The Tejas Debate Continues

The Tejas debate continues at a furious rate. I would attempt to respond to Vina who has been a persistent critic.

Vina’s first point was a personal opinion:

I do feel that the govt’s decision of getting the IAF out of the airframe business was correct. It is too specialized a field and requires a whole different set of skills than what a force trained for fighting would possess , unless the IAF too like the Navy goes and recruits Naval Architects, either builds a specialized cadre staffed with trained Aerospace engineers hired from outside and/or trained in IAF technical schools ,even if it is restricted to purely design , concept studies and architecture and not goes into actual building (which will require an even wider set of skills in manufacturing, sales,supply chain etc).

The Tejas Debate – A Repartee

My post on the arrival of the Tejas has elicited a lot of response, on this blog as well as on the Bharat Rakshak Forum. A large segment of the critical responses have chosen the perceived neglect/hostility of the air force to the Tejas project to be the focus of their ire. One of the most strident voices that have come out belongs to poster Veena. His views are clear and are placed cogently. There are however other points of fact and opinion that would make his denouncements somewhat less valid. I would try to present these facts and views for Veena and my other readers.

The Tejas Arrives……

The morning papers on 11 Jan 2011 were full of details of the ceremony at Bangalore declaring the Initial Operational Clearance for the Light Combat Aircraft now named Tejas. It was certainly a happy moment. For those of us who are not so young any more, such happy news brings with it a flood of memories from the past but connected closely to the source of happiness at hand.