The US connection – that was !
Ayear after Air Marshal Chandu Gole’s the latter held discussions with the US Defence Secretary Dick Cheney on various matters but, importantly, on possible US support on India’s light combat aircraft (LCA) programme. Mr Cheney is understood to have assured his counterpart that the US would “encourage the LCA project and the Indian side was free to talk with US aircraft manufacturers to explore the possibilities of further development of the LCA”. delegation, Mr N Raghunathan, Secretary, Defence Production and Supply and Dr VS Arunachalam, Secretary, Defence Research and Development Organisation (and DG ADA), branched off to visit the Northrop Corporation in Los Angeles, as also the Rockwell Group. It is interesting that the NDhad already been presented to the ADA team visiting Germany in 1984.
Dr Arunachalam, who was often referred to as the ‘father of the LCA’, once jocularly said that the initials were actually ‘Last Chance for Arunachalam’. In the event, the only major US system (but the most critical at that) was the LCA’s power plant, with the General Electric F.404 turbofan engine selected to power the LCA for which steady numbers were thereafter imported of the variant F.404 - IN 40 which presently powers the LCA Mk.1 and will continue to be the engine of choice for the LCA Mk.1A.
Post Script: Dr VS Arunachalam, taking time off from his post as Scientific Advisor to the Defence Minister/ Secretary Defence R& D/ Director General ADA, took a sabbatical in the USA with the Carnegie Mellon University and also with Rockwell International, the major American manufacturing conglomerate involved in aircraft, the space industry, defence and commercial electronics.