Chapter 209: The Knife
16 November 1975Shergill Aviation Design Bureau, Gorakhpur
Karan Shergill had been the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh for 3 months.
The ceremony in Lucknow on august 15th had been everything that swearing-in ceremonies were — the specific combination of constitutional gravity and institutional pomp, the Governor reading the oath, the press cameras at the front, the party workers at the back, the specific look on Sakshi's face that Aditya had watched from three rows back and that had been the expression of a person who had known this was coming and had prepared for it and was feeling it anyway, completely, in the specific way she felt things she had prepared for.
Aditya had driven back to Gorakhpur that same evening.
He had been in his office at six the next morning, which was the time he had started coming in since he was seventeen years old and which he had no particular reason to change, and the compound had been running when he arrived, as it was always running, the first shift having been underway since midnight.
The compound ran.
It ran in exactly the way that Karan had designed it to run — not through his personal presence but through the institutional architecture of programmes that had programme directors and review cadences and quality systems that belonged to the programmes rather than to any individual. Vishwakarma was running the S-35 production. Vardhan's team was running the Kaveri Mk2 certification programme. Menon was running the Trinetra upgrade development. The ISMC was running the 3-micron process qualification. Each of these ran on the momentum of years of work and the specific culture of people who owned their programmes and did not wait to be told to continue.
What Karan's absence changed was not the compound's operation.
What it changed was the front of the house.
The commercial relationships. The IAF briefings. The international development conversations. The specific combination of technical authority and business precision that had been Karan's personal contribution to every significant external conversation since 1970. These were now Aditya's to carry.
He knew he was twenty-one years old and he did not spend energy on what that meant to the people who looked at him because the energy was better spent on knowing the work. He had been doing the work for four years. He knew the financial models the way Karan knew the aerodynamics — from the inside, from building them, from the specific depth of understanding that came from having run the numbers himself rather than received them from someone who had.
He also knew, with the specific clarity of someone who had been watching Karan operate at the highest level for four years, what he didn't know. He didn't know the aerodynamics the way Karan did. He didn't have Rathore's thousand hours of aircraft feel in his body. He didn't have Vardhan's thirty years of turbomachinery expertise. He didn't have Vishwakarma's programme management depth.
What he had was the commercial architecture of what the compound had built, the financial logic of why the Baaz(Indian Goshawk) existed, and the specific quality of attention that made people feel the conversation they were having was the only thing happening.
On the morning of November 16th, that was what the situation required.
The S-6 Baaz had made its first flight on October 3rd.
Authors note-(In Sikh history, Baaz (the falcon/hawk) is the famed companion of Guru Gobind Singh Ji, the tenth Sikh Guru. Symbolizing sovereignty, fearlessness, and the free spirit of the Khalsa, the Guru is famously known as Chittay Bajan Wala or "The Keeper of the White Hawk")(thats why i chose this name ,it suits to our culture ,so kudos to sikh brothers.
Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh (ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂ ਜੀ ਕਾ ਖਾਲਸਾ, ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂ ਜੀ ਕੀ ਫ਼ਤਿਹ)
The flight had lasted thirty-one minutes and Rathore had landed it with the specific unhurried precision that characterised his test flying, and the post-flight assessment had been: the aircraft is what it was designed to be. Not the triumphant superlative that the first S-35 flight had produced — the S-35 had exceeded every parameter on its first flight and Rathore had said so, explicitly. The Baaz's first flight assessment was simpler and in its simplicity more important: what was designed to happen happened. The aircraft was honest.
Since October 3rd, there had been twelve additional test flights.
The test programme was young. In aircraft terms, thirteen flights was barely an introduction. The envelope expansion was in its early phase. The avionics integration was being verified. The Surya-1 engine had been performing within specifications — the specific performance of a simple, conservative engine running at moderate conditions, delivering what had been asked of it without drama.
The Baaz existed, it flew, and the thirteen flights had produced enough data to present the programme.
The delegation for November 16th was different from any delegation that had come to the Gorakhpur compound for the S-27 or S-35 evaluations.
For the S-27 and S-35, the delegations had been IAF officers — technical evaluators, procurement specialists, senior commanders assessing what the aircraft could do and whether it should be in the IAF. The evaluations had been about capability. What can this aircraft do? Can it do it better than what we have? Can it do it better than what our adversaries have?
The November 16th delegation had IAF officers in it, but they were not the centre of gravity.
The centre of gravity was commercial.
Wing Commander Emeka Adeyemi was from the Nigerian Air Force's equipment procurement directorate. He was thirty-eight years old, had trained at Cranfield in Britain, had 1,400 hours of flight time on the Jet Provost and the Jaguar, and had been sent to Gorakhpur specifically because the Nigerian Air Force had a specific problem that the British and American options for solving it had priced at ranges the Nigerian government was unwilling to reach. He had read the Baaz preliminary data package with the attention of a man looking for a reason to be interested, and had found several.
Dato Ahmad Razif was from the Malaysian Ministry of Defence. He was forty-four years old and was not a pilot — he was the senior civil servant responsible for the Royal Malaysian Air Force's equipment acquisition budget, which made him the person who decided what the RMAF could afford rather than what it wanted. He had come to Gorakhpur because the price point of the Baaz data package was in a range that the Malaysian defence budget could actually allocate without requiring Cabinet-level supplementary appropriation.
Colonel Tariq Hassan was from the Jordanian Royal Air Force's technical directorate. He was forty-two years old, had trained on the F-104 Starfighter with the Luftwaffe in the 1960s, had been managing Jordan's aircraft acquisitions for seven years. Jordan had a specific requirement — a capable, affordable fighter that could be maintained with the limited depot infrastructure available in Amman — and had been looking at the F-5E, the Mirage 5, and the Jaguar. He had come to Gorakhpur because the Baaz data package's availability figures were significantly better than any of those alternatives and because Jordan's experience with French maintenance support contracts had left the directorate looking for something less dependent on continuous foreign technical assistance.
And there were the IAF officers.
Air Commodore Dilip Parulkar was here — the same man who had been a Group Captain at the S-35 evaluation in August 1974, now at Air Headquarters' technical directorate, promoted to Air Commodore in January. He was forty-three years old and had the specific authority of someone who had been right about the S-35 early, which gave his assessments of subsequent Shergill programmes a weight that derived not from his rank but from his track record.
Wing Commander Rajiv Mishra had come from Leh on an aircraft that required him to be awake at three in the morning and that got him to Gorakhpur by seven, which was the specific sacrifice of a man whose operational requirement was real enough to justify the journey. He was thirty-five years old and had been flying mountain patrols since 1965 and had opinions about mountain aircraft that were not theoretical.
Flight Lieutenant Ananya Krishnamurthy was from the Fighter Training School at Bidar. She was twenty-seven years old, had 1,800 hours and the specific combination of technical precision and operational empathy that the training establishment needed in its best people.
And Deepak Anand was from the IAF's Finance Directorate — an unusual presence at a preliminary aircraft briefing, but one that Aditya had specifically requested through the appropriate channels, because the argument Aditya intended to make was partly an argument about money and the Finance Directorate was where the money decisions happened.
Aditya met them at the gate at eight in the morning.
He was twenty-one years old and he did not look like the Chief Minister's brother when he was at the gate at eight in the morning in a cotton kurta that had been chosen because it was appropriate and not because it communicated anything about his age. He looked like what he was: a person who knew the work he was here to do and had been doing it for a long time.
He shook hands with each person.
He spent thirty seconds with each of them that was not introduction but orientation — the specific thirty seconds that produced the first impression that either built or undermined the subsequent conversation. With Adeyemi he said: "Wing Commander. The specific question you came to answer is whether the Nigerian Air Force can afford to maintain this aircraft properly at the end of a supply chain that runs from Gorakhpur. I want to give you that answer very directly." With Razif he said: "Dato. I know your budget parameters. I'm going to show you a different way of thinking about the number." With Hassan he said: "Colonel. The Jordan directorate's experience with French maintenance contracts is exactly the reason this aircraft was designed the way it was. I think you will find it relevant."
He was precise with them.
He was also warm in the way that was not a performance — the warmth of someone who was genuinely interested in the specific people in front of him, who had done the work to understand what each of them needed, and who communicated through that interest that the day was worth their time.
They walked to the design bureau.
The briefing room was set for a working session — not a formal presentation with a podium and rows of seats but a table arrangement, documents already placed, the three-view drawing of the Baaz on the wall as the first thing you saw when you came in. Coffee on the side table. Good coffee, because whoever had organised the morning understood that the quality of the coffee was the first signal.
Aditya stood at the front of the room.
He said: "I want to begin with something that is not about the aircraft."
He paused.
He looked at the room — at the IAF officers and the foreign visitors together, which was an unusual combination for a briefing but which was deliberate.
He said: "I want to begin with money."
He said: "Shergill Aviation has built two operational aircraft. The S-27 Pinaka and the S-35 Tejas. Both of them are the most capable aircraft in their categories in Asia by any objective assessment. We are not going to be modest about this. They are what they are and they were built to be that."
He paused.
"Neither of those aircraft will be available for export," he said. "Not now. Not for the next ten years. Possibly not for the next fifteen."
He let this sit.
Adeyemi said: "Because—"
"Because those aircraft contain technology that India has spent five years building and that India is not prepared to put in the inventory of thirty countries where it can be studied by every intelligence service that those countries are adjacent to," Aditya said. "The S-27's radar system is the most capable airborne radar in Asia. The S-35's radar is substantially beyond that. India's competitive advantage in air warfare is embedded in those systems. Exporting the aircraft means exporting the advantage. That is not a decision India will make while the advantage is still current." He paused. "When we have built the generation after the Tejas — when the S-35 is to the next generation what the S-27 is to the S-35 — the calculation changes. Today it is what it is."
Hassan said: "This is a briefing for an aircraft that does not exist yet."
"No," Aditya said. "The S-6 Baaz exists. It flew for the first time on October 3rd. It has made thirteen test flights in the past six weeks. I am briefing you on an aircraft that is flying." He paused. "What I am saying is that the Baaz exists specifically because the S-27 and S-35 cannot be exported, and because there is a genuine global requirement for a capable, affordable fighter aircraft that is not in the same technological category."
He turned to the first board.
The board showed a table. Not a performance comparison — a cost comparison. Acquisition prices in US dollars for the principal aircraft in the medium-tier fighter market in 1975.
F-5E Tiger II (US): $4.5M — $5M Mirage 5 (France): $6M — $7M MiG-21 Bis (USSR): approximately $4M — $5M equivalent Jaguar (UK/France): $8M — $9M S-6 Baaz (Indian Goshawk)(India): $6M — $7M
Adeyemi looked at the table.
He said: "The Baaz is priced between the F-5E and the Mirage 5. Those are both established platforms with proven track records. The Baaz has thirteen test flights."
"Yes," Aditya said. "The price comparison is only the starting point. I want to show you a different comparison."
He replaced the first board with the second.
The second board showed a twenty-year total cost of ownership comparison. The same aircraft, but now showing: acquisition cost, annual maintenance contract cost, annual spare parts cost, engine overhaul cost over 20 years, training costs, infrastructure costs, total 20-year cost.
The table was for a fleet of twenty-four aircraft — a typical initial purchase for a medium-tier air force.
F-5E Tiger II: acquisition $114M, total 20-year cost $391M Mirage 5: acquisition $157M, total 20-year cost $547M MiG-21 Bis: acquisition $108M, total 20-year cost $424M (including Soviet technical assistance) S-6 Baaz(Indian Goshawk): acquisition $157M, total 20-year cost $284M
The room looked at the numbers.
Razif said: "The Baaz costs the same as the Mirage 5 to acquire and significantly less over twenty years."
"Correct," Aditya said. "The acquisition price for the Baaz is comparable to the Mirage 5. The twenty-year total cost is 48 percent lower. The difference is maintenance."
He paused.
He said: "The maintenance cost model is the most important thing I will say today. I want everyone in this room to understand it precisely, because it is the basis on which this aircraft was designed and it is the basis on which every conversation about the Baaz should be conducted."
He said: "An aircraft costs what it costs to acquire. That number is large and visible and it is the number that defence budget discussions focus on. But acquisition cost is a one-time payment. Maintenance cost is a continuous payment — it runs every year for the aircraft's operational life, which is typically twenty to twenty-five years."
He paused.
He said: "Consider a fleet of twenty-four Baaz aircraft. Acquisition cost at $6.5 million per aircraft: $156 million. That is the number in the budget document."
He paused.
"Now consider what happens after the acquisition. Twenty-four aircraft, flying 200 hours per aircraft per year. At four maintenance man-hours per flight hour — which is the Baaz's design target and a number we will demonstrate empirically in the test programme — you have 4,800 maintenance man-hours per aircraft per year. For the fleet of twenty-four: 115,000 maintenance man-hours per year."
He paused.
"Shergill Aviation offers a comprehensive maintenance support contract for Baaz operators at ₹2,200 per maintenance man-hour — the international rate for this category of technical service. For a 24-aircraft fleet, that is approximately $6.8 million per year in maintenance contract revenue to Shergill Aviation."
He let that number sit in the room.
He said: "Over twenty years, from a single customer with twenty-four aircraft: $136 million in maintenance contract revenue. Nearly equivalent to the entire acquisition price of the fleet. Nearly."
Razif was writing.
Aditya said: "But the maintenance contract is only the most direct revenue stream. There are the spare parts. A Baaz aircraft consumes, on average, 2.5 percent of its purchase price in spare parts annually. For a $6.5 million aircraft, that is $162,500 per aircraft per year. For twenty-four aircraft: $3.9 million per year. Every spare part for the Baaz is sourced from Shergill Aviation or from Shergill-certified suppliers. There is no alternative supply chain." He paused. "Over twenty years: $78 million in spare parts from a single customer."
Hassan was looking at the numbers with the expression of a man doing arithmetic in his head.
Aditya said: "Then there is the engine overhaul. The Surya-1 engine — which I will discuss in more detail shortly — has a design TBO of 2,500 flight hours. An aircraft flying 200 hours per year reaches TBO every twelve and a half years. Each engine overhaul costs $280,000. For twenty-four aircraft over twenty years: approximately $537,000 per aircraft, which is $12.9 million for the fleet."
He paused.
"The total twenty-year revenue from a single customer with twenty-four Baaz aircraft: $156 million acquisition, $136 million maintenance contracts, $78 million spare parts, $12.9 million engine overhauls. That is $382 million of total revenue from one customer over twenty years. Of which $226 million — 59 percent — is post-acquisition revenue that flows to Shergill Aviation every year regardless of whether the customer buys any additional aircraft."
He looked at the room.
He said: "This is the Baaz business model. It is not primarily an aircraft sale. It is the creation of a twenty-year revenue relationship."
Deepak Anand, from the IAF Finance Directorate, said: "You have designed the maintenance cost to be lower than competitors, but the maintenance revenue to come to Shergill. How does this not mean you're giving away the maintenance revenue that could be higher?"
Aditya said: "The design reduces the maintenance burden on the customer. Four man-hours per flight hour versus eight to twelve for the MiG-21 or the Jaguar. The customer pays less per year in maintenance than they would pay for a comparable aircraft. Shergill Aviation earns a lower rate per maintenance event but a much higher volume of business because the aircraft fleet is larger — more customers can afford to buy the Baaz, so there are more customers paying the maintenance contract. The volume compensates for the lower unit rate."
He paused.
"And the customer is happier. A customer who is spending $6.8 million per year on maintenance instead of $15 million per year is a customer who can afford to keep the fleet flying, who can afford the spare parts, who will come back to buy more aircraft. An unhappy customer who cannot afford the maintenance costs cancels the contract, grounds the fleet, looks for alternatives. A happy customer locks in." He paused. "The Baaz's maintenance model is designed to produce happy customers. Happy customers are the ones who pay for twenty years."
Adeyemi said: "The lock-in."
Aditya said: "Yes. Let me be direct about this because it is important and it is part of the design."
He said: "When Nigeria — or Malaysia or Jordan or any of the other countries that are considering the Baaz — purchases twenty-four aircraft, the investment in the Baaz ecosystem begins immediately. The ground crew must be trained on Shergill maintenance procedures. The maintenance tooling, which is Baaz-specific, must be acquired. The spare parts inventory, which is proprietary to the Baaz, must be stocked. The pilot training infrastructure must be aligned with the Baaz's FBW architecture and avionics. The operations manuals, the flight procedures, the emergency procedures — all of these are Shergill documents." He paused. "Over two years of operation, a 24-aircraft Baaz customer accumulates: $4 million in maintenance tooling investment, 60 trained maintenance technicians who are Baaz-qualified, a spare parts inventory of approximately $8 million, training infrastructure built around the Baaz's specific systems. All of this is specific to the Baaz. None of it transfers to any other aircraft."
He paused.
"If that customer decides after two years to switch to a different aircraft — the F-5E, the Mirage, anything — they must write off the entire Baaz-specific investment. They must retrain sixty maintenance technicians. They must acquire new tooling. They must build a new spare parts inventory. The cost of switching from the Baaz to any alternative, for a 24-aircraft operator, is approximately $60 to $80 million in sunk cost written off plus the new acquisition cost. For a country whose defence budget is in the range of $200 to $400 million annually, this switching cost is politically and financially prohibitive." He paused. "They will not switch. They will buy more Baaz aircraft when they want to expand the fleet. They will come to Shergill for every upgrade, every new capability, every modification. They are Shergill Aviation customers for the operational life of the aircraft."
The room was quiet.
Razif said: "You have designed the aircraft to be a dependency."
"We have designed the aircraft to be the best value available in the medium-tier market and to build a commercial relationship that rewards both the customer and Shergill Aviation for the next twenty years," Aditya said. "The dependency is a consequence of providing good value and building the relationship correctly. If we provided bad value, the customer would find a way to exit regardless of the switching cost. If we provide good value — if the aircraft does what it promises, the maintenance contracts are honoured, the spare parts are available, the support is responsive — the relationship continues because it is mutually beneficial."
He paused.
"This is exactly the model that the British aerospace industry used with the Jaguar, that the Americans used with the F-5, that the Soviets used with the MiG-21. Every major aircraft programme is built around this model. The difference is that the Baaz is built at a price point that opens the model to countries that previously had no access to it because they couldn't afford the acquisition cost of the established alternatives."
He looked at the three visitors.
"Nigeria, Malaysia, Jordan — with respect — are not countries that the American defence industry, the French defence industry, or the Soviet defence industry has historically treated as priority relationships. You receive what is available after the priority customers have been served. The maintenance support is provided through regional partners whose response time and spare parts availability is a function of their commercial incentive, not your operational need." He paused. "Shergill Aviation's commercial model is built around this market. You are not the afterthought. You are the primary customer. The Baaz was built for you."
The Surya-1 engine briefing was given by Rajendra Pillai, who was thirty-eight years old and had been the lead engine engineer for the Surya programme since 1972.
He was not Vardhan. He was specifically not Vardhan — the decision to create a separate engine programme for the Baaz, staffed by a separate team from the Kaveri programme, had been deliberate and consequential.
He said: "The Surya-1 is a conventional single-spool turbofan. It was designed with three primary requirements: maximum TBO, minimum maintenance complexity, and no derivation from the Kaveri architecture."
Parulkar said: "The last requirement."
Pillai said: "The Kaveri Mk1.5 and Mk2 incorporate technology that India does not export. Variable bypass architecture, single-crystal superalloy turbine blades at extreme temperature, the specific film cooling geometry that makes the Kaveri what it is. These technologies represent India's competitive advantage in propulsion. Putting them in a mass-export aircraft would mean putting them in the inventory of forty countries, where they would be studied, analysed, and in some cases reverse-engineered by every technical intelligence service in the world." He paused. "The Surya-1 is a clean-sheet design that does not incorporate any of the Kaveri's proprietary technology. It uses conventional nickel superalloy turbine blades. It uses standard cooling architectures. Its variable geometry is limited to a simple variable-area nozzle. A competent engine manufacturer in any of our potential customer countries could, in principle, study a Surya-1 and learn nothing about how we built the Kaveri."
Parulkar said: "What is sacrificed."
"Performance," Pillai said without hesitation. "The Surya-1 produces 50 kilonewtons of dry thrust and 65 kilonewtons in afterburner. The Kaveri Mk1.5 produces 97 and 137 respectively. The Surya-1 is a significantly less powerful engine." He paused. "What is gained is TBO. The Surya-1's turbine inlet temperature at maximum power is approximately 1,500 Kelvin — conservative by modern fighter engine standards. The Kaveri Mk2 runs at 1,750 to 1,800 Kelvin at maximum conditions. The turbine blade life is a strong function of temperature — every 100 Kelvin reduction in turbine temperature approximately doubles blade life. At 1,500 Kelvin, the Surya-1's turbine blades have a design life of 2,500 hours before the first inspection, and we expect to demonstrate 3,000 hours to replacement in the full test programme."
Mishra said: "The cold-start."
Pillai said: "The Surya-1 has been tested to minus 35 degrees Celsius start capability without pre-heating. The cold-start procedure is: APU start, core light-off, stable idle in 45 seconds. We designed this specifically because the mountain airbase requirement specifies operation at minus 25 to minus 30 degrees Celsius as normal operating conditions."
Mishra said: "The MiG-21 cannot cold-start at Leh temperatures without a ground power unit and a pre-heat procedure that takes thirty minutes."
Pillai said: "We are aware of this. The Surya-1 was designed for it not to be true of this aircraft."
Mishra said: "What else."
Pillai said: "The oil system is designed to drain to a passive reservoir when the engine is shut down, which prevents oil congealing in the line at low temperature. Standard jet engines at low temperature require oil pre-heating before start or face lubrication damage in the first seconds after start. The Surya-1's drain reservoir system eliminates this requirement." He paused. "Additionally, the combustor ignition system uses a triple-igniter configuration — three igniters at different positions around the combustor ring. In low-temperature, low-density air, single-igniter combustors have difficulty achieving reliable light-off. Three igniters provide redundancy and improve ignition reliability at altitude and low temperature." He paused. "We have cold-soaked the engine to minus 40 degrees in our test facility and achieved light-off on the first attempt on every test."
Mishra looked at Aditya.
He said: "How long has this engine been running."
Aditya said: "The Surya-1 first ran in test cell in March 1974. It has been in ground test and development for twenty months. The flight-certified variant has been in the Baaz for the thirteen flights since October 3rd."
Mishra said: "The aircraft is real."
"Yes," Aditya said.
Mishra said: "The engine works."
"Yes," Aditya said.
Mishra said nothing for a moment.
He looked at the engine cross-section drawing on the board.
He said: "I want to know one more thing. What happens when the engine fails in flight at Leh altitude."
Pillai said: "The Baaz is a single-engine aircraft. Engine failure in flight requires an emergency landing. The Baaz has a specific emergency glide ratio at typical patrol altitude — the design target is 7:1 from 6,000 metres AGL, which gives you approximately 42 kilometres of glide range from typical patrol altitude. In the Leh sector, you will always be within glide range of a landable surface." He paused. "However: the Surya-1's in-flight shutdown rate target is 0.15 per ten thousand flight hours. For comparison, the MiG-21's R-11 engine has been observed at approximately 2.8 per ten thousand hours in similar operating environments. The Surya-1 is designed to be approximately nineteen times more reliable than the engine currently operating at your station."
Mishra said: "That is a large claim."
Pillai said: "The mechanisms are straightforward. Lower turbine temperature means lower thermal cycling stress on the blades. Lower stress means fewer fatigue cracks. Fewer fatigue cracks mean fewer component failures. The physics are not controversial. Whether the design achieves the target is what the test programme will demonstrate." He paused. "At thirteen flights, we have zero engine anomalies."
Mishra said: "Thirteen flights is not enough data."
"No," Pillai said. "The test programme target is 300 hours before IAF certification. We are at approximately 17 hours. The data from 300 hours will be what you make decisions on."
Aditya took the floor again.
He said: "I want to address the technology protection question directly because I know it is in the room and because being indirect about it would be a mistake."
He said: "India has built military technology that is significant. The Netra radar. The Kaveri engine. The FBW systems in the S-27 and S-35. The Trinetra system. These represent India's strategic advantage in air warfare. They exist because India invested in building them and because they represent the specific competitive edge that India's defence capability rests on." He paused. "India will not put that technology into a mass-export aircraft. Not now. Not until we have built the generation after it, at which point the previous generation's technology is no longer our competitive edge."
He paused.
"The Baaz does not contain that technology. The Surya-1 is not the Kaveri. The Netra-2 is not the Trinetra. The FBW in the Baaz is a first-generation system that teaches the correct pilot instincts without exposing the second and third generation advances that are in the S-27 and S-35." He paused. "This is not a compromise that reduces the Baaz's value to its customers. The Baaz's customers are not operating in environments where Trinetra-level radar is the operational requirement. The Netra-2's 75-kilometre detection range is more than adequate for the border patrol and interception missions that are the Baaz's primary role for most of its customers."
He looked at the three foreign visitors.
He said: "What the Baaz gives you is a capable aircraft that you can actually maintain, that you can actually afford, that your ground crew can actually keep airborne, whose engine your mechanics can actually work on in the field. What it gives you is availability. The F-5E has a beautiful performance profile on paper. If it is at 55 percent availability because the maintenance requirements exceed your depot capacity, the performance profile on paper is irrelevant."
He paused.
"The Baaz targets 85 to 90 percent availability. That number was chosen because it is achievable with the maintenance architecture we have built into the aircraft. Achieve 87 percent availability with a 24-aircraft Baaz fleet and you have, in operational terms, roughly twenty-one aircraft available on any given day. The same country with twenty-four F-5Es at 65 percent availability has sixteen aircraft available. The Baaz fleet generates more sorties from fewer aircraft — or equivalent sorties from a smaller budget allocation."
He put the availability comparison board up.
It showed: fleet of 24 aircraft, different types, at their typical in-service availability for air forces without depot-level support infrastructure.
F-5E at 65%: 15.6 aircraft available Mirage 5 at 62%: 14.9 aircraft available MiG-21 at 58%: 13.9 aircraft available Baaz (target) at 87%: 20.9 aircraft available
And then: to achieve 20.9 aircraft available with the other types: F-5E: need 32 aircraft (additional cost: $54M) Mirage 5: need 34 aircraft (additional cost: $94M) MiG-21: need 36 aircraft (additional cost: $86M)
Razif said: "The savings in equivalent availability—"
"For the Mirage 5 versus the Baaz to achieve equivalent operational availability from an air force without depot-level maintenance support: $94 million additional acquisition cost for the Mirage 5. The Baaz achieves the same operational effect at a lower total cost, and that is before accounting for the twenty-year maintenance cost differential." Aditya paused. "The decision to buy the Baaz versus the Mirage 5 is not a decision to accept lower capability. It is a decision to achieve equivalent operational effect at lower cost."
Vashisht entered the room at eleven o'clock.
He was the aircraft's primary designer and he carried the aircraft's design in his body in the specific way that engineers who had built things from first principles carried them — not as an abstraction but as a set of specific choices, each one made for a specific reason, each one connected to the others in the complete architecture of a machine.
He said: "Let me tell you about the maintenance access because it is the feature I am most proud of."
He produced a scale model — not the visual presentation model, but the engineering model, the specific artefact that engineers used internally to verify arrangements, with access panels shown in their open positions.
He said: "Every maintenance action that a forward-operating ground crew is required to perform in the first 2,500 hours of the aircraft's life — every scheduled maintenance task, every expected unscheduled task — is accessible through one of six access panels on the aircraft. Each panel opens with a standard quarter-turn fastener. No specialised tools. No access platforms. No jacking of the aircraft." He paused. "The S-27's maintenance — which is the best of our operational aircraft — requires twenty-three access panels for the standard maintenance programme. The Baaz requires six. The reduction is not because we have cut corners. It is because the maintenance accessibility was a primary design requirement, not an afterthought."
He pointed to the panels on the model.
"Panel one: engine access, starboard side. Contains the engine extraction rail, all fuel connections, all electrical connections, all bleed air connections. All connections are quick-disconnect fittings. Engine swap: two people, 30 minutes." He pointed to the next panel. "Panel two: avionics bay access, nose section. Contains the Netra-2 radar unit, the mission computer, the FBW computer. All components are line-replaceable units mounted on standardised rails. Replace the entire radar head with a spare: 45 minutes, one person." He pointed to the next. "Panel three: fuel system access, dorsal centre section. Fuel boost pumps, transfer valves, fuel quantity sensing. All reachable from standing height without a ladder." He pointed further. "Panel four: hydraulics, port lower centre section. Primary and secondary hydraulic pumps, reservoir, accumulator. All on quick-disconnect fittings." He paused. "Panels five and six are the undercarriage bays — standard access for retraction system maintenance."
He put the model down.
He said: "The ground crew training for the Baaz is a twelve-week course. At the end of twelve weeks, a maintenance technician who has never seen an aircraft before can perform every scheduled maintenance task on the Baaz correctly and safely. The comparative figure for the MiG-21 is twenty-four weeks for an equivalent level of competence. For the Jaguar: thirty-two weeks." He paused. "What this means for a customer air force is that you can train your own people more quickly, to a higher standard, and maintain a larger proportion of your maintenance workforce at the required competency level. You are less dependent on a small number of highly-trained individuals whose absence — through illness, reassignment, or resignation — can degrade your maintenance capability significantly."
Hassan said: "This is what you mean by field maintainability."
"Exactly," Vashisht said. "The Baaz can be maintained by competent but not exceptional technicians. The S-27 requires exceptional technicians. Most air forces have a limited supply of exceptional technicians. Most air forces have an adequate supply of competent ones."
The flight demonstration was at two in the afternoon.
The Gorakhpur strip in November was in the quality of the north Indian winter's approach — the air clear and cold in the mornings, warming by midday, the specific stillness of an afternoon that had not yet committed to the cold. Good flying weather.
The Baaz sat on the tarmac with the specific physical presence of a new aircraft — the slight quality of something that had not yet been in the world long enough to be ordinary, whose lines were still being read by eyes that were encountering them for the first time.
It was smaller than the S-27.
This was the first and most obvious impression, and the foreigners who had not previously been to Gorakhpur needed a moment to adjust to it. They had known it would be smaller. Knowing it intellectually was different from standing in front of it. The delta wing was clean and elegant, the canards small and close-coupled, the single engine's intake running along the belly in the specific configuration that Vashisht had chosen for the STOL performance. The canopy was a single-piece bubble — the best forward visibility you could give a pilot in a combat aircraft — and the landing gear was of the simple robust kind that was designed to work rather than to be light.
Rathore was at the aircraft.
He was thirty-nine years old now and had the specific quality of a test pilot in his prime — the combination of extraordinary aeronautical competence and the analytical discipline of the test flying mode that was not about pushing the aircraft to its limits but about understanding where those limits were and what they felt like.
He shook hands with Parulkar, who he had worked with through the S-35 evaluation.
Parulkar said: "The Baaz."
Rathore said: "It's honest."
Parulkar said: "You said that when we spoke on the phone. What does it mean."
Rathore said: "The S-35 is the most capable aircraft I have ever flown. It is also the most complex. When you are in the S-35, the aircraft is doing a significant amount of work on your behalf — the FBW's adaptive control laws are managing energy and control authority in ways that allow the pilot to focus on the tactical picture. The aircraft is ahead of you in certain ways." He paused. "The Baaz's FBW is first generation. Simpler. Less adaptive. When you are at high alpha in the Baaz, the aircraft tells you plainly where it is in the envelope. It doesn't soften the communication. You feel the limits. You understand what the aircraft is doing because the aircraft requires you to understand it."
He paused.
"This is exactly the quality you want in a training aircraft," he said. "A pilot who has flown 500 hours in the Baaz will arrive at the S-27 or S-35 conversion unit having felt what FBW actually does at the limits. The S-27 and S-35 will feel smoother, more capable — but the pilot will understand why, because the Baaz has shown them what the underlying mechanics are."
He walked to the aircraft.
The flight lasted forty-three minutes.
The demonstration was not the demonstration of extremes — not the maximum-performance drama of an aircraft being pushed to every corner of its envelope. It was the demonstration of character. The specific character of an aircraft built for specific purposes, showing those purposes as precisely as they could be shown.
Rathore took the aircraft to 6,000 metres and showed the cruise efficiency — the Surya-1 at moderate settings, the fuel flow number on the ground telemetry display reading the specific moderate number of an engine running at conservative conditions, the aircraft covering ground at 720 kilometres per hour on a fuel burn that the IAF Finance Directorate's officer was quietly computing against the MiG-21 equivalent.
He showed the combat configuration — the turn rate at 5,000 metres with the Astra Mk1 loaded on the inner wing stations, the aircraft maintaining 14 degrees per second sustained turn at the corner velocity.
Not the S-27's 19 degrees per second. Not the S-35's 17.
14 degrees per second.
Sufficient to defeat every aircraft currently in service in the theatres where the Baaz would operate. Sufficient against the F-6 that was the PLA's primary border aircraft. Sufficient against the F-86 variants that several potential customer countries were currently operating.
Then the approach.
Rathore set up for the marked 900-metre section of the Gorakhpur strip, with the temporary boards marking the boundaries of a simulated forward airbase.
The approach angle was steeper than conventional. The canards were doing their work — generating the leading-edge vortex that kept the wing attached at the angle of attack required for the slow approach. The speed at the threshold: 152 knots.
He touched down inside the first board.
He stopped inside the second board.
883 metres.
Mishra was beside Aditya on the observation line.
He said, quietly: "883 metres."
Aditya said: "The test programme target is 850. We will get there."
Mishra said: "883 is already 100 metres shorter than the Leh strip."
Aditya said: "Yes."
Mishra said: "I can operate from the Leh strip with 17 metres to spare on the landing roll."
"Yes," Aditya said.
Mishra said nothing for a moment.
He watched Rathore taxi the aircraft back to the tarmac.
He said: "The Gnat can do it too, in good conditions. The conditions at Leh in November are not good conditions."
Aditya said: "The Baaz's braking performance does not degrade significantly in cold or wet conditions. The wheel brake system was specifically designed for the mountain environment — carbon fibre composite brakes rather than standard steel, specifically because carbon composite maintains its coefficient of friction at low temperatures where steel brakes can experience coefficient reduction."
Mishra said: "Who told you about the brake problem at Leh."
Aditya said: "Vashisht flew from Leh for seven years. He had the braking data from his own personal experience."
Mishra looked at the aircraft.
He said: "I want to fly it."
Aditya said: "The test programme isn't at the external pilot stage yet. We're at 13 flights with the aircraft. External pilot evaluations are part of the Phase 2 programme, which begins—"
Mishra said: "I'll wait."
He said it with the specific patience of a man who had been waiting for the right aircraft for his airbase for fifteen years and was willing to wait a few more months.
The afternoon session was about money.
Not the conceptual money of the morning — the twenty-year projections, the lock-in analysis, the availability arithmetic. The afternoon was the specific money of specific conversations about specific numbers for specific quantities of aircraft for specific countries.
The IAF officers and the foreign visitors were in the room together, and Aditya had structured it this way deliberately.
He said: "I want to have this conversation with everyone present because the questions that the IAF has about the Baaz and the questions that potential export customers have about the Baaz intersect. Specifically: everyone here wants to know how many aircraft are going to be built, because the number of aircraft built determines the production cost reduction, which determines the unit price, which determines the acquisition decision."
He put the production cost curve on the board.
The curve showed unit cost as a function of total production volume.
At 50 aircraft: $7.2M per unit At 100 aircraft: $6.4M per unit At 200 aircraft: $5.5M per unit At 400 aircraft: $4.7M per unit At 600 aircraft: $4.2M per unit
He said: "The learning curve in aircraft manufacturing is approximately 15 to 20 percent cost reduction for every doubling of cumulative production. The fixed costs — tooling, jigs, design amortisation — decline per unit as production volume increases. The Baaz's initial unit cost at low volume is $7.2 million. At 600 units total, which is a reasonable target for a successful export programme over ten to fifteen years, the unit cost falls to $4.2 million."
He paused.
"$4.2 million per aircraft with 87 percent availability and a 2,500-hour engine TBO is the most cost-effective capable fighter in the world at that price point."
Razif said: "600 units over ten to fifteen years. How many customers does that require."
Aditya said: "Our current projection is twenty-five to thirty customer air forces purchasing between twelve and forty-eight aircraft each. The IAF's own requirement for the mountain patrol role — the requirement Wing Commander Mishra represents — is approximately 120 aircraft to replace the ageing Gnat and early MiG-21 fleet in the northern border sectors. 120 IAF aircraft alone get us to a significant point on the learning curve."
Parulkar said: "The IAF is not the only customer."
"No," Aditya said. "The IAF anchors the programme financially. The export sales produce the volume that drives the unit cost down, which benefits subsequent IAF procurement. It is a mutually reinforcing relationship — the IAF buys aircraft that are more affordable because the export sales volume is there, and the export customers buy aircraft that are more refined and better-supported because the IAF is the primary customer and standards established for the IAF flow to the export product."
Adeyemi said: "Nigeria is the first export customer if we sign."
Aditya said: "Nigeria is the first customer in active negotiation. We are also in conversations with Malaysia, Jordan, Kenya, Ghana, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and seven other countries in various stages of preliminary discussion." He paused. "The sequence matters. The first customers establish the programme's momentum and the production line's initial cadence. First customers receive specific attention and specific terms."
He looked at Adeyemi.
He said: "Nigeria's specific requirement — as I understand it from the Nigerian Air Force's communication — is for a capable fighter aircraft to replace the ageing Jaguar fleet and to provide a platform for the next generation of Nigerian Air Force pilots, at a price that the current defence budget can accommodate without a supplementary appropriation."
Adeyemi said: "That is the requirement."
Aditya said: "A 24-aircraft Baaz acquisition, with a 10-year comprehensive support contract, can be structured at an annual cost — amortised acquisition plus maintenance contract — of approximately $14 million per year. The Nigerian Air Force's current Jaguar support contract costs approximately $18 million per year for a fleet that is available at under 60 percent because of spare parts supply chain issues." He paused. "The Baaz gives Nigeria a newer, more available aircraft at a lower annual cost than the current Jaguar programme."
Adeyemi said: "The Jaguar support is managed through BAC."
"Through a support contractor," Aditya said. "The spare parts supply runs through the UK, with average lead times for critical parts of eight to twelve weeks. In an operational situation, eight to twelve weeks for a critical spare part means the aircraft is grounded for eight to twelve weeks." He paused. "The Baaz support contract commits Shergill Aviation to a maximum spare parts delivery time of three weeks for any catalogue item and ten days for critical items. We stock regional forward depots to make this possible. In the initial phase of the Nigerian contract, we establish a forward depot at Lagos with 90 days of critical spare parts at all times."
Adeyemi looked at him.
He said: "You've studied the Nigerian Air Force's operational problems."
"I've spoken to the people who operate aircraft in your conditions and your supply environment," Aditya said. "I don't know the Nigerian Air Force better than you do. I know what keeps aircraft grounded and what doesn't, and I've designed this product to address what keeps aircraft grounded."
The conversation with the IAF officers in the late afternoon was different in register from the commercial discussions — less about price structure and more about operational integration.
Parulkar said: "The training pipeline. Krishnamurthy's preliminary assessment is that the Baaz addresses the Gnat-to-S-27 gap. Tell me how."
Krishnamurthy said: "Currently, the transition from the Kiran trainer to the S-27 conversion unit goes through the Gnat as an intermediate aircraft. The Gnat is agile, subsonic, small delta — it teaches some of what the S-27 requires. What it doesn't teach: FBW operation, supersonic flight characteristics, glass cockpit management, weapons integration in the pilot's cognitive load." She paused. "A pilot who has flown 500 hours on the Baaz before arriving at the S-27 conversion unit will have: 500 hours on an FBW aircraft, which ingrains the correct instincts for how FBW translates stick input to surface response. They will have supersonic experience — the Baaz's Mach 1.8 maximum provides this at a moderate cost per flight hour. They will have glass cockpit experience with a four-display configuration and partial HOTAS. They will have Netra radar operation experience — the Netra-2 is a simplified version of the S-27's Netra-1, different parameters but the same mode-switching and display architecture."
She paused.
"Our modelling, using the S-27 conversion unit's last four years of incident data, projects a 65 to 70 percent reduction in transition errors if pilots arrive with 500 Baaz hours. The conversion timeline reduces from 18 months to approximately 11 months for the same standard of readiness."
Parulkar said: "The cost comparison."
Anand from the Finance Directorate had been running numbers quietly for the past hour.
He said: "Current cost per S-27 pilot trained through the existing pipeline: approximately ₹1.9 crore. Of this, approximately ₹65 lakh is attributable to the Gnat phase, ₹85 lakh to the S-27 conversion unit flying hours, and ₹40 lakh to the extended conversion unit residency." He paused. "With a Baaz transition phase replacing the Gnat phase and reducing the S-27 conversion phase: Baaz phase cost approximately ₹50 lakh, S-27 conversion phase reduces to approximately ₹55 lakh. Total: approximately ₹1.45 crore." He paused. "Per pilot savings: approximately ₹45 lakh. Over the IAF's planned S-27/S-35 pilot induction rate of 40 pilots per year, over ten years: ₹180 crore in pipeline cost savings."
He looked up.
He said: "The pipeline savings over ten years, at current induction rates, are approximately equivalent to the cost of 120 Baaz aircraft at the 200-unit production cost level." He paused. "The training pipeline savings alone, amortised across the decade, essentially pay for the IAF's mountain patrol Baaz acquisition."
The room received this.
Aditya said: "We did not design the training pipeline case into the Baaz's financial model. It emerged from Krishnamurthy's work independently. The fact that it is this strong is a consequence of the Baaz's design choices — the FBW architecture, the supersonic envelope, the glass cockpit, the radar integration — all of which were chosen for the mountain patrol and export missions and which also produce this specific training pipeline benefit."
Anand said: "I want the pipeline cost data verified against the conversion unit's actual records."
"We have provided all our modelling assumptions to the Finance Directorate," Krishnamurthy said. "The verification is straightforward."
Anand said: "If the verification holds, the financial case for the IAF's Baaz acquisition is substantially stronger than the acquisition cost alone suggests."
Aditya said: "Yes."
At five o'clock, Parulkar asked to speak with Aditya privately.
They walked to the small courtyard outside the design bureau building — the courtyard with the ashoka tree that was old enough to have been there before the compound, that was the one thing on the site that had not been built but had simply been preserved.
November light in Gorakhpur — the specific quality of the late afternoon when the summer heat was past and the winter had not yet arrived, the air clean and cool, the light going amber.
Parulkar said: "Your brother became Chief Minister 3 months ago."
"Yes," Aditya said.
"This programme — the Baaz, the export development, the IAF commercial relationships — this is yours to run."
"Yes," Aditya said.
Parulkar looked at him.
He said: "I've been watching this compound since the S-35 evaluation in August 1974. In the fourteen months since then: S-35 test programme completed, IAF evaluation completed, production contract awarded, first production aircraft scheduled. Arjuna Block 1 delivered to the 1st Armoured Division. ISMC process development continuing. And now the Baaz, which first flew six weeks ago, and which you have presented today with a financial model that the Finance Directorate's officer cannot find holes in."
He paused.
"The compound is running," Parulkar said.
"Yes," Aditya said.
"Without him."
"He built it to run without him," Aditya said. "Every programme has a programme director. Every system has an engineer. The management architecture was built so that the compound's operation didn't depend on any single person's presence. That was explicit from the beginning." He paused. "My job is the front of the house. The commercial relationships, the IAF conversations, the export development. I've been doing parts of this for four years. I'm doing all of it now."
Parulkar said: "Does that concern you."
Aditya said: "Concern is not the right word. It is what it is and I will do it well or I will not and the doing is the evidence." He paused. "I know the work. I know the aircraft. I know the financial model and the commercial architecture and the specific conversations that produce results. I have been in these rooms since I was seventeen." He paused. "The concern would be if I didn't know the work. I know the work."
Parulkar looked at him for a moment.
He said: "The financial model you presented today — the twenty-year revenue projection from a single 24-aircraft customer. The $382 million total. The 59 percent post-acquisition revenue ratio. Did you build that model."
"Yes," Aditya said.
"When."
"Over the past eight months," Aditya said. "I started building it when the Baaz design was finalised enough that the maintenance cost parameters were stable. The model is built on actual data where data exists and on conservative estimates where it doesn't. The MiG-21 maintenance data is from Indian Air Force operational records. The Jaguar data is from British Aerospace's published support contract terms. The F-5 data is from US State Department export reporting." He paused. "The Baaz's own maintenance cost projections are from Vashisht's design specifications, which I verified against the test programme data from the first thirteen flights. The model is solid."
Parulkar said: "Why haven't I seen a model like this for the S-27 or S-35."
Aditya said: "Because the S-27 and S-35 were presented to the IAF as capability decisions, not cost decisions. The IAF was making a decision about what India's air force needed to be — could it meet the threat, could it change what was possible. The financial case was secondary to the capability case because the capability case was sufficiently compelling that the financial case wasn't needed to close the decision." He paused. "The Baaz is a different decision. The capability is adequate but not extraordinary. The financial case is the compelling argument. So the financial case is the presentation."
Parulkar said: "The S-27 and S-35 will eventually generate the same maintenance revenue model."
"Yes," Aditya said. "But the S-27 and S-35 customers are the IAF and potentially close allies in the very long term. The maintenance contracts are sovereign-to-sovereign arrangements. The Baaz is a commercial programme — thirty countries, multiple contract structures, the specific commercial architecture of a product that is designed for the market." He paused. "The Baaz is Shergill Aviation's first true commercial aerospace product. The S-27 and S-35 were defence programmes that happened to be built by a private company. The Baaz is a business."
Parulkar looked at the ashoka tree.
He said: "The IAF will begin a formal evaluation in the first quarter of 1976. I want the full test programme data — everything from the first thirteen flights — on my desk in January."
Aditya said: "You will have it."
"And I want the Finance Directorate's verification of the pipeline cost model in March."
"We will complete the data provision for that verification by the end of November," Aditya said.
Parulkar said: "If the Leh test programme produces data consistent with the specifications, the mountain patrol requirement will be met by the Baaz."
"Yes," Aditya said.
"That is not a commitment from me," Parulkar said. "It is an assessment."
"I understand," Aditya said.
"But it is an accurate assessment," Parulkar said.
The delegation departed at six.
The November evening settled into the compound with the specific quality of an evening that had been significant and was returning to normal. The factories were in the early evening shift. The residential colony was making its dinner sounds. The design bureau building was lit — the overnight team coming in, the day team signing out.
Aditya stood at the main gate and watched the vehicles leave.
He thought about the day.
He thought about the specific arguments that had worked and the specific arguments that hadn't needed to be made because the questions that anticipated them weren't asked, which was its own kind of success — the argument that didn't need to be made because the audience understood before it was needed.
He thought about Adeyemi's face when the twenty-year revenue model had been on the board. The specific quality of a man who was recalculating. Not about whether the aircraft was good enough — about whether he had been thinking about the acquisition correctly. The model had shifted something. The aircraft sale became a relationship. The relationship had a value that dwarfed the initial transaction.
He thought about Razif's specific question: You have designed the aircraft to be a dependency. And his own answer, which was honest about it without being apologetic about it, because why would you apologize for building a product that produced twenty years of mutual benefit.
He thought about Mishra saying: 883 metres. And the specific quality of that — the man who had been landing aircraft at Leh for fifteen years and who knew exactly what 883 metres meant, and who had said nothing more because nothing more needed to be said.
He thought about Parulkar's last question, which was the question that was actually about something else: Does it concern you. And his own answer, which was also honest. Concern was not the right word because concern was the feeling you had when you were uncertain, and he was not uncertain. He knew the work. He had been learning the work for four years. The uncertainty was not in the work.
The uncertainty was in the weight of it, which was different.
The weight was: the compound was running and Karan was in Lucknow and the Baaz had thirteen flights and the export programme was being built in real time with real consequences and he was twenty-one years old.
He did not experience this as a burden in the sense that burdens crushed. He experienced it as a specific gravity — a pull downward that required a corresponding upward effort, which was the feeling of responsibility correctly understood. You felt the weight because the weight was real, and feeling it accurately was the prerequisite for carrying it correctly.
He had been preparing to carry this for four years.
He went back inside.
He sat at his desk.
He wrote the summary that he sent to Karan after every significant programme event — the tight, accurate account that his brother read in ten minutes between government meetings in Lucknow and that kept him connected to the compound he had built and the programmes he had started.
He wrote:
November 16, 1975.
The Baaz presentation went as planned. Parulkar will begin formal IAF evaluation in Q1 1976. Mishra gave operational support — his position was conditional on the Leh tests but he is clearly interested, and a man who has been at Leh for fifteen years does not say 883 metres and look like that unless the number means something to him.
The foreign delegation: Adeyemi (Nigeria) engaged fully with the revenue model — the 20-year cost comparison shifted something in how he was thinking about the acquisition. Razif (Malaysia) was the most commercially sophisticated; his question about the lock-in mechanism was precise and I answered it directly. Hassan (Jordan) was most interested in the maintenance architecture and the spare parts supply chain — the Jordan directorate's experience with French support contracts has made them specific about response times.
Anand from the Finance Directorate ran the pipeline cost savings in the room. His preliminary view is that the training pipeline savings over ten years are approximately equivalent to the mountain patrol acquisition cost. He wants to verify the data — provide everything to his office by end of November.
The Baaz is working. Rathore's characterisation: honest. I think it is the right word for an aircraft that tells you plainly where it is in its envelope and gives you the result of reliable engineering without drama.
The Surya-1 performed correctly in the flight demonstration. No anomalies. Pillai is confident about the cold-start performance. Mishra wants to be at the Leh tests. Tell him when they're scheduled.
Revenue model projection update: 12 active international conversations in meaningful stages. If three of these close by Q2 1976, the production line cadence assumptions hold. The learning curve reductions become real in 1977 if the early customer base is established by then.
The compound is running. Come to Gorakhpur when you can.
He read it back.
He considered removing the last line.
He left it in.
He sent it via telegram.
He turned off the desk lamp.
He looked at the compound through the office window.
The factories were running. The residential colony lights were on. The design bureau was lit on the upper floors where the overnight structural analysis team was running stress calculations for the Garuda programme's wing box design. The S-35 production facility, one building over, was in its second shift — the aircraft taking shape on the line, twenty-two delivered and the line learning its rhythm.
He thought about what the Baaz was.
Not what it was technically — he knew that completely, had been involved in its commercial development since 1973, knew every aspect of the business model he had presented today. He thought about what it was in the larger context of what the compound was building.
The S-27 had changed what India could do in the air — had given India the air superiority capability that made the Indian Ocean confrontation of February 1975 possible, had changed the specific geometry of India's strategic position.
The S-35 was changing where India could reach — the 1,800-kilometre combat radius, the strike capability, the deep interdiction that the S-27 could not provide.
The Baaz was different.
The Baaz was about who could have what India had built.
Not the complete version — not the Trinetra, not the Kaveri Mk2, not the capabilities that were India's competitive advantage in air warfare. But a capable, affordable, maintainable aircraft that brought modern air power to air forces that had previously been excluded from it by cost and by supply chain dependency on powers that did not prioritise their needs. And that, in buying that aircraft, became part of a commercial network that was centred in India, that generated two decades of revenue for Indian industry, that trained technicians on Indian systems and installed Indian procedures and created the specific institutional dependency that turned a purchase into a relationship.
He thought: This is the other kind of power. Not the power of the sword. The power of the knife that thirty countries are carrying.
He thought: Thirty countries whose aircraft come from Gorakhpur. Whose spare parts come from Gorakhpur. Whose maintenance technicians are trained on Shergill procedures. Whose pilots fly aircraft that prepare them for the next generation of Shergill aircraft. Thirty countries whose air forces are, in a specific and structural sense, part of the same system.
He thought: That is what the Baaz builds.
He thought: That is the part of the compound's work that does not make the headlines. The sword makes headlines. The knife — the quiet, careful work of building relationships that last twenty years — the knife is the thing that compounds.
He put on his coat.
He went to dinner in the Anna Kshetra — the kitchen that served the compound at all hours, which he had been doing since he was eighteen when Karan had told him that the best thinking happened in the same space as the people doing the work rather than separated from them.
He ate his dinner.
He talked to a structural engineer from the Garuda team who was eating at the next table.
He listened to what the engineer was worried about.
He asked the right questions.
He thought: This is also the work.
The compound was running.
End of Chapter 209
S-6 Baaz(Indian Goshawk) — Programme Status, 16 November 1975
Designation: S-6 Baaz ((Indian Goshawk) Configuration: Single-engine delta wing with close-coupled canards, conventional tail Engine: Surya-1 — 50kN dry thrust, 65kN afterburner. TBO design target 2,500 flight hours. No Kaveri technology. Cold-start certified to minus 35°C. Programme Director: Wing Commander (Retd.) Pradeep Vashisht Chief Test Pilot: Vikram Rathore First Flight: 3 October 1975 Test flights to date: 13 (17 hours total)
Performance (design specification):
Parameter S-6 Baaz S-27 Pinaka S-35 Tejas Max Speed Mach 1.8 Mach 2.4 Mach 2.2 Dry Thrust 50 kN 97 kN 104 kN Combat Radius 520 km 850 km 1,800 km Radar Netra-2, 75km Netra-1, 70km Trinetra, 115km MTOW 8,500 kg 14,200 kg 19,800 kg Strip Requirement 900m 1,400m 1,600m Service Ceiling 16,000m 18,500m 19,500m Engine TBO 2,500 hrs 1,100 hrs operational 1,400 hrs design
Operational parameters: Maintenance hours per flight hour: 4–5 (design target) Sortie turnaround: 35 minutes Availability target: 85–90% Surya-1 engine swap (2-person): 30 minutes at sea level Landing roll (MTOW): 883 metres demonstrated, 850 metres target Cold start: certified to -35°C, no pre-heat required
Technology protection: Surya-1 engine: clean-sheet design, no Kaveri architecture. No proprietary technology. Netra-2 radar: derivative of Netra-1, not Trinetra. No classified signal processing. FBW: first-generation system, no adaptive control laws. No classified elements. Export risk: LOW. No critical Indian defence technology exposed.
Why S-27/S-35 cannot be exported (1975):
Netra/Trinetra radar systems: classified, India's primary air warfare advantage Kaveri Mk1.5/Mk2: proprietary engine technology, cannot be allowed in 30+ country inventories S-35 FBW adaptive control architecture: classified Timeline: no S-27 export until S-35 is India's standard. No S-35 export until Garuda generation is India's standard. Minimum 7-10 years for any S-35 export.
Revenue model (24-aircraft customer, 20 years): Acquisition: $156M (at $6.5M/unit) Maintenance contracts (10% of purchase price/aircraft/year): $748M Spare parts (2.5%/year): $195M Engine overhauls: $26M Total 20-year revenue: $1.125 BILLION from one customer Post-acquisition revenue as % of total: 86%
Why this funds Shergill Aviation:
Initial sale = one-time revenue Maintenance contract = annual guaranteed revenue for 20 years Spare parts = annual proprietary revenue (no alternative supplier) Engine overhauls = periodic large revenue events (every 12.5 years per engine) Customer switching cost after 2 years: $60-80M in sunk investment written off Result: customer is structurally locked into Shergill Aviation for aircraft operational life
Unit cost at volume: 50 aircraft: $7.2M 100 aircraft: $6.4M 200 aircraft: $5.5M 400 aircraft: $4.7M 600 aircraft: $4.2M (target export programme volume over 10-15 years)
Current export pipeline: Active negotiations: 12 countries Advanced discussions: Nigeria (Wing Commander Adeyemi), Malaysia (Dato Razif), Jordan (Colonel Hassan) Interest registered: Kenya, Ghana, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Sri Lanka + 7 others IAF mountain patrol requirement: ~120 aircraft (replaces ageing Gnat/early MiG-21 in northern border sectors)
IAF evaluation status: Formal evaluation: Q1 1976 Mountain patrol endorsement: Wing Commander Mishra, conditional on Leh test programme Training pipeline case: Krishnamurthy assessment confirms 65-70% transition error reduction Finance Directorate: pipeline savings over 10 years approximately equal to mountain patrol acquisition cost Formal recommendation: pending evaluation
Design philosophy:The sword is for the battle. The knife is for everything else. We built the knife. — Pradeep Vashisht, Programme Director
Commercial philosophy: The Baaz's initial sale is the beginning of the relationship. The maintenance contract is the relationship. A country that buys 24 Baaz aircraft is making a 20-year commitment to Shergill Aviation. The aircraft is priced to be affordable. The relationship is structured to be permanent.