As to admitting I am wrong. All I was saying was Flanker Production will decrease over the next decade. As it is replaced by more modern 5th Generation Types. I hardly see anything in that statement as being wrong or not factual.

Considering that HAL, Irkut, Knaapo and Shenyang are all increasing their outputs for a major part of the coming decade, flanker numbers would be on the rise. In the next 10 years, the only bird that will come close to that production rate (or exceed it) is the F-35.

Mr. A Fomin’s Take-off magazine ahead of Aero India . Some interesting info there on various aircraft status as of late last year /january this year.

http://en.take-off.ru/component/content/article/92-current/431-current

Plenty of details in that one. A few that caught my eye:-
About Pak-fa radar
– radar for 50-5 almost ready
– achieved stable operation of the AESA radar in all air-to-air and air-to-surface modes from the outset.
– Indians to develop some subsystems of their own for FGFA using Pak-Fa radar as base.

About Bars radar
– Upgrade path agreed in principle but no contract yet
– Upgrade in two steps as we already know
– AESA array for Bars after the development of Pak-fa radar is done.
– A lighter version of BARS, Bars-130 for Yak-130
– Testing done for Upgraded Bars for Su-30Mki and Su-30SM (?).

About Irbis
– Unique target identification achieved at the range of 400km
– First Irbis equipped Tu-22 and Tu-160 in 2014.

About Zhuk-AE
– FGA-35 and FGA-29 are ready to be supplied in the near future.
– Indian Navy being offered FGA-29.

Anyhow, a confirmation of sorts, Indian missiles, aircrafts and munitions would be moving over to a GPS-GLONASS-GAGAN system.

http://frontlineonnet.com/stories/20130222300304000.htm

The RCI has produced OBCs and MIUs on two single chips, called SOC-computer and SOC-interface, under the leadership of Narayana Murthy. It has produced, under Satheesh Reddy’s leadership, a small GPS-GLONASS-GAGAN module, weighing just 17 grams, which can be used for satellite-aided navigation of aircraft, helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), micro-air vehicles and short-range tactical missiles. Reducing the size of the navigation systems, including miniaturising the OBCs and MIUs, has resulted in small-sized avionics package, thereby reducing the missiles’ weight and, therefore, giving them a longer range. This has given the DRDO missile technologists confidence to design and develop in five years missiles weighing only 10 tonnes but with a range of 2,000 km.

What’s the deal with ‘Nag’, have they made progress since it failed it’s field trials last year?

Underachievement at extreme end of the range is far from failure :). The existing missile (certified for reduced range) has been ordered (for ground units). Since Rudra deliveries have started, Helina deliveries should follow soon.

http://aeroindialive.nic.in/show_ondemand.asp?id_episode=2&id_part=2

Skip to 40:00 for a presentation on Indian Unmanned Aerial Systems Roadmap by Mr P Srikumar , ADE, DRDO.

– Rustom-1 technology demonstrator is being seriously considered (which means no orders yet)
– Rustom-2 will carry SAR, ISAR, MPR, ELINT and COMINT payloads.
– There is a discrepancy in what presenter said and what was seen on slide when talking about endurance. Presenter said ‘On target for 36 hours’ while the slide quoted an endurance of 24 hrs.
-Rustom-2 altitude stated as 10-11 Km, with a coverage of 10-11 Km wide area at a time.
-A satellite based c&c network is being set up for Rustom-2.
Future roadmap:-

Edit: Forgot to mention that there is work being carried out on LiDAR technologies as well.

-Didn’t say much about the Sudarshan LGB, just had one slide.

Is there a link to the air India 2013 seminars clip somewhere?

If we are lucky someone would have recorded the live stream. Unfortunately my ancient laptop would have committed seppuku, had I attempted that. The presentation was less about technology and more about flight testing and program management.

Where are the Russian Kinghts, I don’t see them yet, the mention of the team was also on a official MOD communication. Got to see……..

These are just the practice runs. The real show is from 6th to 10th feb.

Just saw the presentation on Gripen-E on Aero India live Stream
-Main emphasis on Gripen’s USP (low cost) and how the testing program is designed to cut down costs and time scale.
-First Flight of Gripen-E in May-2013. 4 test aircrafts would be made. If necessary, production aircraft can be used for testing and changes applied throughout the lot.
-Separation of critical and non critical flight software to allow fast modifications of code and speeding up test program. The system was installed on the back seat of Gripen demonstrator to compare it with legacy system for validation.
– Joint validation teams by all agencies concerned to cut down the development phase.
– The demonstrator aircraft was completed at 60% of the allocated budget.