Today
I read in the newspaper than Pakistan's indigenously built JF 17 ( with
Chinese help ) are now being exported to other countries. However
Indian Tejas has not only missed many deadlines but nowhere near
completion and might need foreign help.
Answer:-.
Who said India is far behind? Actually it is much ahead.
In
case of Pakistan they are only building the aircraft and the actual
developers were Chinese. But in Indian case a 4++ generation aircraft is
being developed from scratch. You can compare Pakistan's aircraft
building program with our Su-30 MKI program. And the Tejas program is
entirely different and it involves developing a complete aircraft and
its majority subsystems here in India. off-course some of the components
were outsourced but the design is ours and we are free to integrate any
kind of weapon systems in to the aircraft unlike Pakistan which may
need Chinese help.
When you are developing
an aircraft on your own, it will take more time to give an good result
given that India doesn't designed lot many aircraft in the past. Even
for countries which have experience it took more or less same time to
develop an fighter jet which is of 4++ gen.
And now the reason for why India is way ahead in space technologies...
- There was a total ban in place against India(After our first atomic test in 70s) with respect to dual use technologies like rocket engines and satellite components which can also be used in Ballistic missiles. After the 1974 and 1998 Indian nuclear tests there was a strict ban maintained by US and its allies that didn't allowed any dual use technologies to be sold to India. When Russia was ready to transfer the technology for cryogenic engines which is required for ISRO's GSLV, USA effectively vetoed the deal and finally Russia ended up just selling a handful of fully built cryogenic engines which powered most of ISRO's GSLV flights until now.
- The same case applied for Indian spacecrafts built by ISRO. There were no foreign help available so we have no choice other than we have to develop on our own. As there was no foreign lobby and bribe money involved, we succeed with flying colors with Mangalyaan to Mars in first attempt being the latest example!!
Now According to me
the you real question was " Why can't India develop an aircraft when it
can send missions to Mars". Well the answer, believe it or not, is that
it is rather easier to send a man to the Moon than to design an
aircraft. Not that I am saying Mars mission was a mean feat and I salute
our scientist for this successful endeavour. However If you think about
it, A Space shuttle fired in a good sunny day will get out of earth
atmosphere in relatively no time and once you are in space it is almost
the same between earth to the Mars. And it is kind of difficult for
Space to throw sudden surprises like our atmosphere does. Now an
aircraft like Tejas should be able to withstand tests in cold atmosphere
of Leh and laddakh, and a hot and dry climate of Rajasthan and Hot and
Humid climate of chennai and should be able to withstand sudden storms
and all.
And also it is not as difficult
for ISRO to get assistance from NASA, as it is for DRDO to get from say
Lockheed Martin. In fact, unlike the prior case, Foreign Defence
Establishments do there level best to delay or deny any indigenous
accomplishment as it feeds into there profit. And trust me one of the
major reason for delay in LCA Tejas' development was not only our lack
of know how but also Foreign arms lobby filling the pockets of our
Defence Acquisition Council,bureaucracy and HAL officials. That's why in
most of the cases the specifications are changed on the 11th hour of
the tests. Like it happend with Augusta Westland Chopper scam.
