Livefist MIG 35 rumor report posted in full

MMRCA BUZZ: MiG-35 Was Never In The Running?

Quick disclaimer: with nothing official on the MMRCA competition available from the Indian government — at one level, rightly so — the only available information is hearsay. And I don’t think debate about rumours is going to ever affect a professionally managed competition. This is a pot that stirs itself. It could be bang on, it could be totally off. I’m hoping everyone will look at the assertions on their own merit. These are bits of conversations with officers, ex-Chiefs etc over the last few weeks strung together. Ok, let’s get down to it.

The overriding sense I get from my sources is this: It is not a question of what chance the MiG-35 has in the MMRCA sweepstakes but whether the MiG-35 ever had a chance in the first place. From the start, it turns out, both the MoD and a controlling section of the IAF have agreed on one crucial thing — the next aircraft the IAF operated would need to be a truly modern platform that “broke the mould”. That was to be the starting point of everything that followed. The IAF’s next aircraft needed to be a top-of-the-line aircraft that broke out from the old mould and signalled new things for India in every possible sense: technology, diplomacy, security cooperation, political opportunity, military interoperability, logistical exchange and economics.

As late as mid-2006, a time when there was a breathless guessing game about precisely when the Indian MoD would send out its MMRCA RFP, there were apparently quiet discussions on over whether Moscow could be brought on board and persuaded to stay out of the proposed MMRCA competition. It was suggested that this be made possible through interactions at the highest levels, but first the MoD and IAF needed to figure the feasibility of such a proposal. It is said that the Russian Ambassador to New Delhi at the time was called in for an unofficial discussion on the highly controversial possibility of Russia actually being kept out of the sweepstakes. He was accompanied by Russia’s Air Attache. As the IAF expected, the Russian envoy was incredulous. He said there was no way on earth his Russian bosses would ever be persuaded to agree to that. Obviously. A month before that in January 2007 was an important event — India and Russia finally formalised their joint fifth generation aircraft plan, though actual agreements came later.

In February 2005, Russia had sent a MiG-29M/M2 MRCA to AeroIndia 05. For AeroIndia 07, MiG pulled out all the stops.

In February 2007, the “MiG-35” (actually the MiG-29M2 No. 154, a 17-year-old airframe with blue-painted fins) was officially unveiled to the world at AeroIndia 07 at the IAF’s Yelahanka base. Coupled with the bright red and blue thrust-vectored MiG-29OVT, the two aircraft put up a deeply memorable show. But IAF officers who had a chance to check out the aircraft came away very unimpressed. “It is an old aircraft with a few MFDs,” one of them said at the time. At the time, it indeed was, but Russia had said it was merely a proof-of-concept platform that would be evolved into a formidable new Fulcrum.

Six months later, on August 28, 2007 — two days after the MAKS 2007 air show at Zhukovsky (see photo, me and MiG’s Stanislav Gorbunov after our sortie) — the Indian government finally and belatedly issued its long-awaited RFP to six vendors, 211 pages long and delayed ostensibly by the offsets and selection model sections. This probably means nothing, but in all MoD and official acquisition council papers concerning the MMRCA competition since the RFP, the MiG-35 is first in the list of six competitors. As a matter of record, the official order of the remaining competitors is Gripen, F-16, F/A-18, Typhoon, Rafale. A senior IAF officer who was part of a delegation to MAKS 2007 met UAC boss Alexei Fedorov on August 22-23, 2007, and is understood to have had a very “frank chat”. Fedorov was told that the Indian government was willing to consider the MiG-35, though its chances were slim, considering the three explicit guiding principals of the selection process, and the two unspoken ones (more on these later). Fedorov is understood to have said that the Russian government was fully aware of the “winds of change” in New Delhi, but was confident that MiG would put up a good fight, politically too.

On a political level, it was conveyed to the Russians that the flagship Russian airplane, the Su-30, was being patronized extensively by India (plans were afoot already then to up orders), and that the MiG-35 was hardly a platform the Russian Air Force itself was interested in.

On March 7, 2008, the Indian government, after prolonged cost negotiations, finally concluded a $964.1-million contract to upgrade the IAF’s entire fleet of over 60 MiG-29s (the Indian phase of the upgrade began in June this year). Shortly thereafter, on April 28, 2008, RAC-MiG/Rosoboronexport submitted an MMRCA technical bid for the MiG-35/35D to the MoD, offering a Fulcrum with an improved airframe, new generation avionics and an AESA radar, the Phazotron Zhuk-AE.

In October-December 2008, during evaluations of the MMRCA technical bids, two Russian MiG-29s crashed after critical structural failures of their fins, forcing the Russian Air Force to ground its entire fleet shortly thereafter. Coming as the accidents did so soon after the upgrade contract was concluded, the IAF generated a query, routed through the Russian Air Attache, asking for a full brief on the accidents on why the Russians had been forced to ground their entire fleet. In April 2009, Russia responded, saying there were structural faults in the MiG-29 platform, and that the accidents had been caused as a result of structural failure of the aircraft’s fin root ribs. Significantly, the Russians conveyed that a specific “repair scheme” would be included in the March 2008 upgrade manifest. The IAF, however, demanded to know what immediate checks needed to be carried out and requested full accident reports. These were provided. The Russians grounding their entire Fulcrum fleet created a huge stir. Sections of the MoD/IAF debated the possibility of manipulating the entire issue to somehow put the MiG-35 out of the reckoning, but nothing whatsoever in the RFP terms would allow it. Also, by this time, the “guiding principles” as expounded by the MoD had begun to echo like a mantra.

The explicit principles — first, the IAF’s operational needs should be fulfilled. Two, the selection process needed to be competitive and transparent, and finally, that the competition would lead to a legacy leap for Indian industrial capabilities. The unspoken principles — first, the competition should provide robust leverage to India’s multifarious 21st Century political aspirations. And second, as previously stated, the competition needs to break old moulds in every sense to create strategic space for other partnerships.

A former IAF chief, who served during a crucial phase of the MMRCA planning, admits that the competition is a political opportunity that incidentally gives the Indian Air Force a chunky stop-gap to tide over legacy jet phase-outs and delays in the Tejas — not the other way round. “You can argue ad nauseum about sanctioned strength and squadron strength. The fact is the IAF’s requirement is not only much simpler, but much smaller too. As long as the pilots get a top-of-the-line airplane, nobody is complaining. Let the politicians do the politics. That is their job,” he says, adding, “The IAF’s requirements for a fresh batch of medium fighter jets came at a time when our strategic aspirations were in a state of great flux. It will be an enabler in many ways.”

In March 2010, around the time the crucial MMRCA field evaluation trials were winding down, the Indian government exercised options and signed up for 29 additional MiG-29K/KUB shipborne fighters for the Navy at a cost of $1.46-billion, taking its total order to 45 planes. In other words, since the time the IAF first approached the government with a requirement for a quick induction of medium fighters (it wanted to quickly contract for 60-70 more Mirage-2000s at he time), the Indian government has pumped approximately $3.5-billion into procuring MiG-29 platforms or platform related services.

The maximum I could squeeze out from informed sources about the MiG-35’s performance in the field evaluation trials is that the platform achieved “average compliance”. Areas of poor compliance are said to have occured at the Leh leg (engine related and emmissions issues), avionics exploitation and PGM delivery routines in Russia. The IAF are also said to have been fairly unimpressed with what the Russians had managed to achieve with the aircraft since they first saw it in February 2007. If the MiG-35’s performance was average in the trials, they know about it, since the IAF trial team briefed every contending team about their horse’s performance after trials concluded. There are more specific details about the MiG-35’s performance during the FET, but I was requested not to include those.

The Indian government remains utterly unconvinced of Russia’s ability to provide any meaningful industrial package to India as a mandatory part of the MMRCA. The India-Russia relationship is anything but new — it stretches back 47 years. India has learnt much from Russia, and has been provided the opportunity to cookie-cut airplanes through decades. But when it comes to meaningful industrial collaboration, the Indian government feels the Russians are better at selling and license building, rather than true blue industrial cooperation. And it is not as if there has been no framework for cooperation.

“It is not as though they have not had a chance to deepen their relationship with us industrially. Nobody knows the Indian industrial capability better than the Russians. They have exploited our weaknesses to the hilt for over four decades. But even then their industrial base is in tatters. In my opinion, whatever we can ever get from the Russians, we have already got or are soon to get. To expect anything more is unreasonable,” says a former IAF Chief. Apparently, the Indian government also doesn’t believe the Russians have anything to offer over and above what the Indians are already signing up for — the fifth generation fighter aircraft (FGFA) will be an ostensibly joint effort.

While the initial Naval MiG-29K deal was too good not to go for (at least in 2004!) and the upgrade of the IAF MiG-29s was something the IAF could postpone but not sidestep, sources say the government has very low confidence in the industrial health of MiG Corporation, tottering as it apparently is from airframe to airframe. Russia’s inability to stick to delivery timeframes, especially for MiG Corp, is another spoiler.

A point frequently raised in favour of choosing Russian aircraft is the quality of the Indo-Russian relationship; the fact that Russia has been a faithful friend in times of need/distress. Interestingly, as one Chief pointed out, India has done more than enough to earn Russia’s friendship. He says, “Russia has been a time-tested friend in our time of need, but what about the other way round? India has bailed out Russian politicians and leaders time and time again. The MMRCA is also a chance to demonstrate that India is a level partner, and nothing can ever be taken for granted. India is no longer a push-over. I say push-over because there was a time when we undeniably were. In the last decade, there have been instances of flagrant disregard for this so-called partnership. At the same time, we have to be careful about our new prospective relationships. For one thing, the US has an even worse record of reneging on promises.”

The same Chief points out that Russians have provided us technology for decades, but we still have a highly flawed, delayed indigenous fighter program. In other words, the perception is that if the Indian military-industrial complex (read HAL and DRDO) is to blame for India’s lack of maturity as an aerospace developer, then Russia is at least as much to blame for not allowing it, but rather remaining content with what has essentially been a buyer-seller relationship. “Let it be recorded at some point, that for every time the Russians have said yes, there has been another time they’ve said no. And let me also say that this is precisely the sort of scenario you may expect to have with the Americans. The quality of relations with Russia and US may be different, but not in any way that would matter to India’s own aspirations. Both countries are similar in more fundamental ways. That is an important thing to be remembered,” he says.

Another officer, a Naval aviator this time, had a very evocative phrase to describe where India-Russia relations were: “strategic menopause”.

Overall, the sense is that the path taken by the MiG-35 so far in the MMRCA competition needs to be seen in the light of the unspoken guiding principles and what the IAF and MoD originally wanted to persuade the Russians about. If the MiG-35 makes it past any potential downselect, it may be seen as having weathered a great deal to get there, no least a concerted attempt to completely discredit Russian technology by virtually all of the other five contenders in the Indian competition. I’ve put this post up now, but will be adding more to it over the next couple of days.

Source

Two hi-tech Coast Guard hovercraft to be based at Chennai

With 12 more hovercraft likely to be inducted in the Coast Guard in next three years, the agency’s eastern region is likely to purchase two such craft and base them off Chennai to improve security along the coastline.

The Coast Guard already has six hovercrafts and 12 more are under construction. Out of these, the Coast Guard’s eastern region is planning to purchase two for Chennai, two for Rameswaram and two for Puducherry.

The cost of a hovercraft is approximately Rs8 crore. According to Coast Guard officials, the presence of hovercraft in Chennai will enhance the force’s preparedness in meeting any eventuality, like the need for sudden evacuation in the shortest time.

Speaking to reporters after a demonstration on Hovercraft H-181’s performance on Tuesday, Coast Guard Commandant Venu Madhav said, ”Hovercraft are best suited for law enforcement duties at sea for their ability to move at a relatively high speed over shallow water and on land during a hot pursuit, which a speedboat cannot do.”

”Of the Coast Guard’s six hovercraft vessels, we have positioned two at western borders in Okha, two at Haldia, West Bengal, and another two at Mandapam,” Madhav said. The H-181 hovercraft was brought to Chennai from Mandapam to provide additional security cover from seashore during the Independence Day celebrations.

Hovercraft have been utilised for landing troops from ship to land, to cruise over mined waters, passenger liners/freight carriers. In the military, these can be used for fast attack, assault missions, logistics support and also for mine clearances.

The craft moves on water and land as well on a cushion of air pressure. Because of its design, hovercraft can even manoeuvre over marshy land, desert and undulated surface, and can pass over an obstacle of a significant height. The hovercraft is powered by two 12 cylinder air-cooled turbo charged engines, and produces 800 horse power of thrust.

Madhav said the use of hovercraft had helped to reduce smuggling from the western borders and rescue fishermen lost at sea.

As of now, the Coast Guard western region has four hovercrafts and the eastern region has two. “The hovercrafts will help enhance close coast patrolling. Even now we do this, but with these vehicles we can patrol faster and more efficiently,” said Coast Guard Inspector General (eastern region) A Rajasekhar.

Source

Is CAG ‘leaking’ defence secrets?

NEW DELHI: The armed forces are increasingly getting furious with successive CAG reports divulging their ‘‘ classified operational readiness reports (ORRs)’’ for all the world to see.

Getting rapped for financial and procedural irregularities or diversion of funds to buy golf carts and delays in much-needed procurements is one thing but the armed forces are aghast that the operational availability of their aircraft, helicopters, submarines and other platforms as well as radars and missiles is being put in ‘‘ the public domain’ ’ by CAG reports.

‘‘ Why make the jobs of our enemies easier? To make matters worse, the latest reports are promptly uploaded on the CAG website, which can be accessed from anywhere in the world. CAG reports must have a classified section , which only a select few of decision-makers must have access to,’’ said a senior military officer.

While the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, Vinod Rai, could not be contacted since he was abroad, another CAG official contended the reports were prepared ‘‘ in consultation’ ’ with the defence ministry and service concerned.

‘‘ Our mandate is that every audit report has to be laid in Parliament . The parliamentary public accounts committee subsequently takes it up. Once anything is tabled in Parliament, it’s in the public domain ,’’ he said. Moreover, don’t newspapers regularly report on depleting levels of fighter squadrons in IAF and submarines in Navy? Or, of the poor serviceability of MiG, Jaguar or reconnaissance aircraft fleets and the alarming gaps in radar coverage over central and peninsular India?

‘‘ Yes, they do, and often accurately . But they are still newspaper reports,’’ said an IAF officer. In contrast , the reports of CAG, a constitutional authority with access to secret flying logs, equipment and sensor availability reports and other classified stuff, come with an official stamp of authenticity.

‘‘ Even if a CAG report describes a fighter only as ‘X’ , any serious defence watcher will know which particular jet is being talked about. All this makes it easy for our adversaries to know our operational capabilities,’’ the IAF officer said.

‘‘ The CAG reports are important . But are any such official reports available in the public domain in either Pakistan or China? Warfare is all about keeping your enemies guessing about your capabilities ,’’ he added.

Take, for instance, India’s solitary 50-year-old aircraft carrier INS Viraat. A careful reading of the latest CAG report makes it clear Viraat may just be a paper tiger, left as it is with only eight upgraded Sea Harrier jump-jets to operate from its deck. Similarly, take India’s rapidly-shrinking underwater combat arm. As frequently reported by TOI, Navy is left with only 15 submarines — 10 Russian Kilo-class , four German HDW and one virtually-obsolete Foxtrot — at present. And the number may dip to just half by 2015 due to progressive retirements.

Then came a CAG report which held that the operational availability of Indian submarines was as low as 48% due to an ageing fleet and prolonged refit schedules. In effect, this means that if India went to war with Pakistan, it will only have seven submarines to deploy.

Source

Russia continues to dominate Indian military aviation

Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal P V Naik told India Strategic in an interview that the delivery of the first lot of 80 Mi 17 helicopters, ordered in 2008, would begin from later this year while the Indian Air Force (IAF) was now processing another request for an additional 59 helicopters.

IAF’s recent request for 42 SU 30 MKI aircraft has already been cleared by the Ministry of Defence, taking the total number of this air dominance combat jets order to a sizeable 272. IAF has also signed a contract with Rosoboronexport, Russia’s sole arms exporting agency, to upgrade its fleet of Soviet-vintage Mig 29 fighters and Il 76 airlifters while the Indian Navy has placed an order for 45 navalised version Mig 29K shipboard jets.

The order for the 272 SU 30 MKIs, is the biggest aircraft deal in numbers with Russia after that of the Mig 21s signed with the Soviet Union from 1968 onwards (Rs 2 crores or about $ 300,000 per aircraft at that time).

Aircraft were cheap in the Soviet days but now, an Su 30 MKI is around $ 50 million (Rs 230 crores) each inclusive of some support packages and Transfer of Technology (ToT). The total cost for 272 SU 30 MKIs works out to $ 13.6 billion. India will also spend some $ 2.5 billion on upgrading its SU 30 MKIs from 2012 onwards as part of a periodic exercise.

As for the Mig 21s, India bought more than 400 of them, and only around 140 of these aircraft, upgraded to Mig 21 Bis configuration with new avionics and BVR (Beyond the Visual Range) missiles, are to serve in the IAF inventory for another six or seven years. The upgrade has been undertaken by Russian and HAL facilities.

The Mig 29K deal touches nearly $ two billion and the upgrade of Mig 29s for the IAF nearly $ one billion. A Mi 17 V5 helicopter reportedly costs around $ five million (total nearly $ 700 million for 139 machines).

India has also purchased six Il 78 midair refuelers and three IL 76 aircraft for accommodating the Israeli Phalcon electronic radars, two of which have been delivered to India. The third Phalcon is due by end-2010. Meanwhile, IAF has ordered two more Phalcons on the same IL 76 platform.

Notably, as the Phalcon radars are heavy, the IL 76 airlifters have been upgraded with more powerful PS-90 engines, the cost though for them is quite high and not considered appropriate for upgrading the IAF’s fleet of less than 20 old Soviet-vintage Il 76 aircraft.

All these aircraft have served the Indian Air Force well; the Il 76 has a remarkable safety record, the Mi 17 has sustained the lifeline of the Indian troops in Siachin heights, and the Mig 25 gave IAF an intrusive capability that no missile or aircraft could intercept. The only point is that the Soviet vintage machines are old in age as well as in technology and need replacement with newer platforms with newer and extreme technologies to last 30 to 40 years in the coming decades.

Air Chief Marshal Naik disclosed that the IL 76s, first acquired in April 1985, are also under life extension under a contract with Russia. “The life extension of IL-76 aircraft would involve complete overhaul of airframe at the vendor’s premises in Russia… The first aircraft has already been positioned and the servicing has commenced. Various other upgrades would be executed in India. Post-servicing, the aircraft would be available to us for more than 10 years,” he said.

India is also a partner in the develoment of Multi-role Transport Aircraft (MTA) and Russia’s Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA), which it is committed to support financially and then buy as and when they are developed and operational.

On a conservative estimate accordingly, Russia has already won nearly $ 20 billion worth of orders and commitments from India for its aircraft and helicopters. (Sale of other systems for the Army and Navy, like the aircraft carrier Gorshkov for about $ 2.35 billion, ships, submarines, T 90 tanks and missiles etc, are not included in this estimate for Indo-Russian defence trade).

The erstwhile Soviet Union also dominated India’s defence supplies, and nearly 70 per cent of the equipment with the Indian Army, Navy and Air Force was acquired from it. The total cost of this entire equipment however is estimated at a little more that $ 30 billion, or roughly, around 30 per cent more that what the IAF alone has commited over the last 10-12 years since the acquisition of Su 30s.

All the figures are approximate because every deal has add-ons in the form of spares, spare engines, maintenance support and training. ToT is extra. Some figures are not readily available with us.

It may be noted that all the deals with Russia have been single-vendor, based on bilateral discussions and negotiations.

For that matter, except for the tender for the 126-plus Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (M-MRCA), for which there is a multi-vendor global Request for Proposals (RfP), the IAF has acquired all its existing aircraft and helicopters from single vendors.

For instance, the Mirage 2000 was acquired from France, the Jaguar from an Anglo-French partnership involving Breguet (now Dassault Aviation) and British Aircraft Corporation (now BAE Systems), and the Mig 21, Mig 23, Mig 25, Mig 27 and Mig 29 from the Soviet Union.

Pointedly however, the prices of Soviet equipment were much lower those days, and also, what were then called “Friendship prices” for countries like India, Egypt, Syria and Iraq.

Today, as the Gorshkov deal has demonstrated, market prices rule; Russia looks for better prices and India, for better technologies. Russia though has demonstrated its capability to sustain its edge in aircraft and helicopter sales to India.

Source

Yes and AN 32s were as pointed out by some one earlier given to us for free by the soviets. Logical step is their life extension till it can be replaced by the MTA.

Indian Su-30MKI Upgrade To Cost Rs 10,920-Crore

Defence Minister AK Antony mentioned India’s proposed Su-30MKI upgrade in Parliament today. He said, “There is proposal to upgrade the SU-30 MKI aircraft of the Indian Air Force by M/s Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) with the support of the Russian Original Equipment Manufacturer. The current estimated cost is Rs 10,920 crores and the aircraft are likely to be upgraded in a phased manner from year 2012 onwards.”

Source

Yes but for something like the Super Hornet the upgrade path is well laid out (see Boeing’s presentation). But I have already mentioned your point in my post.

I do not know how it will appeal to IAF, whether they would prefer something thats mature from day 1 or something that perhaps will have more growth potential in future.