It would be prudent to integrate weapons from both eastern and western origin when upgrading all IAF fighter fleets.

Upgrade and modernisation of aircraft, an exercise undertaken by air forces across the world to ensure fleet contemporariness, is easy enough for nations that design, develop and manufacture the aircraft. The process, however, assumes tedious proportions for developing nations dependent on outright purchase or licensed manufacture. In the past, when aircraft were simple and did not come equipped with complex and integrated systems, modification of the various individual modules were stand alone operations. In the modern aircraft, inter relationships between the systems, specially those operating with bus architecture, upgrade invariably requires assistance of the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM). Acutely aware of this limitation, the Indian Air Force (IAF) and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) have in the past adopted pre-emptive measures to overcome the hurdles. Development of DARIN I Jaguar was one step in that direction, wherein the entire system based on 1553 bus architecture was developed by the IAF’s erstwhile Inertial Integration Organisation (IIO). The learning process gave confidence to IAF and HAL to undertake DARIN II development and also the MiG-27 upgrade. The participation of HAL and DRDO with the Sukhoi Design Bureau in the integration of the western avionics on Su-30 MKI also gave insights to our R&D teams to learn how to integrate systems on foreign aircraft. Design and development of Tejas carried out indigenously by the ADA will place our industry in a different league.

Past aircraft upgrade programmes in India
HAL, along with the IAF, has undertaken some very major modifications driven by the urgent need in the past. Installation of the Jet Pack on C-119 Packet transport aircraft, fitment of Orpheus engine in HJT-16 in place of the Viper engine were some of the major upgrades involving structural rework on the aircraft. Development of Ajeet aircraft from the original Folland Gnat and designing a two seat version can arguably be considered somewhere between new design and an upgrade. However, these programmes were certainly very bold initiatives by the fledgling Indian aircraft industry.