With 29 years of experience in integrating advanced technologies on tactical fighter aircraft, Michael R Griswold is on a special assignment for Lockheed Martin. As director, advanced development programmes for the American defence major, he is focused on winning the $10 billion medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) project and developing other broad-based opportunities with India. Griswold, who recently visited India, met Huma Siddiqui and shared his views on various programmes and technologies related to fighter aircraft. Excerpts:
Don?t you think that India?s MMRCA project has been a long drawn affair?
MMRCA is a very complex undertaking and it is understandable that it will take considerable time to select the winner. There is a large amount of information that the Indian Air Force (IAF) must evaluate and verify for each of the six competitors. Nevertheless, the process has proceeded at a deliberate pace that is consistent with the importance of the ultimate decision to India. Global competitions of this magnitude are rare. In addition, it?s Lockheed Martin?s assessment that the IAF team which evaluated our technical proposal and conducted field evaluation trials has been highly competent and extremely professional.
But how can the MMRCA project help India leapfrog fighter technology?
India has a unique opportunity to leapfrog fighter technology with MMRCA. All the aircraft being offered clearly represent the best that each nation has to offer in fourth generation fighters. What sets the F-16 IN Super Viper apart is that this aircraft provides a technology bridge to the only 5th generation fighters in the world?the F-22 and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
The F-16 IN shares technologies with the F-35 and the F-22 and benefits from Lockheed Martin?s expertise in 5th generation fighter design. The F-16 IN uses technologies from the F-22 design and the F-16 IN?s core hardware and software are based on the emerging F-35 design. Many of the engineers and scientists working on the F-35 programme also participated in the development of advanced F-16s and are now participating in the development of the F-16 IN. This continuous flow of expertise and technology between the F-16, F-22 and F-35 form the 5th Generation Technology Bridge.
An example of the 5th Generation Technology Bridge is the AESA radar. The Super Viper APG-80 AESA radar was derived from technology developed for the F-22 APG-77 AESA radar. Likewise, the F-35 APG-81 AESA is built upon the APG-80 radar. All of these radars have many hardware and software commonalities and each generation adds to the overall maturity and operational capability of the entire radar family.
How do you see India?s efforts to develop its domestic defence industry?
India has had great success in securing its place in many global commercial marketplaces such as IT, manufacturing and materials. It is only a matter of time before it has the same success in the defence markets. There are several good examples of nations using foreign military acquisition programmes to drive growth in indigenous technology. For instance, the business relationships that get established as a result of military acquisition programmes like MMRCA will lead to further tie-ups that can help drive indigenous technology development.
Properly crafted offset policies that recognise the value of actual technology transfer will provide more lasting benefits than policies that simply encourage monetary investments or offshoring of manufacturing work.
What are your views on India?s offset policy. Will it help develop our own defence technologies?
India?s offset policy currently limits offset projects to exports of defence goods, investment in Indian defence companies or investment in Indian R&D institutions. Purchase orders for exports will generate business for Indian companies, but won?t assist in the development of increased indigenous defence technologies. And unfortunately, the investment style projects are limited to monetary investment and do not have provisions for valuing technology investment. Indian offset authorities are considering including technology-oriented investments. Until that happens, it will be difficult for offsets to make a big difference in the indigenous technology capability of the Indian defence industrial community.
Don?t you think that we are losing out on our own indigenous technologies?
Perhaps a different perspective is in order: The US government (military and civilian), academia, and industry spend billions of dollars every year on basic and applied R&D. The cumulative effects of these investments over several decades have given us the technologies to do things like putting men on the moon.
Even so, the US reached the conclusion many years ago that large and technologically complex projects were too big to be undertaken by a single company, and in some cases, a single country. The practice of systems engineering was developed during the 1950s as a discipline to integrate the efforts of several companies into a single system.
It?s no accident that the first 5th generation fighter, the F-22 Raptor, was undertaken in the 1980s by a team of Lockheed, Boeing, and General Dynamics. And the second 5th generation fighter, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, was undertaken in the 1990s by a team of several countries.
Are you trying to say that modern aircraft making has to be a collaborative effort?
Technological innovation knows no boundaries, and no one nation has a monopoly on great ideas. As the US and Europe have shown, it?s no longer possible to cling to the idea of an indigenously-developed fighter aircraft. To do so would be to miss out on the good ideas and useful technologies developed by others. We?ve been encouraged by DRDO?s recent efforts to reach out to the global industry. Such collaborations, which combine India?s brainpower with the best of the worldwide technology marketplace, will produce the best results.
