Naval Tejas doing its ground engine runs. 🙂 first flight expected soon 🙂

Picture courtesy Chacko Joseph from Frontier India. Read the full article here

LCA Naval Prototype completes first Engine ground Run

PS : Just look at those legs 🙂

Why bother with 40 Typhoons (or F-18s) since there is no problem starting delivery of the F-35 in 2016? They can do the same thing they did with Norway and include the first couple of Block upgrades as part of the deal. btw, The first few F-35s will be stateside trainers anyways.

Are you sure that any export customer will start getting deliveries in 2016 ? Would any other export customer like to push their delivery schedule a little back to accommodate that of Japan since “no one is going to cut their orders” ?

FINMECCANICA: JAPAN WILLING TO DISCUSS EUROFIGHTER OPTION; DECISION ON 42 JETFIGHTERS AFTER BUYING AMERICAN FOR YEARS

The Minister explained in an interview with the Financial Times that Japan’s alliance with the United States is not the “guideline” in the choice between the Eurofighter Typhoon and its American rivals, the Boeing FA-18 Super Hornet and the Lockheed F35 Joint Strike Fighter. Tokyo has postponed the decision for several years but seems now ready to choose. Its military alliance with Washington may no longer be crucial, particularly after the USA decided not to allow Japan to buy the F22 Lockheed, Japan’s preferred option. The Japanese Minister has underlined that the choice will be based on technical criteria, in the interest of the nation. ”If they don’t sell us the F22 and the F35 is not ready,” it may take several years to complete, ”there are other aircrafts available that are good enough,” said Ichikawa.

Not a fan of the 35 eh ?

would Russia be interested in this for their MiG-29 replacements?

since it hasn’t gotten very far yet, Russia can probably get a good chunk of the workshare over it.. make it a joint venture.

No. The pimary customer itself has not frozen its requirements until now. The requirements might not even suit the VVS

Apparently the comercial bids for the MMRCA are to be opened in mid october…not sure if that is later than planed or not.

Some sources said late september early october.. so not very late. I suppose the real deals will surface now, the offsets, the ToT’s and pricing shall be more clear. What would be interesting to see is that which sub contractors and local vendors does HAL push forward , especially those related to fabrication of AESA T/R modules, Helmet mounted displays, MFD’s in case EF is selected. Also interesting would be to see the customisation of the down select with Indian/ license produced 3rd party components developed for Tejas program, like they found their way into the Mki license production.

The Flat nozzled FGFA will anyway have TVC like the F 22, which is rather good close in.

Whats the fixation with flat nozzles ? that is just one aspect of signature management. If IR and radar signatures can be managed reasonably without them, then so be it.

finally some news on the Tejas..LGB trials with Litening LDP, and R-73 tests with the MMR. Interesting to read about addition of EW features on Tejas PV1..something Ajai Shukla first mentioned. A Growler like dedicated variant or simply adding the internal EW suite to the Tejas?

link to article in The Hindu

Most likely testing of internal EW suite. I doubt there is enough power on board to power a growler like suite. Btw wasn’t the dedicated range for EW was at Gwalior ?

Edit : Which LGB’s are being used, Paveway (3 ? or 4 ? ) or is Sudarshan ready ? Is the EW suite on Tejas similar to AESA based assembly that has been put on MiG-29 UPG ?