LCA Tejas Mk-II may suffer as Israel bars export of radar

The wisdom in developing defence products indigenously, howsoever painful the process may be, cannot be doubted now that another negative development is set to impact the country's LCA Tejas programme. Apparently acting under American pressure, Israel has barred export of an Airborne Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) version of the EL/M-2052 radar produced by IAI subsidiary, Elta, an Israeli defence and aerospace major.

The radar was meant to equip the Mark-II version of the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), as a stop-gap arrangement till the Indian Defence Research and Development Organisation successfully integrated its own multi-mode AESA radar with the aircraft.

The Tejas Mk-I received its Initial Operational Clearance (IOC) certificate a few days back. It's due to receive Final Operational Clearance sometime late next year. The first lot of 20 Mk I or Limited Series Production (LSP) aircraft are due to be inducted over this year and next.

The Mk-I LSP or aircraft are to be equipped with the mechanically scanned EL/M-2052 multi-mode (MMR) radar. The more powerful and advanced LCA MK-II version is expected to receive the EL/M-2052 AESA radar.

India's LCA programme was a key customer for the radar, with the test prototypes carrying the EL/M-2052 MMR radar since 2008. It is possible Singapore too could have been interested in retrofitting its older F-16s with this radar.

According to an international report, the ban applies to ''a number of countries'', without specifying what countries were included in the ban.