The Indian MoD made this information available to Parliament today: Delivery of 42 (Hawk-AJT) aircraft was scheduled from 2007-2008 to 2010–2011 in a phased manner. Three aircraft were to be built from semi-knocked down (SKD) kits, three from completely knocked down (CKD) kits and 36 from raw material phase. The CKD and SKD kits were assembled on schedule. When production in raw material phase was taken up, it was found that the equipment supplied by the OEM had various shortcomings. The assembly jigs that were supplied did not meet the requirements, there was mismatch in the kits/components supplied, there were defects in major assemblies like the wing spar etc. These problems took time to overcome and hence affected the production schedule at HAL.
See a previous post on the BAE-HAL spat here.
I saw a news recently abt BAE planing to sell more planes. Whats going on here. Does the gov want another screwup.
Dear Shiv,
Thanks for taking that distasteful article about the naval officer's indiscretion from your blog.
That guy must be in deep trouble already. No sense in making this a media spectacle.
Regards
Gagan
Business as usual sometimes i find this puzzling whether to laugh at our constant delays in each and every defence deals or be horrified by incompetents who are playing with national security..
Avro 748,Westland helicopters and now these hawks.British are a colonial mindset nation.When are we going to junk this nation because they have hold on our political,media, bureaucratic leadership with bribes and what not
Makes one feel proud .
A few observations :
– With Elta MMR from IAI Israel , will DRDO abort its effort to develop an indigineous MMR
-Russia also offered Radar TECHNOLOGY , if accepted there would have been commonality with either MIG series or with SU30MKI RADARS
– DRDO should try to explore other application of LCA Tejas . Recently not happy with BAE Hawk AJT , IAF had sent enquiry for AJT TO different manufacturers. All the AJT'S have a specification similar (more than 90%)to Tejas . Why not a future Indian AJT on the Tejas platform .
– Gripen participating in MMRCA tender has a specification similar(more than 98%)to Tejas . Instead of procuring Gripen at a higher price per unit , will it not be prudent to wait a bit and induct Tejas at a much lower per unit cost. Why kill a desi product prematurely