Why INDIA needs HAL TEJAS ?

By : "Rajkumar Padhy"  

An Air Force primarily needs two types of fighter aircraft.

• Firstly the extraordinarily advanced fighters capable of being undefeated in aerial combat. These are mostly twin-engined, medium to heavy class fighters, able to effectively counter literally any aerial adversary. These are specifically used for missions which require more expertise. On the flip side these being sophisticated, need huge amounts of ground maintenance to keep these flying. This requires substantial effort in terms of both man hours & finance. Examples: Su-30MKI for IAF, F-22 Raptor for USAF.
• Secondly, smaller aircraft which are workhorse of the Air Force. These are usually single engine & can be deployed in forward air bases quickly which requires lesser maintenance & ground support. Their turn around time is less & availability rate is higher. These are much cheaper to operate & act as an interceptor in case of any sudden enemy aerial activity. Examples: Mirage-2000 for IAF, F-16 Viper for USAF.

LCA Tejas is the second type of aircraft. It is small single engine, cheap to buy, maintain & operate, can be hot-refuelled at the airstrip & can churn out upto 6 combat sorties a day.

The first squadron of LCA Tejas is currently split into two halves & is currently in combat deployment at the border area in the western sector.

Lets talk about the practical purposes:

It’s primary objective during its current combat deployment is to perform combat air patrol (CAP) & to act as an interceptor aircraft. When an enemy aircraft approaches to invade our airspace, you don’t necessarily need a Su-30MKI ready to take off & attack it. All you need is a platform which is

• Available all the time,
• Can take off at a very short notice & in pairs,
• Detect & track the enemy fighter with a radar,
• Launch a BVR missile to maintain a deterrence &
• Can do it again the very next hour if need arises.

LCA Tejas is more than capable to do this effectively. For routine sorties at a (comparatively) non volatile area like western sector, flying the flankers can be costly & ineffective especially when they are currently needed at Eastern Ladakh region, at the area of conflict. Su-30MKI is built for a much greater role, though they do perform regular sorties from AFB Halwara & Sirsa.

In future, the LCA Tejas located at forward air bases like Pathankot, Sirsa, Halwara, Suratgarh are ideal of missions at the vicinity at the border. These can react quickly at enemy’s stimulus. Being far cheaper they can be bought & operated in large numbers, saturating the enemy’s radar picture & overwhelming the enemy with just numbers.

Apart from these scenarios, LCA Tejas is very effective for tactical bombing too. It can release guided & unguided bombs (pic above) like HSLD, SAAW, Sudarshan LGB etc. Once IAF has a considerable confidence at the platform, LCA Tejas could be used for precision air strikes like the Balakot strike too.

LCA Tejas has a dedicated pylon (pic below) for mounting various types of pods like FLIR, IRST, laser rangefinder/designator which can “lase” the target for laser guided bombs. In future reconnaissance pods can be mounted in this pylon with a synthetic aperture radar which can do ground surveillance too.

Japan is facing a crisis that requires a mention. The Chinese aircraft constantly invade the Japanese airspace just for fun & each time this happens, Japan has to scramble it’s F-15 Eagles to defend. Each time the F-15s take off & fly, the flying life of the aircraft is consumed. Considering that F-15 is a costly aircraft to buy & operate, this is a huge cost to Japan. What Japan could have done is purchased few squadrons of smaller aircraft like F-16 & use them for border patrol & interception duties. That would have been much cheaper & effective.