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Brumby said:

With a project of this scope and the Indians ability to slow walk anything that involves bureaucracy, I am not confident anything will get into some form of agreement let alone a product in the next ten years.

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This is true but how many nations are going to be jumping into absolutely last second F16 buys?
This is part of why I think Tata actually got the short end of the stick. If Lockheed Martin gets everything green light and India gets out of the way Okay maybe orders for Taiwan, Singapore perhaps even some other former Warsaw pact nation like Ukraine will jump in but chances of that are a long shot.

It's a bit like the Mig35. Great package and it might have done better 10 years ago.
With F35 most traditional US partners have their new orders for their next bird.
The rest is sustainment of existing birds perhaps furbishing of second hand. India buying is in my opinion the last days of new orders. I mean it's about to hit a half century in the air.

TerraN_EmpirE said:

This is true but how many nations are going to be jumping into absolutely last second F16 buys?
This is part of why I think Tata actually got the short end of the stick. If Lockheed Martin gets everything green light and India gets out of the way Okay maybe orders for Taiwan, Singapore perhaps even some other former Warsaw pact nation like Ukraine will jump in but chances of that are a long shot.

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I think there are two main hurdles that the Indians have to address that would determine their case.

Firstly, their domestic demand alone needs to be a viable business case. Any foreign sales should only be a bonus. The sustainment would also add to that. Secondly, the F-21 need to offer a sufficient technology platform jump for them and so the scope of technology transfer would be important.

Brumby said:

the F-21 need to offer a sufficient technology platform jump for them and so the scope of technology transfer would be important.

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Agreed.
Lockheed Martin had to walk back a claim on some of their marketing that
“The F-21 has common components and learning from Lockheed Martin’s 5th Generation F-22 and F-35 and will share a common supply chain on a variety of components,”
Clearly they were thinking in that direction but that's a bit of a slippery slope. India buying F35 down the road is a jump that has a few high hurtles first and most clearly is the Russian angle.
As we see in Turkey right not if you plan to ride the Lightening you can't buy S400. India is doing just that.
Turkey is of course a member state of NATO and India is not yet it's still playing with fire to pitch F35 for India.

TerraN_EmpirE said:

Indian assembly yes.
Some parts yes right now the Wings are planed to move there.
As is of course the Wings of F16 were already made in Isreal and South Korea.
Tata has to certify that they can produce the Wings to spec. That's about 2 years from now.

Right now though if you look at a parts manufacture list for F16 Block 70/72 It's an atlas.

Production also depends on the contract and willingness to source.
Bahrain will be the first customer from the Greenville plant. Likely followed by Slovakia.
Long term yes Lockmart wants to grant Indian production which might mean South Carolina as a second line for F35 or evetually F-X/F/A-XX perhaps KC-Z or the eventual C17/C130J replacements.
but that's likely to be around the turn of the 2030s.

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Broken as IAF procurement is, I doubt even they would accept a 4.5+ generation fighter production line to start running in the 2030s.

Thats a valid point.
I was speaking more in regards to the Greenville plant. But assume that Tata opens a F16 line in 2022 what then?
It's a question of who is really going to buy F16 fighters post 2021
I mean if India buys them that is one customer but who else?
Taiwan tried to get F35 but that boat don't float so maybe them.
However they want to assemble in Taiwan.
The current new buys are either recaps of existing fleets like Taiwan or Bahrain or Singapore but after that? Bulgaria and Slovikia are interested and in negotiations but how long until those orders are built?
Perhaps a few last second new buyers maybe Vietnam or another former Warsaw pact nation perhaps Mexico will finally replace there show bird F5s. Yet like you said it's a 4.5 gen bird.
Best I can figure is you might have parallel lines with Block 70 in India and Block 72 in the U.S. the only real difference being the engines GE vs P&W.

And the Tejas Mk2, with a 17.5 ton MTOW (IIRC), overlaps a lot with the F-16 in terms of MTOW and payload capacity.

Hyperwarp said:

The LCA seem to have split in 2. IAF version is now a medium weight fighter and the IN version has gone some major changers.

NLCA MKII - IN

MWF - IAF

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With changes at this level - congratulations to India.
This amounts to two separate new 4th gens in development in 2020s.
At this point, comparing JF-17 and Tejas results is not even funny anymore.

Guess they won't have time for the AMCA until well into the 2030s then.

NLCA MKII - Wonder why no IRST unlike the Air force version

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Major tweaks in

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design - ADA does away with Levcons, introduces stabilators (Ah ha! It now has tail plane thingies!) & vortex flaps based on CFD simulations optimization

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Note the almost frame-less canopy and the sharply sloping and short nose section of the

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affording excellent cockpit visibility for landing. Also, no IRST as in the IAF MWF! Indeed, a Navy thoroughbred!

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ASTRA BVRAAM specs and both ASTRA and NG-ARM on the Su-30MKI,