Man you people are suckers. In 20 years the F-47 (according to a future USAF General) won't be able to go places where the F-50 (tech demonstrator) can go therefor we need F-50 funding. Over ten years ago it was two F-22's can do what it would take 8 F-35's then F-22 gets its upgrade funding and now we find out of the F-35 is our backbone of USAF air superiority, SEAD/DEAD and interdiction.
At least get the FOC for the damned Lightnings on schedule whatever it is, sweetie before shooting from the hip.
For a nation which pioneered airplanes & with the most sophisticated MIC in the world ever , dedicated to air warfare , the way you guys have run this program is both a disgrace & an embarrassment.
You Indians act like a scorn chic who got hurt when F-35 was off the table and you threw a tantrum saying we never wanted the F-35 anyway!
Sincere advice , do read up on the trials & travails of how the IAF took a sub standard FA like the Gnat & made it their own through various modifications to it in spite of losing 40-50 pilots in it due to a lot of design inefficiencies , mfg defects from the kits we received from the UK among other pressing issues in spite of which the IAF mastered its usage leading it to shoot down the Sabres in the 1965 war - something unimaginable then , which the US equipped PAF with at the height of the Cold War earning it a sobriquet of Sabre Killer.
These lessons were to stand both IAF & HAL in good stead when they took up a similar extensive modification & upgradation program called the DARIN program lasting decades executed in stages ( DARIN I , II & III ) of another sub standard FA the Jaguar making it into the potent DPSA it's now become although it's well past its shelf life.
All these experiences were to brought to bear when they collaborated with the Sukhoi Design Bureau to extensively redesign the Su-30 MKI with European & Israeli avionics sensors & weapons before embarking on a massive , purely indigenous extensive & sweeping MLU which is unfolding at this very moment.
These extensive experiences also informed the Tejas programs . However given these painful experiences the IAF has since decided not to go in for a WiP FA which is where the F-35 is at the moment.
Our problems with the F-35 start from here & get progessively worse when you consider the various limitations & prohibitions the US imposes on its full envelope usage which even vital developmental partners & allies like the UK are seething about leave aside other allies.
To add to it we won't be able to integrate it into the AFNET & IACCS the cornerstone of our plans to counter PLAAF. Now all this has been revealed innumerable times over here which essentially any rational human being would've understood if not in the first then possibly in the second or third or fourth explanation.
All this is assuming you're engaging in good faith & not being the troll you usually are.
You try really hard to find a reason to hate it with ridiculous claims and fail miserably. You Indians need to concentrate in how deep trouble the IAF is and will be for the foreseeable future. Many fools made claims the Rafale was more than good enough to take on the J-20 so fooey on F-35 then 3 Rafales get shot down in air combat (one visual confirmation other two PAF claim) by an export J-10 flown by a failed third world country smacking the IAF and many in here with a dose of reality. Only a couple in here have double down on Rafale because they live in some alternate reality but the rest have woken up. If you think the F-35 can't penetrate PLA IADS and take them out or easily handle J-20s it says more about the mentality of the people (you) who think this way. If you really believe this then you have to admit that the IAF is totally outclassed by the PLAAF with IAF's all 4th gen fighter fleet in which its most advanced fighter got shot down in recent air battle against another 4th gen fighter.
Quite frankly I've my doubts if the J-20 would be able to penetrate the IACCS without being detected or tracked just as I've my doubts the F-35 would be able to do so to the Chinese IADS. You require all aspect stealth for that & by the time both the F-47 / F/A-XX & the J-36 / J-50 come aboard I suspect ISR using space based assets would be at another level altogether.
This cat & mouse game is eternal which is the reason no country likes to get into a war with a peer if they can help it. For then it becomes a game of attrition & incremental advantages. The outcome for both adversaries tend to be disastrous with the victor winning a Pyrrhic victory which is what the Sino US war will result in & which is where the Russo Ukraine war is headed , if it isn't already there .
In the context of a Sino Indian war while China holds all the aces if not most of it , there are extremely high chances that it could end up in a prolonged war of attrition which has the potential to jeopardize their plans for Taiwan. Needless to say that's exactly what The Great Satan wants . Hence the constant efforts to inveigle us into a defensive alliance by militarising the Quad during Irish Joe's adminstration.
However by trying to avoid the kind of trap Ukraine fell into will not insulate India from Chinese aggression for they're now in a hubristic state of mind , something our policy makers are disregarding. China WILL come for us , come what may & what they think will be an easy relatively short sharp high intensity campaign on the borders will boomerang on them .
I don't envy the position of our security establishment particularly our foreign ministry. They've been dealt a bad hand made worse by their own miscalculations regarding Chinese intentions thus impacting our defence spending apart from facing a series of sub optimal choices in the diplomatic arena.
