quadbikeIndia-US begin price negotiations on Boeing C-17 airlifter
NEW DELHI: India and the United States have begun talks here on the price and onboard equipment for the 10 Boeing C- 17 military transport aircraft that the Indian Air Force (IAF) wants.
According to reliable sources quoted by India Strategic defence magazine, the validation trials of the aircraft were complete and that one United States Air Force (USAF) C-17 which had come to India in this regard last month had met the IAF specifications. The aircraft was tested in short and high altitude runways.
As India is buying the aircraft from the US government under its Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programme, the US Department of Defense (DOD) and USAF are leading the discussions from the supplier side and the Indian Ministry of Defence and the IAF are negotiating from the buyer side.
DOD has set the maximum price at $5.8 billion for the aircraft and various systems but the actual price would depend upon what equipment and onboard options the IAF finally selects.
The US government will issue a Letter of Acceptance (LOA) after these discussions are finalized, indicating the equipment, services, and lifecycle support and their costs. There would be a 3.8 per cent administrative fee that the US government now charges on all FMS deals. (This fee varies periodically between 2.5 to 5 per cent).
India Strategic quoted Boeing’s Vice President for Global Mobility Systems Tommy Dunehew, who was here recently, as saying that Boeing has offered assured maintenance and supply of spares for the lifetime of the aircraft – say 40 years – and serviceability.
The aircraft is manufactured by Boeing at its Los Angeles facility.
According to an official Boeing statement, the latest large T-tailed C-17 Globemaster-III, which India is seeking, can carry a maximum payload of 74,797 kilograms for 2,400 nautical miles without refueling and 45,495 kilograms for 4,000 nautical miles without refueling.
The aircraft can also be refueled midair to extend its range to carry equipment and humanitarian aid across international distances.
The statement said that the C-17 can operate from “a small, austere airfield in 3,000 feet or less” with full payload. “The C-17 is equipped with an externally blown flap system that allows a steep, low-speed final approach and low-landing speeds for routine short-field landings.”
Boeing has delivered 199 C-17s to the USAF. There are 19 C-17 aircraft with other international customers.
quadbikeSoon, inflight refreshments for Sukhoi pilots
BANGALORE: Indian Air Force (IAF) pilots will soon get to relish delicious snacks like halwa and sip fruit juice inside the cockpits of their combat aircraft during long distance sorties.
IAF has asked the Defence Food Research Laboratory (DFRL) to develop light food products in squeezable tubes that the pilots can consume even as they are strapped in their Sukhoi 30 MKIs, Mirage 2000s and the Jaguars.
Dr A S Bawa, director of the Mysorebased DFRL told Express that they have taken up new projects for the IAF and have been developing food products like halwa, pulav and fruit juices that can be consumed from squeezable tubes.
“We have in the past supplied a few food items to the IAF, but they had some issues as the pilots found them difficult to consume while flying at supersonic speeds. But now, during a recent interaction, they asked us to develop a few food items for their pilots,” he said.
Bawa added that DFRL is developing a few food items for the IAF which will be similar to ones consumed by astronauts on space missions.
However, there was a huge challenge before the scientists while preparing these food items for the air force.
“Though the food items are similar to the ones consumed by astronauts, here the challenge is greater. The pilots are strapped in the G-suits and hence cannot move their hands freely, hence we have to identify a place where the tubes can be kept. Besides, they travel at much higher speeds and we also have to keep the ‘G’ factor (gravitational factor) in mind,” said Bawa.
The IAF requirement for these food products for their pilots comes as the air force is hoping to transform into a strategic force with its combat aircraft like the Sukhoi 30 MKI, Mirage 2000, Jaguar involved more long distance sorties.
With all these combat aircrafts capable of air-to-air refuelling by the air force’s mid-air refueller IL- 78, the sorties have become longer and an example of this is the IAF’s participation in exercises in the US and Europe.
quadbikeSukhois set for Gwalior as IAF evolves new tactics
New Delhi: As part an upgrade and to evolve new tactics in aerial warfare, Indian Air Force’s (IAF’s) Gwalior-based Tactics and Air Combat Development Establishment (TACDE) will for the first time receive frontline fighters Sukhoi-30MKI by the end of this year.
Gwalior is essentially a base for French Mirage-2000 fighters.
TACDE is an aerial warfare training institution which devises combat tactics for its top 1% fighter pilots. The Sukhois will replace MiG-27s, which will go back to their original bases in Kalaikunda, Hashimara and Bagdogra in the east.A source said the new Sukhois being manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) will be based in Gwalior. The numbers are not certain as of now, but it could beanything close to a squadron.
An assortment of fighters in the IAF inventory are sent to TACDE to evolve tactical procedures for various aircraft, implement standard operating procedures and train pilots in operational doctrines.
TACDE was conferred presidential standards in November 2009.
At present, its training inventory includes MiG-21 Bisons and MiG-27s. While the existing Sukhois are being upgraded, the Union cabinet recently cleared an order for 42 more to be manufactured by HAL, raising the IAF Sukhoi strength to more than 250.
quadbikeI Will be glad if they are inducted before the next world cup !
MMCRA contenders’ list likely to take a month
New Delhi: Despite speculations on contenders for the $ 11 billion Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) deal, it could be atleast four more weeks before such a list is finalised.
The technical team of the Indian Air Force (IAF) is still in the process of finalising the trials reports, sources in the ministry of defence told FE.
“Technical evaluation report of the field trials, during which the six foreign contenders in the race were tested by IAF pilots both in India and abroad under different weather conditions.”
“We still have a long way to go before short listing the fighters that have done well in the trials. There was actually no set date for the trial results to be out. Its all speculations and it will take IAF several weeks for submitting the exhaustive report,” said a source.
Recent changes in India’s requirements are changing the relative rankings of the contenders. Geopolitical considerations will also have a crucial role to play, as most of these choices have the potential to improve relations with an important potential ally.
In what started as a lightweight fighter competition to replace India’s shrinking MiG-21 interceptor fleet has now divided into two categories. The multi-billion dollar fighter deal is a contest between the American F/A-18 ‘Super Hornet’ (Boeing) and F-16 ‘Falcon’ (Lockheed Martin), Swedish Gripen (Saab), French Rafale (Dassault), Russian MiG-35 (United Aircraft Corporation) and Eurofighter Typhoon (consortium of British, German, Spanish and Italian companies), India is likely to extend its competition for a year, because competitor flight trials could not be completed in May as planned and then two years after accepting price quotes the bids expired and the MoD asked manufacturers to submit offers for an additional year.
Flight trials were carried out at 3 key locations: near Leh, high in the Himalayas; a desert base in Rajasthan; and Bangalore’s tropical climate.
Lockheed Martin (F-16 Block 60+) and Boeing (F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet) have said that they have modified their bids, Sweden’s Saab (JAS-39NG) extended its bid unchanged, and Dassault (Rafale), EADS (Eurofighter), and RAC-MiG (MiG-35) have made no public commitment one way or another. While the one year delay could raise costs, it would however, give the contenders more time to deepen Indian partnerships the ability to revise that information in their offer.
quadbikeWhat matt posted but in full
Biggest military deal: Six subs for Rs 50,000 crore
NEW DELHI: If you thought the Rs 42,000 crore project to procure 126 multi-role fighters for the IAF was the “mother of all defence deals”, think again. The stage is now being set for an even bigger project—this one worth over Rs 50,000 crore for six new-generation submarines for the Indian Navy.
The Defence Acquisitions Council (DAC), chaired by defence minister A K Antony, has finally decided that three of the six submarines will be constructed at Mazagon Docks (MDL) in Mumbai and one at Hindustan Shipyard Ltd (HSL) in Visakhapatnam, with the help of a foreign collaborator.
“The other two submarines will either be imported from the foreign vendor directly or constructed at a private shipyard in India. Fresh estimates show each of these six diesel-electric submarines will cost almost Rs 8,500 crore,” a source said.
Under the programme—called Project-75 India (P-75I)—apart from stealth, land-attack capability and the ability to incorporate futuristic technologies, all the six new submarines will be equipped with air-independent propulsion (AIP) systems to boost their operational capabilities.
Conventional diesel-electric submarines have to surface every few days to get oxygen to recharge their batteries. With AIP systems, they can stay submerged for much longer periods, narrowing the gap with nuclear-powered submarines which can operate underwater for virtually unlimited periods.
The selection of the foreign collaborator for P-75I will, of course, take time because a RFP (request for proposal) will first have to be issued to submarine manufacturers like Rosoboronexport (Russian), DCNS/Armaris (French), HDW (German) and Navantia (Spain). Shortlisting and detailed technical and commercial negotiations will follow, before the actual contract can be inked.
Navy has reasons to be worried. By 2015 or so, it will be left with just half of its present fleet of 15 ageing diesel-electric submarines—10 Russian Kilo-class, four German HDW and one Foxtrot. Moreover, it has been hit hard by the almost three-year delay in the ongoing Project-75 for six French Scorpene submarines at MDL, under which the vessels were to roll out one per year from 2012 onwards, with price escalation pushing the total cost beyond Rs 20,000 crore, as was first reported by TOI.
For P-75I, the second line of submarines, the navy was keen on a private domestic shipyard to tie-up with the foreign vendor since it felt MDL was already “overloaded” with orders and quick delivery schedules were “critical”.
But the DAC has decided otherwise, holding that the infrastructure and capabilities acquired by MDL in the Scorpene project could not be allowed to go waste. “Let’s hope thing go smoothly now, and instead of 10 years, the navy gets its first submarine under P-75I in six to seven years,” an official said.
Submarines can be game-changers in any conflict. And if they are armed with nuclear-tipped missiles, they provide the most effective strategic deterrent available around the world at this point of time. The US and Russia, after strategic arms reduction pacts, in fact, plan to retain over 60% of their nuclear weapons in the shape of SLBMs (submarine-launched ballistic missiles) fitted on nuclear-powered submarines called “boomers”, or SSBNs.
Though India does not have nuclear submarines and SLBM capabilities at present to complete its “nuclear triad”, it hopes to move forward by inducting the Akula-II class attack submarine K-152 Nerpa on a 10-year lease from Russia in October this year, and then the first indigenous nuclear submarine INS Arihant by early-2012.
Pakistan, incidentally, already has its first Mesma AIP-equipped submarine, PNS Hamza, the third of the French Agosta-90B submarines it has inducted since 1999. It is now looking to induct three advanced Type-214 German submarines with AIP. China, in turn, has 62 submarines, with 10 of them being nuclear-propelled.
quadbikeCCS nod for project for nuclear, biological, chemical defence
NEW DELHI: The Cabinet Committee on Security has cleared a Rs 285 crore defence ministry project for developing systems and equipment for protection against nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) weapons and leakages.
“Under the project for NBC defence, DRDO has been tasked to develop quick and fast detection systems in case of an NBC attack on our vital installations and cities or leakage in any of the installations dealing with these materials,” defence ministry officials said in New Delhi.
“In case on any attack or leakages, such detection systems will help in finding the exact sources of contamination and the authorities concerned would be able to react in a much more effective manner,” they added.
The DRDO is also working on developing and increasing the number of systems for providing individual protection for soldiers in NBC environment.
Sources said to protect human beings from getting exposed to NBC radiation, “Unmanned Ground Vehicles and robots are also being developed to go to the contaminated zones. We are also looking at the medical management in times of such incidents.”
Inflatable structures are also being developed in which people can take shelter during any such incident, they added.
Till now, the focus was on building underground shelters while preparing for such eventualities.
The project got the CCS nod in a recently held meeting chaired by the Prime Minister and work on developing the systems has already started as different labs have already been told about the systems to be developed.
With the increasing threat of use of NBC weapons by state and non-state actors, Indian armed forces have been preparing themselves by deploying protection suites for their personnel.
quadbikeIndia to test Interceptor missile in August
CHENNAI: India will launch in early August an interceptor called Advanced Air Defence (AAD) missile to shoot down an incoming “enemy missile” as part of its efforts to build a credible ballistic missile defence shield.
After the “enemy” missile takes off from its launch pad at the Integrated Test Range, (ITR) Balasore, Orisssa, the AAD missile will pounce upon it midway, lifting off from the Wheeler Island in the Bay of Bengal, about 60 km off Balasore.
The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has built both the missiles and will launch them. Preparations are progressing apace for the launches.
V.K. Saraswat, Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister, said the AAD interceptor “is not one of the existing missiles,” hinting that it has been newly developed.
The target “is a modified missile” and the interception would take place in endo-atmosphere. But the interception would be at a high altitude in the endo-atmosphere. While the endo-atmosphere is 50 km and below, the exo-atmosphere is above 50 km. Rains had led to the test being postponed from July to August.
Of the four interceptor missile tests so far, the first three were successful. The last one in March 2010 was a failure.
Dr. Saraswat, who is also Director-General, DRDO, said the test-flights of Astra, India’s air-to-air missile on Tuesday and Wednesday were aimed at demonstrating its high manoeuvrability, and its control and guidance systems.
“The Astra is meant for destroying aerial targets. It is a gradual process of proving its control and guidance systems. Before we integrate the missile with an aircraft, we should prove all this. [However], we have flown the missile integrated with an aircraft and it was done in Pune,” he said.
The missile was integrated with a Sukhoi-30 aircraft. But the tests on Tuesday and Wednesday took place from the ground at the ITR.
The Astra is about 3.6 metre long and weighs 160 kg.
quadbikePSLV countdown progressing smoothly
CHENNAI:The nearly 51-hour countdown for the launch of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C15) from the spaceport at Sriharikota began at 6.52 a.m. on Saturday, and is progressing smoothly, officials of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) have said.
The four-stage rocket has been fully assembled and the satellites have been mated with it. The launch has been scheduled for 9.22 a.m. on Monday.
The vehicle will put in orbit five satellites: the 694-kg Cartosat-2B of the ISRO; the 116-kg Alsat-2A of Algeria; two nano satellites (the 6.5-kg NLS-6.1 built by the Space Flight Laboratory of University of Toronto, Canada, and the one-kg NLS-6.2 built by the University of Applied Sciences of Switzerland); and a very small pico satellite named Studsat, integrated by students of seven engineering colleges in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
Cartosat-2B is a remote-sensing satellite whose images will be helpful in planning large-scale maps of settlements in villages and towns for development activities, in aligning new canals, laying ring roads, planning new roads in rural areas, mounting a watch on mining activities and keeping a tab on corals in the sea, mangroves or deforestation. Its images will also help in planning and developing rural and urban infrastructure and monitoring development works at the village and cadastral level. Furthermore, the images can be used for surveillance. The satellite carries a camera that can image a swath (a strip of land) of 9.6 km, with a resolution of 0.8 metres. The ISRO Satellite Centre, Bangalore, has built it.
While Alsat-2A of Nigeria is also a remote-sensing satellite, the two nano satellites have been built for testing various satellite technologies. The Studsat provided the students with a hands-on experience in building a satellite.
It is a core-alone version of the PSLV that will put these satellites in orbit one after another. While a standard PSLV version has six strap-on booster motors strung around the first stage, the core-alone version does not have these motors. The core-alone PSLV weighs 230 tonnes at liftoff and is 44 metres long.
quadbikeThe Story Of India’s MiG-27 Upgrade
An unreliable nav system that pilots refused to rely on. Zero precision attack capability. Very limited night attack capability. Execrable airborne LRU reliability levels. Degradation of auto weapon delivery. That was the Indian Air Force fleet of MiG-27s towards the end of the 1990s — one of the world’s best strike aircraft in the 1970s, but utterly obsolete two decades later. A proposal was put up to organise a comprehensive upgrade of the fleet to transform the aircraft into a potent, accurate, all weather, day or night interdictor. Fortunately, foreseeing the government stalling the proposal, the IAF began discussing the possibility of a fully Indian upgrade programme involving HAL and the Defence Avionics Research Establishment (DARE). As you can imagine, the Russians weren’t pleased, but they’d already given the Indian government reason to keep them out of main part of the programme.
Finally, on 14 March 2002, a momentous tripartite agreement was signed between the Indian Air Force, HAL and DARE. The prime agency for the upgrade was DARE, with HAL as the joint agency. Regional Centres for Military Airworthiness (RCMAs) and CEMILAC were also involved.
The team knew it needed to work fast — this was a litmus test of what a fully Indian upgrade programme could achieve in a short time. For starters, to reduce development time, the team resorted to concurrent engineering and began using proven hardware and software modules common to the Su-30MKI and Jaguar NAVWASS programme. To save flight test and evaluation time, two prototype upgraded aircraft were made. The development methodology was rigorous but efficient, with multiple agencies breaking a lot of institutional barriers to work together like they never had before.
The MiG-27 needed plenty of work. Equipment that went into the upgrade included a HUD and a full colour high definition display (HDD). The core of the upgrade involved two new pieces of computer equipment in the Flogger’s nose bay. A new laser ranger replaced the old KLEN system. The main nav sensor, the INGPS along with VOR/ILS were also located in the nose bay. The new electronic warfare suite included a new radar warning receiver, an ELTA podded jammer and counter-measures dispenser system (CMDS). The upgraded aircraft was also made capable of carrying a laser designation pod and a photo recee pod.
Cutting down time taken to plan a mission was a high priority under the upgrade terms. The IAF’s Software Development Institute (SDI) was roped in to develop a brand new mission planning system (MPS), which brought down mission planning time from 2-3 hours to about 30 minutes. A data-transfer unit was also conceived, to transfer RWR pre-flight messages (PFM) and MPS data straight to the aircraft — a common function on modern fighters, but a breath of truly fresh air for the lumbering MiG-27. The system does, however, have a shortcoming – PFMs for the ELTA self-protection jammer and INCOM R/T crystallisation cannot be loaded through the DTU and still have to be fed directly into the aircraft.
The upgraded cockpit was a true legacy leap. Livefist reported earlier on the dramatic comparison of the MiG-27 cockpit, before and after upgrade. The upgraded cockpit is, as DARE puts it, “neater, de-cluttered and much more functionally ergonomic as compared to the non-upgrade cockpit”. No argument with that. The RWR and CMDS were placed in the pilot’s primary field of vision. An indigenous MFD displayed maps, horizontal situation and laser pod video. With time required to feed in date pre-mission reduced by a factor of four, and less time for alignment, the time for launch was brought down dramatically.
What, in effect, the MiG-27 upgrade has made possible is substantially reduced the pilot’s workload. He no longer has to pay as much attention to navigation as he used to, situational awareness is no longer a daunting challenge even while flying at low levels and routine tasks have been shifted off the pilot’s plate, allowing him to focus less on flying and more on tactics and the mission at hand. Target acquisition is also remarkably more efficient and intuitive now. Targets can now be acquired even in the dark night laser designator pod video, and since this involves head-down work, HUD symbology is overlaid over the video. Little things like this have transformed the MiG-27 mission experience. Pilots can now also leave the flying to the auto-pilot, now fully integrated in the auto-nav and auto-attack modes. The centre of the display has been designed to be un-cluttered to allow pilots to easily locate and identify the target. The sensor is slewable too. Overall, a substantially nav-attack system. For example, in a CCIP dive, a manoeuver that required every last shred of the pilot’s attention, now has very accurate sights catering for the aircraft’s chanding parameters and allowing the pilot to monitor terminal air defence activity, managing the ECM suite and managing overall situational awareness.
The upgrade has given the MiG-27 new modes of attack, including CCRP, CCIP memory and Target of Opportunity — these have given pilots the flexibility to attack planned and unplanned targets with equal efficacy. On the upgraded MiG-27, virtually attack parameters can be adjusted with a flick of a control switch now, and will no longer involve untimely sweats in the cockpit.
Weapon accuracy was a real concern. During upgrade trials, an upgraded MiG-27 conducted an HALR laser-pod assisted drop of a 500-kg dumb bomb from 7.5-km. Its missed distance was 15-metres. This was a dumb bomb, not a PGM.
The MiG-27s electronic warfare suite underwent many substantial changes. For starters, the front antennae of the Tarang 1B radar warning receiver (RWR) were moved from the wing leading edges to the nose, removing the earlier problem of masking which has apparently plagued the Tarang experience in virtually every other aircraft it has been used on. Incidentally, the upgraded MiG-27 is now the only aircraft in the Indian inventory that provides true 360-degrees, mask-free RWR cover. The self-protection jammer and and countermeasures dispensing system (CMDS) can now be autocued by the RWR, and the new integrated display provides, for the first time on the MiG-27, a perfectly clear picture of the electronic orbat around the aircraft.
The MiG-27 continues, however, to be a highly controversial aircraft in Indian service, recently seeing a long spell of grounding. Former IAF flight safety chief Air Marshal PS Ahluwalia has long argued that the MiG-27 engine has fundamental flaws that make it a dangerous machine to fly, and should be phased out forthwith.
quadbikePersonal choices. BBW websites have record hits !
I for one like the Raptors look more than the PAK FAs.
quadbikeIt was not just pilot error it also had design problems.
quadbikeThe question is why the hell do you want to try something so unconventional when you are basically taking baby-steps in aeronautics?
quadbikequadbike, jaguar IM’s are operated by IAF as were the maritime tasked Mig-27 squadron(since retired). right now the IAF is contemplating basing su-30MKI’s in FORTAN although navy might contest that move as overall lead service of FORTAN.
My bad I got carried away. Then again nothing wrong in having IN operate from shores, other Navy’s do it. Its more efficient.
quadbikeHow pathetic can’t even make a normal turboprop plane without Russian help.
quadbikeGreat Article on MIG 35/29K orig posted on BR by andy B
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