Main questions should be why we are behind in terms of AWACS and EW planes compared to a failed state which hasn't even gotten rid of polio.
We have an air force of jocks who don't actually understand air warfare and has delusional superiority complex of their combat doctrine. They are still under the presumption of a wvr fight at low-mid altitudes and they are more obsessed with flying expensive European and American jets so that they can be considered equal to Nato Airforces when the reality is that they lack the basic infrastructure required to actually employ Nato aircrafts effectively. It's why we have to use P-8I's for our ISR when we could just have bought ISTAR's and other western ISR aircrafts but the IAF is too obsessed with flying flashy 4.5 gen aircrafts that are already outdated in air warfare.
They don't want American aircrafts but want to copy nato tactics.
Why have the supersukhoi upgrade still not be employed? When they knew the Virupaksha is still not online why haven't they atleast done a partial upgrade of atleast 40-60 su-30mki to sm2 standard. DRDO can't do anything quick and IAF isn't interested in following iterational approach.
Their is no Airforce design bureau(if there are, correction is welcome). The airforce should be designing aircrafts instead of giving some potbellied babus and "engineers" to design ugly aircrafts that still can't be produced in respectable numbers.
The IAF wants tech superior to the west while not even having manufacturing capabilities surpassing second world countries. It has this delusion of being actually superior to western AF's. Atleast the PLAAF accepts their inferiority compared to western AF's and works on countering their capabilities. The PAF can be clobbered any day of the week but what happens if we have to fight an air war over the Himalayas. Why haven't we invested in procuring mig-31's when we need a ultra-high altitude air superiority fighter/interceptor to take on the hundreds of Flankers and j-20's that the IAF will face. Why aren't there any programmes for pl-15 and pl-17 missiles? Why wasn't the r-37m procured in 2019 itself when the Russians had already offered it for export instead of waiting uptill 2025?
THe astra mk2 will never be equal to the PLAAF version of the pl-15. How will we take on that. The pl-17 is a bigger problem with a 400-500 km range.
Also why aren't we focusing on more defence satellites instead of doing non-sensical moon exploration and Mars exploration missions which have zero strategic value for us presently?
The IAF has wasted the potential of the su-30 and the mig 29.
TBf HAL Nashik should be literally expanded to produce mig-35, su-30mki, su-57 and the su-35 and all of them can be easily produced because of engine commonality. Heck the mk1a should be re-engined with the rd-33 considering how unreliable the Americans are.
Many babus are from non STEM background they don't have capacity to understand the importance of such capabilities. Simple people with simple and primitive thinking. Most of them come from humble/poor background so they enter service for power prestige and money.
Stopgap could not have been arranged? At least for AWACS with 2-3 more Israeli origin Phalcons?
The Phalcons are useless and don't have S band cooperative tsrgetting capability. That's why IAF isn't moving with them and going for the Netra.
There is a new ELW-2090S Spectra radar that has CEC capability but it's ground based. The phalcon does have S-band but the IAF has never used it's cooperative targetting capability. Plus we don't have any BVR except for the meteor that can employ the AEWCS.
