Even as China appeared to have conducted the maiden flight of its highly advanced sixth-generation fighter jet a few days ago, the Indian Air Force raised concerns over India's adversaries increasing their aerial warfare capabilities at a "very rapid pace".
Speaking at the 21st Subroto Mukerjee Seminar recently, Indian Air Force Chief A.P. Singh expressed disappointment over the fact that the force is yet to receive the first 40 Tejas aircraft.
The IAF is still awaiting the first batch of 40 jets ordered in 2010. A major factor causing the delay of Tejas aircraft to the IAF is the late delivery of F404-IN20 engines from General Electric (GE) Aerospace.
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Underscoring that technology delayed is technology denied, the IAF chief said, "We should go back to 1984, when we conceived that aircraft. The first aircraft flew in 2001, 17 years later. The induction started another 15 years later, in 2016. Today, we are in 2024. I do not have the first 40 aircraft also, so this is the production capability."
As far as China is concerned, it is not just the numbers, even the technology is growing at a very rapid pace, he pointed out. "We just saw.. the recent flight of the new generation fighter which they have pulled out, the stealth fighter."
A few days ago, videos of and images of a tailless Chinese combat jet, believed to be a sixth-generation aircraft, conducting a daytime test flight had gone viral. Although it was not exactly known where the flight was conducted, it could have been possibly at the Chengdu Aircraft Corporation (CAC) factory airfield as the fighter jet was accompanied by a J-20S.
The IAF chief said India's defence sector needs to further develop and the country needs to become powerful enough to be able to deter our adversaries so that we can concentrate on our progress and growth.
"We have our concerns from the northern as well as the western adversary...both of them are increasing their air forces at a very rapid pace, whether it is combat platform, enablers, systems, whether it is networking, whether it is radars... they are growing at a very rapid pace," he noted.
