India joins the GCAP programme as a dialogue partner

[nahtanbob]

No European country attempted to build a 5th generation platform.

Yet most of them signed up for F-35 acquisition. that speaks for itself

 

[Ali_Baba]

Yet most of them signed up for F-35 acquisition. that speaks for itself

Nothing to do with their technical ability to build their own F-35, and everything to do with just being cheap and resting on the laurels of the USA .......

 

[Deino]

I think you're missing my point.

Take China as an example. It took them decades, probably 50+ years, of manufacturing, licensed production, reverse engineering and even cloning earlier aircraft before they were able to develop increasingly advanced aircraft of their own with the starting J10 aircraft. Even the fighter-engine problem took them many years to overcome.

Nothing is a piece of cake when you're trying to build an advanced aircraft from scratch. If it were that easy, more than 4–5 countries would already be independently designing and developing advanced fighters.

Everyone has to start from somewhere. First you manufacture, then you learn, improve, develop your own technologies and eventually become capable of designing your own systems.

So saying “India has nothing to bring to the table” compared with Australia, Canada or Poland doesn't really make sense either. Those countries have their own strengths, but that doesn't mean they are independently more capable than India in every aspect of advanced fighter development. India has been building its own aerospace and fighter-development capability for decades

All of this is absolutely correct; however, whilst China – as you yourself correctly have noted – has actually been working and learning hard over these 50 years, the planned J-7 successor, the J-10, has become a product to be taken seriously, with its successor set to enter service shortly, whereas India, over almost exactly the same period and in response to almost exactly the same requirements – namely the development of a MiG. 21 successor – has simply not put in enough work or learnt enough, with the result that the Tejas is simply not ready, has achieved barely one-twentieth of the J-10’s production run, and yet is still being hyped as if it were the be-all and end-all of fighter development! That is what is ridiculous about it, not the Tejas itself.

 

[nahtanbob]

Nothing to do with their technical ability to build their own F-35, and everything to do with just being cheap and resting on the laurels of the USA .......

you are assuming that was the reason, not the technological barriers

The list of technological products USA can build and Europe cannot is a long one

 

[Ali_Baba]

you are assuming that was the reason, not the technological barriers

The list of technological products USA can build and Europe cannot is a long one

What technological barriers?