Upgraded Jaguar DARIN-3 makes its first flight

Darin III’s been flying since 2012. It may be the first of serial upgrades.

Ah well, the Antonov news was BS.

Press Information Bureau
Government of India
Ministry of Defence
30-March-2015 19:03 IST
Clarification on Wrong Reporting by a Certain Section of Media

1. Reports in a section of media on Indian War Planes go missing during upgrade is baseless and has been confirmed by Indian Air Force (IAF).

2. The last five AN-32s which were sent for upgrade to Ukraine are available in a factory in Ukraine.

3. There have been delays in upgrade due to non availability of components as a result of the ongoing Geo-Political stand off between Ukraine and Russia.

RCD/MKS

http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=117836

The A330 DRDO AWACS just got funding clearance for the first 2 of 6 examples.

As regards the ongoing Rafale-India saga and perhaps a move that can be seen as tellingly predictive, last week Airbus off loaded 1.61m Dassault shares bringing its holding from 42% down to around 24.6%.

Clearly, industry insiders & hedge funds aren’t so optimistic about MMRCA success.

If it doesn’t happen within a month or so, I’d say it’s doomed. Big ticket purchases are being cleared left right and center, the economy is doing rather well, the government is making all the right moves when it comes to Defence industry and the Defence minister Manohar Parrikar, despite his “I probably slept in the same clothes last night” looks is one of the most astute minds. With the increased Tejas production rate ordered by the government and noises of extra Su-30Mki orders, I’d give Rafale deal a solid 30% chances of ever happening. Moar FGFAs plox.

Apparently A330 was the sole bid for AWACS-India project and it went through. 6 A330 shall be purchased with first two for prototype testing. The price tag is Rs. 51 billion (750 million Euros). Ironically, the tanker deal for A330 hasn’t been signed yet. The other platforms being considered were Boeing 767 and Il-76.
https://twitter.com/livefist/status/581764467903447040
https://twitter.com/livefist/status/581763867295940608

The concept was displayed last month at Aero India:

Preliminary details about the radar:-

http://drdo.gov.in/drdo/tenders/viewTender.jsp?paramMicro=4591

CABS has been entrusted with Design and Development of Airborne Surveillance Systems. The envisaged system will have uniform surveillance performance over full 360 degree coverage. The front end of the Radar and the Identification Friend or foe (IFF) systems shall be housed in an ellipsoidal radome on top of the fuselage installed using pylons. In addition suitable mechanical structures to transfer the air loads will be designed and housed in the radome. The radome also houses parts of the liquid cooling system(piping structure) and ladder system for maintenance.

Diameter of the radome (of the order of) 10.0 m
Height of the radome(of the order of) 2.0 m
Radome shape Ellipsoidal
Weight of the radome Shells (about) 1500Kg
Electromagnetically transparent in S and L band
Withstand aerodynamic loads on the radome as per flight envelope of wide body aircraft.
The radome shall have lighting detectors/dischargers and should have surface which will not permit ice accumulations.

The radome shall have 4 shells (3 in case of design change) and shall be easy to install /de-install as seen in figure 2.

The envisaged will have 4 faces arranged in a rectangular /square configuration (see Fig 3). The shells shall have suitable attachments to the antenna panels/supporting structures.

Later tender details indicate that the radar will have L, S and X band GaN modules.
http://drdo.gov.in/drdo/drdojsp/downloadtndr.jsp?tenderName=5001&McrId=CABS*Centre%20For%20Air%20Borne%20System&p=EOI_6_20_Sep_13.pdf
MIMO capability is also speculated with the AWACS-I.

Ah, but why is it being reported now, when the situation has been improving (and by all accounts will continue to do so)? Could it be because…

Livefist

Hit jobs hit jobs everywhere. French lobbyists planting story against Russians, Russians against French, Americans planting stories of “strategic support”, Swedes maintaining a marketing team fro Gripen years after they were rejected and all the agents of arms importers taking a collective dump on domestic products.

I’ll always be curious how Kaveri MiG-29 trials went.

Not yet happened. They have done 3000 hours of testing and certification, 4000 hours is needed according to the developers for flight trials on twin engine plane and 5000 hours on a single engine plane.

A non afterburning Kaveri for Ghatak/AURA/ISUAV was displayed at Aero India.

LCH Cold Weather Trials in LEH