DRDO to complete feasibility study for Indian Stealth fighter project in 18 months

Second big project for the ADA!

I hope its a new team and at least new leadership and I hope they take a similar approach to the apparent civil regional jet project where they get people in from where ever required to do the job.

why Diego Garcia? It’s in the wrong ocean. Why not Guam, which is US territory (unlike Diego Garcia), doesn’t need overflight permission from anyone (unlike Diego Garcia), & is almost 4000 km closer?

Agree, and if for some reason Guam does not survive the next closest large enough base to strike from are going to be US based or Diego Garcia.

I wonder how this B-1 interceptor could be justified. I would imagine it would be necessary to scramble one from a base, otherwise fuel costs alone would be a huge penalty. And you would need several stationed throughout Taiwan, or they may never get an opportunity to fire off its missiles. That means rotating crews and keeping a crew in every one on alert status that’s a lot of seats to keep full.

I presume you would base the B-1s at bases such as Diego Garcia its a long flying distance but to be honest the US involvement would be atleast a few days after any strike on Taiwan (if it was to get involved). This is assuming that congress would be allowed time to democratically (or semi democratically) decide to join in.

someone mentioned the B-2, is it not possible to fly the B-2 with air to air missiles in its bomb doors fed by radars from an AWACs or maybe F-22?

How many extra long range air to air missiles could the B-2 carry?

If the US did decide the join in, short term cost would not be an issue for them, if the B-1R concepts means that a stalemate is achieved sooner then it saves them a lot of money and life not to mention that most democracies in this facebook generation do not suffer wars/casualties that well.

Would it not be possible to have a larger X-47 act as a missilier if the B-1 is not seen to be survivable?

I guess the IAF is more worried about the principle of the matter, they probably do not care if it had or had not been positioned in a prime spot.

they are probably nervous as anything to avoid delaying the MMRCA competition and going after any hints of corruption to make an example is a way to do it.

I don’t quite see what advantages this offers over a stealthy super-cruising platform like F-22. A fight of 4 F-22s could carry 24 long-range AAM, super-cruise, be much harder to detect by enemy radars and have the element of surprise. What advantage does the B-1R platform offer over this, other than the ability to transit from a Hawaii base to Taiwan directly? (F-22 could probably do that too, but it could be based off Japan or Korea instead)

not advantage over F-22 but augment F-22. Simple answer for augment is that it could potentially carry more missiles. When the missiles on the F-22 run out for instance he may be able to cue the missiles from a missilier flying farther back. Obviously there are a number of other scenarios as well.. but its purely a numbers game.. PLAAF has more planes than the US would have missiles in the region.

Even if the US had to hit and kill older gen F-7s it still have to hit them, if it lets them through they could target key places…

F-22 may have superior sensors and stealth but at the end of the day it still needs missiles to shoot at or kill something.

Realistically, why would GE want to help out a competitor’s engine?

And even more germane to KC-X, is there any sign USAF would be willing to pay for the development, testing an production of this new engine. Even if they did, EADS would rightly say, “Hey (or French words to that effect)! This wasn’t in the spec. Why didn’t you fund a new engine for me? Beside, now Boeing is more expensive, so we win”.

Such is the way of the world.

It would not be the first time GE has worked its competitors… if a project or sale is lucrative there is no reason for competitors to not work with each other.

Anyways it seems the lower fan speeds on the GTF allows PW to go for composite fan case.

I have no association with any engine manufacturer, but it appears to me that the USAF blatantly favors PW, for what reason I cannot figure, since they have practically been run out of the civil market the last 25 or so years. The continue getting sole source tactical fighter contracts, and are going to use the profits to develop the GTF for the civil market in a desperate attempt to regain life.

I am very suprised that the GTF pure power engine is not on the tanker or a varient of the same.

Most of the Airbus NEO are pure power engines.

Although their shouldnt be compromises in the purchase of equipment if the risk is managed (and obviously if you know what the risks could be) then it doesnt matter if the USAF is “helping” out P&W or united technologies.

Any other country would do the same if they had a choice.

This is different from uterly mis managed poorly performing parts that do not provide the functionality promised.

Engine & Fighter Size AESA radar tech would be good wrt to ToT.

Why would you put the AESA radar on that list? surely it will gain that from the PAKFA and the Su 30MKI upgrades.

Goooo Team Gripen!!!!!!