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Gloire_bb said:

Lower-end aircraft are precisely LCAs, not MKIs with their 38t MTOW. Furthermore, IIRC Indian MKIs are due to get a fleet-wide mid-life upgrade, new a/c can just come with it directly.

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At this stage in the game I don't think that a light fighter is what the Indian Air Force needs.

siegecrossbow said:

At this stage in the game I don't think that a light fighter is what the Indian Air Force needs.

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Why?
If anything, light fighter units are in the most urgent need of replacement.
Mig-21s replacement is overdue by at least a decade. And placing either ww2 heavy bomber-sized flankers or golden rafales near the border would be...a mistake.

Gloire_bb said:

Why?
If anything, light fighter units are in the most urgent need of replacement.
Mig-21s replacement is overdue by at least a decade. And placing either ww2 heavy bomber-sized flankers or golden rafales near the border would be...a mistake.

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Light fighter aircraft with short range is not useful for a large country like India. If Tejas were a rugged aircraft capable of short takeoff/landing, has low unit cost/low maintenance and overhaul cost then I could somewhat understand. But it is neither.

tphuang said:

Sure mki has more range and payload than lca. That's not the question here. They are looking to add some lower end aircraft to make up numbers. You would think lca would be ideal for that, but they are still going with mki. A real indictment on the current status of lca program.

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India is just keeping the domestic production line active as long as possible. Once it's gone, it's gone. Even if Su-30MKI is not an ideal solution, it is better than relying on paper timelines for AMCA, more Rafale, LCA Mk. Whatever.

siegecrossbow said:

Light fighter aircraft with short range is not useful for a large country like India. If Tejas were a rugged aircraft capable of short takeoff/landing, has low unit cost/low maintenance and overhaul cost then I could somewhat understand. But it is neither.

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It doesn't really matter if the country is large for choosing fighters, unless its basing system is completely broken.
Ferry range with big drop tanks is there, IFR probe is there.
It matters when theaters are large and remote - and while India indeed has those... their MKI fleet is almost 3 hundred strong, and there are Rafales on top (famously capable of very long range strike).

Tejas, for all its downsides, is cheap, multirole, and it can use mig-21 infrastructure on border airfields (including reinforced shelters).

Gloire_bb said:

It doesn't really matter if the country is large for choosing fighters, unless its basing system is completely broken.
Ferry range with big drop tanks is there, IFR probe is there.
It matters when theaters are large and remote - and while India indeed has those... their MKI fleet is almost 3 hundred strong, and there are Rafales on top (famously capable of very long range strike).

Tejas, for all its downsides, is cheap, multirole, and it can use mig-21 infrastructure on border airfields (including reinforced shelters).

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52.5 million dollars is not cheap for the capabilities offered. This is not even accounting for price increase in MKII. You don't need to replace aircraft in your fleet on a one by one basis. A single fourth gen fighter can cover the same area that three MIG-21s could patrol.

siegecrossbow said:

52.5 million dollars is not cheap for the capabilities offered. This is not even accounting for price increase in MKII. You don't need to replace aircraft in your fleet on a one by one basis. A single fourth gen fighter can cover the same area that three MIG-21s could patrol.

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Well, compared to Rafale it's a huge bargain. Especially since a significant part of the money will go to their economy.

It can cover more space - sure, but can it perform more combat sorties?
Also, a single fourth-gen still can be in the same number of places as a single third-gen.
Finally, when you have 3 aircraft, losing one is kinda less painful than losing the only one.

India does not have good record with single engine reliability. There could be sanctions coming if this Ukraine continue and India continue business as usual.
Rafale is French but they too dependent on EU.

pmc said:

India does not have good record with single engine reliability. There could be sanctions coming if this Ukraine continue and India continue business as usual.
Rafale is French but they too dependent on EU.

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Sanctioning India for ties with Russia(!) sounds like a sound way to fix Indian relations with China.
Sounds almost ... altruistic.

and as for LCA vs MKI relationship - old good photo explaining everything:

pmc said:

India does not have good record with single engine reliability. There could be sanctions coming if this Ukraine continue and India continue business as usual.
Rafale is French but they too dependent on EU.

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France will not apply sanctions against India. After the Pokhran II nuclear tests the USA, UK and Germany applied sanctions against India, while France did not. Instead France assisted to integrate Israeli PGMs to IAF Mirage 2000s during the Kargil conflict.

This history is why Rafale was selected in the MMRCA contest over Eurofighter/F-16/Super Hornet and why it continues to feature in procurement plans today.

The recent rhetoric from Washington and London stirs deep memories of colonial paternalism in India and reawakens old tendencies re: non-alignment. There have been a lot of condescending and otherwise short-sighted posts about India made in this forum over time and it is a pity that it has taken recent events for folks to realise that India is an independent strategic actor, that there are certain areas in which Chinese and Indian interests align, and that it would be to the benefit of both nations to resolve areas of dispute and establish a productive relationship.