HAL is pretty much useless it seems. Public sector defence firms in India just aren’t efficient. My hope is that private industry makes up the slack slowly, if the damn convoluted procurement tenders weren’t used as props to aid ailing firms like HAL.

won’t go down well in Russia to have one of its oldest customers completely abandon them. I think there’s still enough goodwill cached in India for them to give Russia more chances, although the difference now is that they’re more open at making their displeasure known given the multiple avenues of defence kit…

last I read the FGFA was an entirely ground up effort by India? I mean sure there’s likely to be learnings from the T50 applied across, which makes more sense with the noises India has been making about the lack of input and involvement in the design phase of the T50.

I was actually going to comment on the lines of the different approach to fighters between Russia and the West. I read a thread that justified the abysmal range of early Mig-29s being attributed to the principle that it was guided by ground based intercepts. It’s intriguing to see a different strategy at play. I mean…

Oh nice. I wonder how it compares with the leading MBTs such as Challengers, Panthers, LeClerks, Abrams, etc.

you mean a ghostbusters version enacted by the communist party? what a time to be alive

Oh Lord this is incredible. How did you find this?!

what model tank is this?

this is the sort of picture I imagine wins awards for gritty photo journalists. It’s quite surreal almost

good god, that explosion was almost volcanic in size! gosh, real life sure has an ability to put things you see in fiction in perspective. I can’t begin to fathom what sort of Dante’s inferno it must be on the ground, especially for the poor firemen who have to try tame that.

love the peeping Tom’s patch, best one I’ve seen yet

Oh, the MiG looks strange here for some reason. Can’t tell but that shoulder line coming off the cockpit seems swollen. Maybe it’s a perspective thing.

the MKI’s a heavily modified version that’s sort of been specced out to suit India’s needs. IIRC Malaysia operates a similar vintage of the Sukhoi. As for buyers, you can rule Britain out of buying a Russian jet, I doubt Israel has any Russian jets in its inventory (to my knowledge), and as for East Asian nations like…

Just out of curiosity, I wonder if smaller pilots are better. I know in F1 for example the drivers who happen to be petite are favoured as they don’t incur weight penalties on already lightweight cars. It’d be interesting if there’s a window for the ideal fighter pilot size (wouldn’t be surprised if there is)

That’s a great infographic. Really puts things in perspective. Typhoon always looked so much bigger to me, it’s quite interesting to see it’s much the same size as the Rafale. That lower row also perfectly fits in with India’s now defunct MMRCA tender. Wonder if they’ll finally double down on the Rafale.

that Flanker in the image above, isn’t that the paint scheme used on the PAK T50? Sure looks good that design, not sure how functional it is but boy does it make greyscale look good.

when they pop out of the tall grass it’s almost like watching velociraptors from Jurassic Park

Regardless that’s one big jet. F-16 could probably park on one wing.

Cost, complexity/simplicity (depending on how you want to look at it) and reliability. As simple as a catapult is in principle it’s hard to get right without the knowhow the US has over the years given the brutal conditions it has to work flawlessly day in day out on flat top carriers

Not so much global as maintaining dominance in their own back yard of the Indian Ocean Region. But yeah the emphasis on naval build up would be spurred by worries of Chinese advances allowing them to move into the IOR. Plus the Indian Navy wanted to maintain it’s carrier capability