Some of the most important criteria for the MRCA would be:

1. Technology Transfer + Offsets clause: How are the western companies going to satify? No idea, but it would be really interesting. I just hope that Indian Armed Forces have the foresight to have offset clauses in all the major subassemblies of an aircraft, rather than on value of an aircraft. This would force the manufacturer +its suppliers to have local partnership. Just on value would be too ‘smooth’ for the western companies that were stupid enough to leave the Indian market in the first place.
(though they might not be to blame – US Foreign Policy totally S**ks !! No consistency + total selfishness = widespread hatred !! The common people in US are quite nice fellas, its the govt thats the problem)

Russians on the other hand, have become some amount of influence in the Indian Armed Forces, courtesy of almost 40 years of usage of russian equipment. They also have a reasonale amount of facilities already in place + geographic proximity compared to the other participants + consistent foreign policy + consistent military trade policy (until recently). Recently the Russian Bear have awaken and is trying to maul the Indians. Indians should be careful with Russia in all deals.

Europeans seem to be a reasonable guys. But Sweden with Gripen in MRCA have a very recent huge deal with Pakistan for Medium Range AWACS. India might be hugely upset with Sweden. Sweden might be forced out of MRCA. It atleast wont be a wrong choice. AWACS are force multipliers and India saw this very seriously.

2. Open architecture avionics – The most important worry of Indian would be sudden denial of spares/ support as happened in 1998 post Pokran. Open architecture avionics systems + full and transparent sharing of all software codes, testing equipment, calibration equipment & facilities + training would be essential in this deal. India has had enough with this denial thing. Though it has been good for India, in the sense that, the denial by west of technology +components, led to a massive local R&D leading in massive infrastructure investment + local talent development + recognition by Indian Armed Forces for indigenizing/ careful planning in sourcing.

We just hope Indian Armed Forces have learned enough of a lesson & do not repeat the same blunders as in the past.

The MRCA would be very interesting casestudy for many enthusiasts. The winner might have long implications over 2-3 decades in the other competitions as well.

3. Russian tieup angle: Airframe Manufacturer + Component Manufacturers + Avionics Manufacturers have to have experience or tieup with some russian companies to integrate the russian munitions in inventory. India has a huge inventory of legacy & state-of-the-art russian missiles, bombs etc. It wouldnt make sense to India to shift all of a sudden to western munitions. The training for support staff, facilities for maintenance, repair & overhaul of weapons have to be established, loading systems have to be bought, storage systems might change, operational protocols might change with western weapons. The inital plan would be to start slow with 3-4 western munitions types.

Views are my own. Everyone is open to their own views in a civilized manner.

I would have to agree with ante_climax here. The realistic goals for IOC for LCA is most likely to be around 2015.

So by 2015, we should have atleast 25-50 MRCAs, 100 LCA Mk 1s (?), 250 SU30 MKIs, 50 Mig 27s, 50 Jaguars, 40 Mirage 2000s, 50 Mig 29s possibly 50 -75 Mig 21s.

Iam also guessing that this ‘World Economic Meltdown’ would be good for many indigenous projects in India. The best solution for this economic problem would be to inject funds into the economy. Purchasing from abroad seems a bad idea as this lets money ‘out’ of the economy. Indigenous projects like mass production of LCAs, ALH, LCH, missles, new indigenou warships, etc would help the economy to resist the global problem.

Seems like Gripen/NG is out of MRCA contest on technical grounds. Looks like more good news for LCA. The LCA currently seems to have some amount of support in the government. Hope there are more good news like:
1. ELTA 2052 as LCA AESA Radar
2. GE F414 as engine
3. Orders for atleast 200 more LCAs

🙂

Its no wonder the fit and finish looks good!! There are as few riveting & old school fastening as possible. Most of LCA’s ‘skin’ is made from composite materials.

There are multifold benefits and problems with composites!

Benefits:
1. Strength to Weight ratio is higher than steel (which inturn is higher than aluminium)
2. Lesser fastening because of larger parts made from composites.
3. Mostly corrosion resistant
4. lifecycle costs could be lesser

Problems (resolved with intelligent design and development)
1. Maintenance is an issue with composites, as damage to composites sometimes go unnoticed. Xraying & special NDTs (Non destructive testing) can produce good parts and maintain.
2. Composites are unique in that they are transparent to some wavelength of the RF spectrum. Specific selection of composites, bonding materials and paints have to be selected for creating stealthy designs.
3. Radar transparent skins create a bigger issue in that the structure of most aircraft are still special materials from Metal, which are radar opaque. The calculations required for these complex parts are even higher when the skin is transparent to RF. Hence the selection of the materials and shaping of the skin & the structural parts have to be intelligent to create an aircraft with minimal radar cross section.

Another mistake most people do is that the radar cross section of any aircraft changes with distance, angle with the radar and atmospheric conditions. The crossection of any aircraft is not a constant factor, but a highly variable one. No aircraft can be stealthy in all conditions.

LCA in its current form is a relatively stealthy aircraft because of:
1. Its relatively smaller size ( the oldschool way of stealth)
2. Bifurcated Y shaped engine inlet.
3. and a special stealth cockpit canopy ( similar to something in F16s & F18s)
4. hopefully an intelligent design of avionics for lower emissions or controlled emissions.

Its stealth is compromised by:
1. having a smaller size, hence lower internal volume for fuel & munitions and hence external carriage
2. IR stealth is poor in all new generation engines, because of higher average normal engine temperatues in newer generation engines (though it also provides a higher specific thrust)
3. a traditional flat array radar is in itself a radar reflector. Hopefully an AESA radar can sort this out while bringing better performance.

Just my few bits!! 😉

Its very clear that the IAF wants 3 types of Fighters in future

Class 1. Small – Point defense fighters with multirole capability.
Operating radius <=600 kms

LCA fits exactly in this space

Class 2. Medium multirole fighers with primary role being Air Superiority and secondary being ground attack
Operating radius <= 1200 Kms

MRCA specifications fit in this space.

Class 3. Heavy Fighters with primary role in air superiority, deep penetration strike
Operating radius <= 2000 kms

Su30MKI fits in this space.

Coming to the question of MCA/ 5th gen fighters. These are expected to merge Class 2 & 3. Class 1 would remain in future as well. Place for LCA is assured in IAF (in mk1 or mk2 versions).

In addition, the experience with these multirole fighters would suggest whether to have dedicated fighter-bombers in the fleet. The current ones are currently being upgraded and can be expected to be in commission atleast till 2020.

In case, the multirole are inadequate for bombing/ground attack/CAS, then expect new dedicated aircraft.

Coming back to the prediction of the Fighter Competitions!!

Swiss competition: Rafale, Typhoon, Gripen
Indian MRCA: Rafale, Typhoon, F-16I, F-18E, MiG-35, Gripen
Brazil FX: Rafale, Gripen, F-18
Libya (they didn’t sign anything final with Russia yet): Flanker, Rafale
Nederlands: F-35, Gripen

My take on who would be the Winners:

Swiss competition: Gripen
Indian MRCA: F18I ( Indianized version probably)
Brazil FX: Gripen
Libya (they didn’t sign anything final with Russia yet): Flanker
Nederlands: Gripen

The russians are killing the ‘goose laying golden eggs’ a.k.a India!!

India has been their top customer in defence equipment for the past many years! All of a sudden, it would seem like they dont like India!

When is Russia going to understand that they are no longer ‘one of the two’ superpower??

India on the other hand always liked Russian equipment because of their robustness and ability to be repaired/serviced by rough equipment.

These days its simply the case of the same old equation for business failure –

‘ Good Product+Good Marketing+Bad Support+Bad Business Ethics = Losing Market’