Info on IAF MiG-29 overhauls

Fresh air! It is great to be posting again @ KPF after 7 months….I hope I can visit more often.

Here is a nice read on the IAF’s overhaul facilities for the MiG-29. This is a bit old, so I hope nobody has posted it here yet.

MiG overhauling a desi job now

DEVESH KUMAR

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ FRIDAY, JULY 04, 2003 12:56:05 AM ]

OJHAR (NASHIK): The Indian Air Force’s plans to develop its first indigenously conceived and manufactured fighter aircraft, christened Tejas, may have been hit by cost and time overruns but this has not deterred it from going full throttle ahead to enhance the lives of the two front-line fighters, MiG-23s and MiG-29s with the help of local technology.

Away from all the glare and spotlight, the IAF’s 11 Base Repair Depot, located on the outskirts of the bustling Maharashtra town of Nashik, has embarked on an ambitious programme to overhaul the entire fleet of two MiG variants using local, and not Russian, know-how.

It has, in the process, saved the state exchequer valuable foreign exchange. “An exercise which would have cost us Rs 400 crore if the planes had been sent to Russia for the overhauls is now incurring an expenditure of Rs 50 crore only,’’ claimed Air Commodore R R Bhardwaj, the Air-Officer-Commanding of the Ojhar air base, which functions under the overall control and supervision of the Air Maintenance Command headquartered at Nagpur.

While the IAF has gained mastery over the overhauls of the airframe and the avionics, the engines remain a different ballgame. The engines of the MiG-23s continue to pose problems, with the result that the aircraft have the highest fatality rate among all fighters possessed by India.

Even as a team of Russian and Indian experts are grappling with the problem, trying to sort things out at the Kanpur-based 4 Base Repair Depot, the men at the Ojhar BRD have built a reputation for their work in giving the fleet of MiG-23 and MiG-29s. So successful has been their involvement that the depot has been conferred an ISO 9001 : 2000 certification. Offers for spares crafted indigenously have also started arriving from countries possessing the two MiG variants.

So far, 191 MiG-23s and at least 50 MiG-29s have rolled out of the depot after getting a fresh leash of life. “The Russians were demanding Rs 22 crore for overhauling each aircraft. We’re doing the same thing for Rs two crore only,’’ Air Commodore Bhardwaj said.

All this has been achieved without any let-up in quality, he added. After getting the face-lift, the MiG-29s, which have a life-cycle of 2500 hours/20 years, get a life-enhancement of 10 years.

The multi-role, swing-wing MiG-23s, which have a technical life of 25 years, undergo a life-enhancement of five years.

Engineers and technicians working at the Ojhar BRD have, the AOC maintained, managed to secure a great deal of indigenisation. “In fact, 96% of the mandatory spares required for overhauling or reconditioning the MiG-29s has been indigenised,’’ pointed out Squadron Leader Shamik Manna, under whose watchful eyes the MiG-29 technical life-enhancement programme is undertaken. A similar figure obtains for the MiG-23s.

Each aircraft, Squadron Leader Manna said, needs an overhaul after logging in a thousand hours. “Once they’re wheeled in, the aircraft are stripped of their engines, avionics, wings, fins and the cockpit, and only the airframe’s skeleton remains. While the engines are sent to the HAL’s Koraput plant for servicing, each part of the airframe is scanned minutely for cracks and faults.

While all rubberised items are replaced, the non-rubberised items are recycled by a process involving testing, cleaning and electroplating. The looms or the cables, which form a vital, are replaced completely,’’ he said.

All of this is a fairly complex exercise. There are 2000 types of small items, including nuts and bolts. All of them have either to be replaced or recycled, wherever possible.

The entire overhauling process takes a whopping 296 days, spread over 13 stages. Following an independent post-overhaul check (IPOC), the aircraft is surveyed by a team of quality assurance officials, before it is readied for the test-flight. “It normally takes four test-flights before the plane is accepted back by the field unit,’’ Wing Commander V S Chauhan, the chief test pilot, pointed out.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=58629