'While fighter pilots must not be sent into combat in inferior aircraft, an obsessive quest for outright combat superiority will leave an air force short of numbers,' says Ajai Shukla.
The outgoing Tejas chief said the aircraft will join the IAF fleet by 2021-22.
The cancellation of the project has far-reaching implications for the IAF, for which this was once its high-tech future fighter.
Boeing's plan involves setting up an Indian factory and the aerospace ecosystem to build the Block II Super Hornet.
Burned by the shooting down of a MiG-21 aircraft and the capture of its pilot after a dogfight over the India-Pakistan border in February 2019, CATS eliminates the need to send pilots into enemy air space.
'The greatest loss from replacing the 126 Rafale proposal with the 2016 contract for 36 Rafales might not be the extra money paid, but the opportunity that India's aerospace industry lost of obtaining access to critical aviation technologies and manufacturing skills.'
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar says global aircraft makers will have to get approval from their own governments to transfer technology and build jets in India.
