Challenges Of F-21 Through ‘Make In India'

Though it is a wonderfully proven and affordable fighter aircraft, Ambika Gupta argues why it makes better sense for the F-21’s manufacturer Lockheed Martin to build C-130 Super Hercules transporters, MALE surveillance and combat UAVs in India

- Ambika Gupta

As India seeks, once again, to buy a new fighter aircraft, one of the contenders is the Lockheed F-16 which has been renamed the F-21 for the Indian market. The plane is a proven combat aircraft because it has been used effectively by the Israelis, Turkey, NATO, the UAE, and, of course, the United States. Lockheed is also sweetening the deal by offering to transfer the production line to India and to then allow Indian produced F-21s to be marketed around the world. This would, of course, be a major win for the Modi government’s Make in India policy.

Yet, for a number of reasons, questions can be raised whether the F-21 is a good fit for India.

Bad optics

The biggest issue with the aircraft is not the quality of the plane because, as mentioned earlier, it has a proven combat record and the version that India will buy and build has been dubbed as an “F-16 on steroids.” The plane has modern avionics and the aircraft has been re-engineered to be far more capable than earlier versions of the plane—particularly some of the early models that Pakistan flies. In India, however, weapons purchases are invariably clouded by allegations of corruption or favoritism. In the case of the Indian Air Force (IAF), such allegations go back as far as the procurement of the Mirage-2000 in the 1980s. At that point in time the IAF leaked to the press that it had not asked for the Mirage and this led to allegations that there were political and financial motives that led to the purchase.