This incident has been another wakeup call for the Indian defense complex. A lot of attention has been given to the Mig21 debacle, but in reality we might be facing the same problem with the Sea Harriers. Albeit the fleet is less than 30 planes, these aircrafts are extremely old with problematic Pegasus engines which are known to be poor performers in high temperatures. Infact, the Royal Navy has retired these jets in a hurry (despite not having their F-35 replacements until 2012) because of the technical limitations of the sea harriers. Hawker Siddely/BAE, the original manufacturers of this jet have stopped making it and all its components. Meanwhile, the Indian navy is in the process of buying the Royal Navy's discarded jets in hopes to cannibalize some of them and use them for spares and retain some of the newer ones. This as far as I am concerned is a terrible idea. We would be so much better off just trying to do a lot of testing on the LCA naval version and get it inducted into the fleet at the earliest possible time. We should also keep in mind, that the Mig29s and the Sukhoi Flankers are both carrier capable upon manufacture modification. The new Russian carrier will have a fleet of Mig29s. But maybe we should have considered arming the Vikrant with a few Sukhoi's instead while we awaited the arrival of the Naval LCAs.
