NEW DELHI --- The programme for India and Russia to jointly develop a Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA), long touted as the flagship of a time-tested defence relationship, has run into a stone wall.
Documents available with Business Standard indicate India's defence ministry is cold-shouldering Russian requests to continue the negotiations on a "R&D Draft Contract", which will govern the partnership to develop a futuristic, fifth-generation fighter.
Business Standard reported that air marshals at a high-level defence ministry meeting claimed the FGFA has "shortfalls… in terms of performance and other technical features."
The IAF claimed the FGFA's current AL-41F1 engines were underpowered; the Russians were reluctant to share critical design information; and the fighter would eventually cost too much.
On January 15, 2014, at a MoD meeting to review progress on the FGFA, the deputy chief of air staff (DCAS), the IAF's top procurement official, said the FGFA's engine was unreliable, its radar inadequate, its stealth features badly engineered, India's work share too low, and the fighter's price would be exorbitant by the time it enters service.
However, rumblings within the Russian defence industry suggest that all might not be well with the PAK-FA. On January 17, the influential Mikhail Pogosyan was relieved as United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) - an umbrella body that oversees Russia's aerospace establishment, including giants like Sukhoi, Irkut, RSC MIG, Ilyushin, Sokol Plant, Tupolev, UAC-Transport Aircraft, Aviastar-JV and VASO.
The Russian media has linked his departure with problems in developing the Sukhoi-35, a programme that is reportedly being scaled back. However, there is no word on cutting back the PAK-FA, a project personally backed by Putin.
