Possibly the stupidest decision made by the Indian military was to stop the development of the Marut and follow on indigenous fighters. Now India is having “fun” operating a zoo of aircraft from all over the world and spending billions of taxpayer money on foreign entities. Dreams of becoming a superpower let alone a regional power are a pie dream without indigenous design capability…
Agree with that viewpoint. The HF-24 Marut needed a more powerful engine and commitment to develop it further and fix whatever issues the type had. Not abandon the entire effort altogether for the easier approach of taking Soviet fighters at friendship prices. The Marut could have had a follow on fighter as good as if not better than the MiG-23 and MiG-27 that were produced and inducted into the IAF in the hundreds. This short sighted decision making led to loss of most of the knowledge gained on the development of this type. But the lesson has been learnt and now India will never abandon an indigenous design just because it has some issues that need to be fixed. That is why we now have the LCA Tejas Mk1, Tejas Mk1A, Tejas Mk2 Medium Weight Fighter and the 5th gen AMCA program all being worked on.
Absolutely true!
Apart for acquiring the best machines from outside, it still parallely continues it’s ambitious indegeniuos programs.
Cryogenic tech has been a classic example of India moved on and emerging as a global power in the making. Jai Hind
I 232699 xjw BN Sharma thanking for publishing the above article . A great salute to you sir the article took me so many years back to jodhpur where I was also a part of LIONS SQN AF I was heading the engine section till the MARRUT took last abundant flight from Hindon ,the aircraft was cleared by me was to be flown by SQN leader Johari thereafter aircraft was down for flying about me my son served the Indian navy for 22 years as a Donear pilot now now he is captain in Indigo airlines .
Possibly the stupidest decision made by the Indian military was to stop the development of the Marut and follow on indigenous fighters. Now India is having “fun” operating a zoo of aircraft from all over the world and spending billions of taxpayer money on foreign entities. Dreams of becoming a superpower let alone a regional power are a pie dream without indigenous design capability…
Agree with that viewpoint. The HF-24 Marut needed a more powerful engine and commitment to develop it further and fix whatever issues the type had. Not abandon the entire effort altogether for the easier approach of taking Soviet fighters at friendship prices. The Marut could have had a follow on fighter as good as if not better than the MiG-23 and MiG-27 that were produced and inducted into the IAF in the hundreds. This short sighted decision making led to loss of most of the knowledge gained on the development of this type. But the lesson has been learnt and now India will never abandon an indigenous design just because it has some issues that need to be fixed. That is why we now have the LCA Tejas Mk1, Tejas Mk1A, Tejas Mk2 Medium Weight Fighter and the 5th gen AMCA program all being worked on.
Absolutely true!
Apart for acquiring the best machines from outside, it still parallely continues it’s ambitious indegeniuos programs.
Cryogenic tech has been a classic example of India moved on and emerging as a global power in the making. Jai Hind
Very true
I 232699 xjw BN Sharma thanking for publishing the above article . A great salute to you sir the article took me so many years back to jodhpur where I was also a part of LIONS SQN AF I was heading the engine section till the MARRUT took last abundant flight from Hindon ,the aircraft was cleared by me was to be flown by SQN leader Johari thereafter aircraft was down for flying about me my son served the Indian navy for 22 years as a Donear pilot now now he is captain in Indigo airlines .