“There is a recognition from the start that this is a major and difficult project,” says an IAF officer with the Air Headquarters plans division. “But it cannot go the way the LCA Tejas program has gone. Lessons learned have to be part of the IUSAV. That's the plan. The IAF and DRDO are working more closely than ever before.”

India's Predator-type hunter-killer UAV, the twin-turboprop-powered Rustom-2, is likely to begin flight testing by late 2013. The IUSAV is expected to draw several evolutionary technologies from the Rustom-2.