While rhetoric is nice and we should indeed move to our own R&D(what makes you think we aren't?), the result of that still takes time to materialize. speaking as an outsider to the defense industry, I believe we can equate it to how things move in the software world. A lot of time is spent on development, validation and then testing before any new product is signed off, and even then feasiblity studies are conducted on that.
IAF chief said "technology delayed is technology denied", "technology is of no use if it comes very late".
> Just doing many things not enough, but doing at required pace is important.
> And even more important is to close/reduce the gap with global leaders, not lag behind gen after gen. In 1990s we had our IT boom, so since 2000 A.D. we are into era of affordable Supercomputing, AI, ML, robotics & other automations.
> We are doing good R&D in many things like ICBMs, ISRO's missions, SSBN, RAM, DEW, Radars, etc but severely lagging w.r.t. certain other aspects of aircraft tech, compared to global tech level.
> So what makes me or the world think we are not doing enough R&D or not at required pace?....
- Current # & type of jets we have after 7 decades,
- State of Kaveri engine,
- Su-30MKI upgrades are far behind & will be taking too much time.
- Very few people talk about developing 150/200 KN class engines,
- Our R&D was stalled by import culture,
- In era of emerging 6gen we are still struggling with 4.5gen,
- Why our AMCA had to be last one among Kaan, KF-21, J-35?
- We need more than AMCA but rarely people talk about it anywhere.
- We're still operating MiG-21, Jaguar
which should not exist IMO.
- LCA, MWF, TEDBF should have come 2 decades back.
- Their components will be as per present R&D but their airframe design are obsolete.
- After LCH where is a better one like Apache?
- Smaller & bigger nations have progressed more than us in same time.
> So
how much time to materialize? 
No matter how big & complex an Engineering project is, product lifecyle, project management, years of increasing experience teaches to complete them in stipulated finite time. There is a time frame for every technology & associated products. Too early or too late both create problems.
> Now if someone says that to sustain many projects we need supply chain, more people, more facilities, etc then again same question will come what we did in last 7 decades, or at least last 3-4 decades when other nations progressed more.
> Many people wan't overbudgeted latest items like phone, laptop/desktop, car, luxury accesories, but in military matters things are sluggish since decades. Lots of tax stealing going on. Lots of black money stuck in certain people's hands.
On the other hand, we're talking about planes, and the integration of payload, capability, performance, weapons, ... here - a tad bit more advanced, don't you think?
>
Every domain is complex for people outside that domain. Surgery for non-medical people, Engineering for non-tech people, etc. Every member here is from different academic background, professional experience level.
And within every domain also there are jobs & proffessionals of different level of complexities. I do tech job but non-PCM, so PCM is complex for me.
But at least no experienced techie professional will give typical reflexive response like "things take time
", "It is so complex
", etc.
Education & info sharing has improved a lot. Every tech grad or even non-tech enthusiasts can make moderate effort & superficially understand every component listed in below diagram as example, that's enough to talk on casual chat forums.
I've become rusty & also need to revise all these diagrams.
The original lamentation of this chain of replies was about the slow speed of HAL(at what? plane design? plane manufacturing? plane testing?) and how privatization would help it. I'm sure we're all seeing how the privately manufactured Indian drones are doing at the LAC.
> HAL was private initially but became PSU. It is manufacturer, not designer, tester. It needs to expand its physical facilities to higher production rate.
> The private firms can aid in making quality components on time. They can go for assembly lines also.
> The kinds of drones on our LAC are found in every drone-operating country. The real challenging stuff is a UCAV fighter which we have not even initiated in public knowledge.
