Ideas sometimes steal in unbidden to an unwary mind….and if shared with others, the more outlandish ones are at best often laughed off the table. I have long suffered from this affliction. In 2002, as a young officer onboard Viraat, I had suggested that the next fighter aircraft (the MiG 29K was then being offered along with Gorshkov) should be purchased in larger numbers (larger than the 23 Sea Harrier FRS Mk. 51s which we had obtained from UK) and a Naval Ground/ Flight Testing Unit should be set up in Bangalore (to take advantage of the strong civil-military-industrial aviation presence) to continuously test two “sample” aircraft allotted to it to their very limit in terms of operational & maintenance cycles/ hours flown, etc. The idea being that such a unit through its extensive cycles of operation would be able to forecast, suggest and presumably initiate improvements and modifications to equipment, system...