China and India are actively arming themselves with domestic equipment, including self-designed aircraft, but in this race Beijing is still ahead of New Delhi. The Indian edition of the EurAsian Times writes about it..
The author of the article reviewed the capabilities of the new single-engine fighters AL Tejas (LCA) и Chengdu D-10.
As the newspaper writes, India is currently lagging behind China with its light fighter development program for the country's Air Force. Despite, that both planes took off at about the same time, three years apart, indian tejas “slipped”, while the Chinese J-10 is already in full operation.
Talking about airplane comparisons, the author emphasizes, that both Indian and Chinese fighters are high-tech aircraft, meeting modern requirements. He explains the lag in the Indian program by objective difficulties., related to the projects themselves. highlights, that the J-10 was created by the Chinese based on the Israeli Lavi, ie. almost entirely developed in Israel, whereas LCA Tejas was created from scratch, and French Dassault only helped.
J-10 launched into serial production with 2005 of the year, and is available in three versions. To date, the PLA Air Force includes 468 aircraft. At the same time LCA Tejas Mark-1A is only ordered, under the first contract, the Indian Air Force should receive 83 Aircraft.
Comparing aircraft technical data, the author concludes, that in some parameters the Chinese plane is better, in others the Indian wins. However, he admits, what if India continues to slow down development, then the Chinese plane will significantly outstrip the Indian, since in China “the same do not sleep”.
In this way, According to the author, China is still ahead. Now Indian Tejas Mark-1A matches Chinese J-10A, can go on par with J-10B, but inferior to J-10C. By that time, when the Indian Air Force begins to receive the Tejas Mark-2A modification, Chinese will come up with an even better version of their J-10 fighter, he sums up.
