I get what you mean and I agree for the most part that it would take some years if not decades for the fighter to become fully ‘indigenous’ and I am by no mean knocking it for that... I was merely saying that calling it domestic procurement was a bit of a stretch that’s all... considering the majority of the systems are foreign in nature further they are not made in India by license or otherwise... if it was just engines and some weapons then I wouldn’t say it as suchGive the Tejas some more years (or decades but w/e) to become more mature. Ye the project is way overdue but that's the result of bureaucratic inefficiency (i.e. corruption). I know it's not a fair comparison, but even the J-10 had to start off with Russian engines and missiles of Israeli (PL-8) and Italian (PL-11) origin. Even though it was far more 'indigenous' than Tejas, it was only until the J-10C (or at least later batches of J-10B) could it have been said to be fully 100% indigenous. Again, far from being the best parallel example, but from their perspective it is probably better to start off with the program while using foreign components as interim stopgaps, while they plan for it to be fully indigenous by the time ~Mk3 completes development. If they had to build the plane from scratch, it would be safe to assume that the Tejas would have only existed in the form of technical drawings and bittersweet fan art. But for now it is as domestic as it can realistically get.
The bureaucratic inefficiency is definitely an issue but the bigger issue is the Indian ambition without substance... the Tejas like the Arjun by all accounts is a political project more so than a technical one... it is national pride and a push for domestic production but the politicians didn’t even want to give it a leg up, even when the politicians have finally given it support, the Indians failed to capitalise. Instead of focusing on production capability which was one of the major push for the Tejas in the first place, they immediately update it and then start dreaming about how amazing the MK 2 would be... just comparing numbers, the they are from wiki so a grain of salt, Tejas first flight in 2001 currently 34 produced, this is including all prototypes, the jf 17 first flight 2003 currently ~150 produced and J 10 first flight 1998 currently 400-500 produced...
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