On January 11th, the Indian Navy’s domestic LCA Tejas carrier-based aircraft made its firest landing on its aircraft carrier, but according to military analyst Dashui, the Indians have taken a crooked road abandoned by the whole world – tailless delta wing design.
As for land-based fighters, tailless delta wing is not a big problem, even though it’s blamed for weak cruise resistance, long takeoff and landing distance, and poor low-speed maneuverability. And for the carrier-based aircraft, these disadvantages are a disaster. The United States and France had suffered great losses on the tailless delta wing for carrier-based fighters – F7U-1 and Mirage 2000; instead, they developed F-18 and Rafale fighters respectively.
As a carrier-based aircraft, LCA Tejas fighter is very unsuitable, with low-speed maneuverability and poor landing safety, and the aircraft has a small weight-to-weight ratio and poor maneuverability. With less fuel and short range, the combat capability of LCA Tejas as a carrier-based aircraft is extremely low, so it can only be used for technology verification and preparation for future new carrier-based aircraft.