem. You have to look at it.
(37:00):
Where am I hitting hurdles? Is it that 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 ol
of government approach.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
It has to be.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
Driven top down. All of these countries that have built
it so far, the Chinese being the fifth, they understood it,
they got it, which is why they went helful leather.
In our case, I'll give you another example of how
we went about getting the nuclear reactor for the nuclear submarine.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Right.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
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 submarine design hasn't gone anywhere.
(37:51):
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 altar
engineering marvel in defense. We didn't have the technology then,
so we went to the Russians. The Russians helped us,
but with an earlier version of the nuclear reactor. Now
(38:11):
the Chinese have also been helped by the Russians 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 say 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 a
(38:32):
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
(38:52):
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. And we have no option, like I said,
we have no option but to design and develop our
own fighter jet engines.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
Yeah, 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 Promos missile, which that
is something that comes close to sort of the engine.
But you know, my friends and Ada would be very
(39:33):
unhappy with that comparison because they said, look, or g
try a fighter jet engine has to work all the time, right.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
Bramos is a one way ticket.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
The Mars rocket, the Moon rockets, these are all one
way mission.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
You know you're not coming back.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
But here the jet engine has 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. 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 (40:03):
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 to piece 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
(40:24):
the technology that will sort of work on that plane,
et cetera. And the engine development will happen separately or
do we have no knowledge about this?
Speaker 3 (40:32):
We have as far as 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.
(40:54):
So now the hope is that these countries will give
us the technology to build our 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,
(41:17):
fifth generation of fighter aircraft. We were part of it
to begin within two thousand and nine or so, and
we had a joint venture. We put down a lot
of money up I think it was 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
(41:41):
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 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 five.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Yeah. Right, So what happens to the Air Force's 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, like
(42:20):
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 the there's this talk that there might
be a new MRFA that tender global competition once again
(42:42):
between different fighter jets. You have the US offware of
F thirty five, so you have always had the option
of buying more offhile jets because you already have them
in service, so makes sense. Just get a couple of
more squadrons from there. There is 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 just mark two?
Speaker 1 (43:03):
Is it there? Is it not?
Speaker 2 (43:04):
What do we know about that? And or rather what's
your outlook on that?
Speaker 3 (43:09):
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 where you look at it, I mean
thirty one squad's sanctioned strength of forty ft threats are
increasing by the day. The PLA Air Force at one
point was a pretty down market air force in the
(43:31):
two thousand and ones when India had a one is
to three ratio with the 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 building up its capabilities. It's
been upgrading its fighter aircraft, It's been acquiring new fighter aircraft,
(43:54):
primarily Chinese the jay 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 it rebrrogation, right, Whereas what you
need is actually you need a dam burst of fighters.
(44:14):
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 Air Force look
like without the AMCA, without you know, more fighters. You're
(44:37):
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 in a
year or two. Two squadns that's left. So every aircraft
but for your Raphael and your Sokoys are going to
mean service. So you need something like two to three
hundred fighter aircraft to come in. That's a very large number,
(45:00):
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 projecting a
requirement of something like sixty fighter aircraft squadons by two
(45:20):
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 the
hope that they at least get to maybe forty to
forty five squadrons lasting.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Yeah. So well, but if you look at it, there
is a serious thread.
Speaker 3 (45:45):
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 to
fifty a year. 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 squadns of fifth
(46:05):
generation fighter aircraft and why do you need fifth fighter aircraft?
Speaker 2 (46:09):
Now?
Speaker 1 (46:09):
The interesting thing is that sell the aircraft like this.
Speaker 3 (46:14):
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. The only way
(46:35):
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
(46:56):
and more sophisticated. Therefore the fighter jets will have to
be you know, stay a step ahead of them. So
it's a big race for numbers. The Air Force is
looking at larger numbers. They're looking at as an expanding
hole in their fighters cordon capabilities. And like you mentioned,
the the mr MMRCA is being revived as the Multi
(47:20):
Role Fighter Aircraft requirement. There is a requirement the Air
Force believes that they would need something like seventy or
seventy two fighters to come in very quickly. The problem again,
they was that these are very very expensive. You know
how much the Navy is spent for that twenty six
aircraft Rafael Deal rafaele M.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
They spent seven billion dollars. That's that's a lot of money.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
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, battle for resources. Then the
government will have to sit and look, look do I
(48:03):
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 make.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
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 for? 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.
Do you have the recent conflict with Pakistan. You also
(48:34):
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 fighters. 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 sheets, according just place more orders for.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
I wish it was that easy.
Speaker 2 (48:59):
Why is it not?
Speaker 3 (49:00):
But you know so, yeah, again, the raphile is the
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
(49:23):
in country, get a 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
(49:44):
and when the government 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?
Do I import? You know, it's a complex, complicated argument
for the to make when it's deciding on imports, such
high end imports. So big ticket items like this seventy
(50:07):
plus imports are going to be looked at with very,
very great alarm by the government. So if you look
at it all, historically, all the purchases historic, I mean,
in 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
(50:28):
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 number of indigenous fighters
like the LCA Mark two. The numbers will always come
from indigenous fighters, they will never come from imports because
(50:51):
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 LC marktos.
Speaker 2 (51:02):
Yeah, 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
(51:22):
carried in service, the vikranth Uh, there is a thought
that the Navy will go in for a report reports
is but another order of krant type of aircraft carrier.
I see one alpha 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 (51:42):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (51:43):
Right now you have around, if I'm not wrong, forty
five odd mcwein and case the naval variants. We don't
know the exact number for some reason, I don't know why. Uh,
you've placed orders for you are about to place orders
for the file from from from France. But the Navy
also needs fighter the AMCA is I'm guessing solely for
(52:07):
the air force. The Navy has rejected the LC enable
naval variant they wanted what is now as known as
the TED DEV the twin engine deck based 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 right.
Speaker 3 (52:27):
So THEVE as you mentioned, the Navy has a 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 sixty
(52:47):
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 raphiles are going to
be the intel which will replace the first of the
mid twenty nines as they go out of service. The
mid twenty nine have been in service for about two
decades now. It's not been a very happy experiment for
(53:11):
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 into
a carrier based fighter in our case, you know, a
stow Bar.
Speaker 1 (53:32):
Fighter jet.
Speaker 3 (53:33):
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 the life of a
fighter jet. So an aircraft carrier has a life of
about almost half a century fifty years, and a fighter
(53:56):
jet would have a you know thing of effective combat
life twenty five thirty years. So you possibly would have
an aircraft carrier looking at two different fighter variants, and
here in this case, the Wikma, THEA and of course
the new ions V grant came with the mid twin
end case, they will switch over at some point to
the RAPHA ale MS and they will also possibly have
(54:18):
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 Indian Navy right now.
Though if you ask me, they should have started with
developing a naval variant of the AMCAF first, given how
(54:41):
complex this platform is. Carrier operations are very, very extremely
complex to develop aircraft that can withstand, you know, the
stresses of landing on a deck, all of those those
problems would have been solved first and then adapting them
for land based uses. Not as you know, it's not
(55:04):
as difficult 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 the Indian Air Force and then marinizing it
and you know, strengthening the undercarriage and doing all of that.
Speaker 1 (55:19):
That's going to be a big, big task.
Speaker 3 (55:22):
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 the numbers are much air force
needs something like tense coadrons of amcas. They committed to
buying about between eight and ten squadrons. Navies requirements, of course,
(55:44):
don't matter as much as the Air Force requirements.
Speaker 2 (55:47):
Right. One final, very quick point, if I could ask
you to speculate and do just plain guess work based
on just your gut feeling, based on what you know
of the situation now and based on whatever you've seen
the years. How do you see the project Ancorp project
panning out over the next fifteen years. Whom do you
see the contract being given to. When do you see
(56:08):
the first flight happening, whether the test flight or the
Air Force flight and stuff like that's just plain guesswork
from you. What do you see for the project?
Speaker 3 (56:16):
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. We have to develop that aircraft.
(56:38):
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 an Air Force
project or it's a DADO project or something. You have
(57:01):
to get a consortium going and it has to be
steered at a very top lint. So I think if
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
(57:21):
AMCA inducted by twenty thirty three. Twenty thirty three is
ideally the time that you should be looking at, which
is the next eight years or so to start inducting
the AMCA. And again I'm emphasize mark one. Start with
Mark one and then slowly build up on Mark one.
Don't emphasize that. Look, we need everything in the first marketself,
(57:42):
right in the first couple of scad ins itself. So
I think given all of this and the new enlightenment
has come out 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 tatas that will execute this project. I don't
(58:02):
see HL being completely put out of it. It's it's impossible.
You cannot, you know, uh, cut out your biggest aircraft manufacturer,
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
(58:22):
pitching it will be a consortium approach to the government
will follow.
Speaker 2 (58:27):
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 on time. Absolutely great, the great chat. I
had got lots of insights from you and a lot
I had a lot of fun. So thanks so much
for me, Thanks for having me there. That's it for
(58:49):
this week's defense dose. For more, tune in next week.
Till then, stay safe and do not cross any boundaries
without a passport.
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