BlackArcher
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The next SSBN, S-3 or INS Aridhaman, is also now ready for “launch” into water, while the third called S-4 is at an advanced fabrication stage in the building blocks. Simultaneously, the proposed project to build six SSNs (nuclear-powered attack submarines without ballistic missiles) at Vizag is also being finalized, as earlier reported by TOI.The Navy currently operates one SSN in the shape of INS Chakra, obtained on a 10-year lease for Russia for around $1 billion, while negotiations are underway to acquire another such boat.
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BlackArcherTR1, the figure of 400 helicopters per year was ridiculous enough to be not believable, but my question was more related to whether an agreement had been reached already or not. As Vnomad mentioned, its just an offer and there may be other non-Russian manufacturers who may still be looking to tie up with Indian industry for their offering.
BlackArcherBoth LUH and Ka-226 would be built and the deal to build Mi-17/Ka is not limited to Indian armed forces but also for civilian and export customers ( atleast the video if Modi/Putin press conf says so )
Austin, what I’m getting at is whether its clear that there is no LUH competition anymore? the IAF will be jubilant at the prospects of a new competion being scrapped and the Ka-226T being chosen directly..it was after all one of the finalists in the previous tender.
HAL’s LUH will likely make its first flight before AeroIndia 2015, so if this Ka-226T deal goes through, then HAL will build the indigenous LUH while a private manufacturer will build Ka-226Ts for both the Indian market and exports?
I wonder if in the future they would even make the Mi-38 in India as HAL is working on Medium lift chopper in 12T category though Mi38 would put in 16T category
I guess we’ll have to wait till AI-’15 to find out what the status of the IMRH project is.
BlackArcherRogozin: India will produce at Mi-17 and Ka-226T
Does this mean that the Ka-226T has been chosen as the LUH without a new competition?
BlackArcherFrom the linked article:
Given the difficulty that has recently arisen with Pilatus, might be a good idea to give them a slap in the face to show that non-cooperation by suppliers can lead to follow on orders being cancelled. Disregarding that, there appear to be several potential advantages in going down the indigenous route. However… (a) REALISTICALLY, how likely are HAL to come up with an aircraft that works? (b) How urgently are additional trainers required? (c) REALISTICALLY, when would the HTT-40 be delivered? It is quite important to be REALISTIC in one’s assessments when making a choice between alternatives.
well, this was the lowest hanging fruit of all the platforms that HAL could have come up with. And its not like HAL hasn’t had successes. the Kiran was an excellent airplane, with a very low attrition rate in service. My gut feel is that HAL will be able to develop the HTT-40 on its own, but the call on whether to take the risk or not will lie with the MoD.
HAL feels, and rightly so, that they’ve been wronged here by the IAF. HAL proposed multiple basic trainer designs to the IAF to replace the HPT-32, which kept insisting that HAL fix the fuel flow issues with the HPT-32 instead. An impasse resulted, and then suddenly after years of inaction, the IAF grounded all HPT-32s and stated that an immediate replacement was required. and even after HAL began work on the HTT-40, the IAF was not at all keen on it, with the HPT-32’s issues having soured their experience.
As things stand, HAL is trying to put a spanner into the PC-7 MkII follow-on purchase and will bring up arguments to support its stand, whereas the IAF top brass routinely extolls the PC-7 MkII purchase as being on time and having radically changed the training syllabi for the cadets. Which is true- the availability and utilization rates of the PC-7 MkII show a very smooth induction into service. Adding a new type into service, that too say 5 years down the line after all testing is complete and no hiccups are seen during development would complicate the IAF’s logistics and training for sure. So I can sympathise with the IAF’s viewpoint.
But the clause that prevents India from weaponising the PC-7 MkII is worrying. If a licence produced PC-7 MkII were to be made in India, I’m not sure that India could export it to friendly nations and looking at the sales of the Super Tucano, AT-6, a weaponised basic trainer is clearly a product that has demand. Ideally, India should have negotiated with Pilatus to allow for re-export of Indian-made PC-7 MkIIs and for development of a weaponised trainer, but the deal was signed in a hurry and no such thing was negotiated.
Looking at a CAD image of the HTT-40 I wasn’t able to figure out why a twin nose wheel is shown for the design..is there any reason why a trainer would need twin nose wheels?
BlackArcherBeen away for a bit.
Regarding the second crew member (which does not have to be a pilot–in Navy F-4s and in the A-6 and F-14 the 2nd crew member didn’t even have flight controls), that station is not there just for workload, but rather for “missionized” duties. While the pilot is flying, navigating and fighting the aircraft, the 2nd works the sensors, programs the weapons, applies higher level ECM and helps the pilot avoid fixation. Int the Block II and beyond F/A-18F with its totally decoupled aft crew station, the pilot works air-to-air while the aft crew carries out a totally independent A2G operation, limited only by the aircraft’s physical position. Or in another situation, on ingress the front seater can search for unplanned targets while the rear seater uses the ATFLIR for reconaissance, grabs a still frame judged worthy of passing on (based on what’s occurring at the time and mission objectives) to a FAC who annotates friendlies’ postions and datalinks it back whereupon the judgement is made on which weapons to use, they’re programmed and targeting instructions and the situation picture are fed to the front seater. It’s not just reducing workload in accomplishing tasks, it’s actually simultaneously doing very different things.
There are also advantages in pure air combat for having a second crewman. There’s of couse the obvious benefit of having a second set of eyes, especially when engaging an enemy to watch out for someone else sneaking up on you, but there’s more. Multiple tests, exercises, simulations and actual combat over the years have shown that there’s a right brain/left brain thing going on. Flying the plane, maneuvering and tactics and visual operations are very much right brain kind of activities. Working the non-visual sensors, ECM, working the charts (paper or electronic), programming weapons is a left brain kind of activity. One of the big contributors to workload is not just how many switches have to thrown, but also jumping back and forth between the two types of activities. A 2nd crewperson (again, not just a 2nd pilot) can be golden in those cases.
Of course, a 2nd crewman costs more, and developing the missionized, decoupled cockpit to optimize that station costs money. Sweden itself decided they couldn’t do it with the money they were willing to spend. OTOH, Brazil apparently thinks it’s worth their funding it’s development.
One other note: There’s talk that the Sea Gripen, if it comes about, will be based on the F model, with the space occupied by the 2nd station instead being used for more fuel.
Informative post on the benefits of a second seat on a fighter.
So the Sea Gripen will be akin to the MiG-29K/KUB where even the single seater shares front fuselage commonality with the KUB, with rear seat being replaced by a fuel tank and some avionics?
BlackArcherToday may see a decision on whether the IAF will get an additional 106 PC-7 MkII trainers or whether it will need to procure the HTT-40 from HAL instead.
BlackArcherWhat is HAL’s track record with licenced production? How many different aircraft have they assembled? How many problems that have cost money have been encountered (either of their own making or otherwise?) Weren’t they involved in assembling an aircraft called Hawk where they required outside authority to order parts which was not forthcoming in a timely manner and screwed up production? Could that outside authority screw things up for Rafale assembly, too? etc etc
HAL alone was not responsible for the delay in Hawk deliveries.
While it is true that BAe alleged that the spares contract wasn’t signed by the MoD with BAe for the directly-supplied Hawks, which meant that spares were being withdrawn from kits meant for new build HAL Hawks, this wasn’t the only issue that delayed production or caused troubles during induction.
In the Hawk licence manufacturing deal, you probably should have looked at HAL and IAF’s side of the story as well before laying the blame on HAL alone for “screwing up the production”
HAL blames BAe Systems for Hawk delays
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HAL Chairman Ashok Nayak has listed out for Business Standard a string of lapses by BAE Systems, which, he alleges, is behind this delay. “This is the first time that BAE Systems has transferred technology for building the Hawk-132 AJT abroad. Some of the jigs (frames on which aircraft parts are assembled) and tooling that they supplied HAL relate to earlier models of the Hawk, which has gone through several versions over the years.”BAE Systems last transferred the Hawk technology abroad more than a decade ago, when Australia built 21 Hawk-127 trainers — an earlier version of the Hawk — in the late 1990s.
Nayak also says that when HAL pointed out the discrepancy to the BAE Systems team stationed at the Hawk assembly line, “they had to refer back to the UK for everything. They weren’t able to address these issues themselves.”While most issues have now been resolved, there are still some continuing delays. Hawk windscreens, manufactured by Indian vendors must be sent to BAE Systems for certifying their strength and clarity. This procedure, says HAL, is taking unduly long.
Guy Douglas, BAE Systems’ spokesperson in India, strongly refutes HAL’s version. In an emailed response, he states “BAE Systems does not accept that the programme delays being experienced by HAL, on their contract with the government of India, are materially down to BAE Systems. BAE Systems has completed all hardware deliveries to support the licence-build programme. BAE Systems has repeatedly made clear that it stands ready to assist HAL, should they require it. In this respect, a number of proposals have been made by BAE Systems to HAL and we await their response.”
Nayak denies that HAL has had any difficulties in assimilating the technology needed for manufacturing the Hawk in India.
The HAL chairman states, “We have assembled the Jaguar and other aircraft. That is not the problem. Why were the jigs and fixtures that (BAE Systems) supplied incorrect? We have their Technical Assistance Team’s signatures on each and every one of them. I can quote you minimum 300 such examples, and some of them took weeks to sort out.”Nor is the MoD impressed with BAE Systems’ execution of the Hawk contract, signalling its disapproval earlier this year by floating a fresh global inquiry for India’s requirement of 57 additional trainers. That was an unambiguous rap on the knuckles for BAE Systems; with an assembly line already producing AJTs in Bangalore, the additional requirement would normally have been added on to the ongoing licensed production.
Now, however, BAE Systems is back in talks with South Block over the order for 57 more Hawks.
So there we have it- BAe was being blamed for supplying incorrect jigs, not to mention the rusted undercarriage and pitot tubes of new build Hawks from BAe !!
NEW DELHI, APRIL 30: India’s newly acquired fleet of Hawk fighter trainers has been grounded for a second time after one of them crashed at the Bidar airbase on Tuesday afternoon while taking off on a training mission. Both pilots escaped unharmed.
While the entire fleet has been facing problems since the induction in February due to lack of spares, the grounding comes weeks after the IAF discovered that the new aircraft contained parts that were rusted and appeared to be old and used.This came as a surprise as the trainers — 66 were bought in a Rs 8,000-crore deal inked in 2004 — are new and were inducted barely three months ago. In fact, only 10 aircraft have arrived until now from the assembly line in UK.
After Air Hqs informed the Ministry of Defence about the matter, the Defence Secretary has been asked to head for London on May 19 to raise the issue with top UK government officials.
As first reported by The Indian Express on March 23, the fleet had earlier been grounded, shortly after the aircraft arrived in January, due to lack of spares and technical problems. (this was the part that related to the non-signature of the spares contract with BAe)Sources at Air Hqs said that the British High Commissioner has also been contacted and an official communication has been sent to the original manufacturers, the UK-based BAE Systems.
It is learnt that the problem with the Hawks pertains to certain parts like the undercarriage and the pitot-static tube —it gives the pilots feedback on airspeed and altitude — that IAF technical teams discovered were rusted.
…While a court of inquiry has been ordered into the crash and human error is not ruled out, IAF sources say that initial investigation points to a fault either in the undercarriage or the yaw controllers that are used to stabilise the aircraft. The IAF says that both pilots were experienced instructors with several hundred hours of combat flying in their logbooks.
Officials from BAE Systems, who concede that there are “small issues” regarding the Hawk, say that it would not be correct to link the accident to the matter.
“A number of small issues have arisen with the Hawks that have been delivered and are in service with the Indian Air Force. We take resolution of these issues very seriously and are working closely with the IAF to resolve these, to both their and our satisfaction,” said a BAE spokesperson.
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And as per the MoD report, here are other issues that delayed production
Delivery of 42 (Hawk-AJT) aircraft was scheduled from 2007-2008 to 2010 – 2011 in a phased manner. Three aircraft were to be built from semi-knocked down (SKD) kits, three from completely knocked down (CKD) kits and 36 from raw material phase. The CKD and SKD kits were assembled on schedule. When production in raw material phase was taken up, it was found that the equipment supplied by the OEM had various shortcomings. The assembly jigs that were supplied did not meet the requirements, there was mismatch in the kits/components supplied, there were defects in major assemblies like the wing spar etc. These problems took time to overcome and hence affected the production schedule at HAL.
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This information was given by Minister of State for Defence Shri MM Pallam Raju in written reply to Smt Mohsina Kidwai in Rajya Sabha today
Of course, BAe never was penalised for these issues and indeed these issues were negotiated and eventually the IAF and IN ended up ordering 57 more Hawks, with another 20 soon to be signed up for, making India one of the largest customers of the Hawk. Since then, Hawk production has stabilised fully and the IAF is quite happy with the airplane itself.
OTOH, Algeria ended up returning MiG-29SMTs to Russia when their build quality didn’t meet their expectations- that is the other extreme.
BAe didn’t screw up its working relationship wtih the MoD and HAL to an extent that they lost out on follow-on business, which surpassed the original contract for 66 Hawks.
BlackArcher@Blackarcher
you speak about Reliance, but it’s not about what was built before the deal. The problem is that once the deal has been agreed (meaning tjat it would be the Rafale), HAL was supposed to build a certain number of infrastructures which it failed to do. Relliance would have had to do it as well, were they involved, but as they are not (courtesy of GOI), why would they now build stuff they won’t need?
no this is patently false.
First of all, HAL has multiple facilities that already manufacture fighter jets, trainers, helicopters, etc. This isn’t the first licence assembly HAL has been tasked with, so Dassault isn’t dealing with newbies. And they had already acquired land for a new greenfield facility on 40 acres of land in Challaghatta near Bangalore for the MRCA contract.
Dassault was supposed to do a gap-analysis to see what capabilities or facilities HAL lacks, that it needs to have in place for the MRCA assembly- but remember the MRCA assembly doesn’t begin the day after the contract is signed. It will take years before the first Indian assembled Rafale rolls out of an assembly line.
As for Reliance, please, if you don’t know what they do or what their competencies are in, don’t bring them into the discussion. Anyone who knows how Reliance works, will tell you that they are not an engineering company. Certainly not an engineering products company. They know very well how to grease the machinery of the Indian bureaucracy, but they are no L&T, Tata or Mahindra and Mahindra.
The very fact that Dassault so disingenously wanted Reliance to be their Indian partner made it clear that their only priority was to seize as much workshare as possible for themselves. Because a newbie with zero experience in aerospace wouldn’t be able to all of a sudden start manufacturing Rafales, even with SKD and CKD kits supplied by Dassault.
Second point, GOI want Dassault to be fully liable for the whole thing, yet they do not allow Dassault to control whether HAL does its part as required. Ther’s no company on this planet to have a boss stupid enough to sign such a deal… it would be the best way to bankrupcy. You want somebidy to be luable to get the job done properly? You HAVE to let him do it his way or, at least, let him have control over what is done and the way it’s done.
this is purely conjecture. You have no inside track on the negotiations to know exactly what the liability clause that the GoI wants, specifies. Obviously the GoI will want Dassault to be responsible for ensuring that its part of the ToT and local assembly, offsets, etc. are done on time, with penalties if it is not done on schedule. How does the GoI ensure that Dassault doesn’t derail the ToT by claiming that HAL is incompetent, just so more work gets done in France instead of India?
Mind you, this has happened in the past on multiple projects with Russia, where the envisioned ToT never happened. For instance, the T-90 deal.
Third point: Dassault wants to export the Rafale to make money, bit theydon’t depend on it for that. Their major revenue generator are bizjets. To give you an idea, in the last two years they sold 0 rafales, no exports and no new orders from France, uet, their market share went fromm 600€ a share to over 1000€… that’s 66% increase with absolutely no Rafales sold. They could care less whether India signs tomorrow, or in 5 or 10 years… it’s peanuts in their business.
What’s more, Dassault is a strategic company in France. Consider for a second that in he 1990´s the French navy had in service the crusaders that were litterally falling apart. They could have bought f-18s for cheap to replace rhem, yet they stuck to the Crusaders until there were almost none left, and then accepted several years without any naval fighters just to buy the Dassault aircraft. You can look at it any way you like, Dassault will be kept in fighter business by the french state for years to come, exports or not. During that time, India looses old aircrafts a little more each year…
now, why would Dassault be in a hurry to sign?
exactly- which shows up in their seeming inflexibility while negotiating.
and $20-25 billion orders for Dassault are peanuts, really. There are far brighter prospects on the horizon, so no wonder Dassault is no hurry to sign this deal. A very trivial deal indeed.
With an attitude like that, the French govt. will surely have to support the Rafale as its sole customer for another 35 years. Which it will do, happily.
As for India- I don’t believe that there aren’t any other options but the Rafale. If the MRCA contract negotiations cannot be resolved satisfactorily for both sides, then the entire deal ought to be scrapped and an off-the-shelf purchase of 2-3 squadrons of other fighters must be examined. The repercussions of such an epic failure of negotiations would impact Indo-French relations, but that too is not a big deal, I’m sure.
BlackArcherGood article by Saurabh Jha on the Indian Navy’s P-75I submarine program, for which the acceptance of necessity has been accorded recently by the Defence Minister.
BTW, this is the second time I’ve read reports that there are plans for an eventual fleet of 6 SSNs, most likely derived from the Arihant class design.
In late October 2014, the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) cleared the long pending Project 75I, a proposal by the Indian Navy (IN) to acquire six diesel-electric submarines (SSK) presumably different in design from the present generation of Scorpenes currently under construction at Mazagon Dockyard Limited (MDL), Mumbai. The proposal is tentatively valued at Rs 50000-80000 crores and involves the manufacture of all six units domestically with foreign technology input. The decision comes nearly four years after the IN first released a request for information (RFI) for this line of submarines and is harmonized with the Modi government’s ‘Make in India’ program in that all six units are to be built in India. This actually represents a departure from the IN’s earlier plan which sought to import the first two units from a foreign yard and have four more units of the same design built at Indian yards under collaboration.
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In any case, it seems that all major shipyards in India have been sounded out to see whether they are keen to participate in this program. Three shipyards of the seven who are being evaluated i.e Goa Shipyard Limited, Cochin Shipyard Limited and Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Limited are unlikely candidates given that they have never worked on submarines and specialize in surface combatants of different types for which they will keep getting steady orders. A fourth yard that has never built a submarine before or serviced one is Pipavav Defence and Offshore Engineering. Now Pipavav is an interesting candidate in some ways because it has sewed up some agreements with overseas majors to specifically to enter the submarine market and also has the capacity to build many boats simultaneously. However it remains to be seen whether the IN will see it as a strong candidate for the submarine program.
Of the remaining three, MDL is known to have made a case before the government for continuing their submarine building line, so that the capabilities it has built up as a result of Project 75 ( i.e the Scorpene project) ‘do not go waste’. Since all six Scorpene hulls have been fabricated, the hull fabrication unit at MDL is currently lying unused even as it is being oiled in anticipation of new orders.
However the idea behind Project 75I was always to get a second submarine building facility in India for strategic reasons. If that still be the case, it is unlikely that MDL will be selected for the Project 75I line. Of course there is a chance that it will get an order to build 3 more Scorpenes sometime in the near future. In fact that may be what MDL needs to be i peace with a Project 75I decision that does not involve it. Although this is mere conjecture.
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Project 75I submarines must have torpedo tubes that can launch heavy long range wire guided torpedoes and anti-ship missiles. They must have an externally launched torpedo decoy system. A state of the art integrated combat system featured on a platform with contemporary low noise propulsion and power generation including auxiliary motors with take home capability. An AC system customised for operation in tropical waters characterized by high temperature and humidity conditions is also expected. The submarines will obviously sport a modern integrated platform management system, an automatic power management system and a submarine command system.
While indigenous sources can provide most sub-systems, packing all this together in a hull form that achieves contemporary quietening standards will require foreign collaboration for the selected yards. As such there are four key foreign collaborators possibly in the fray.
DCNS is offering follow-ons to the Scorpene, indicative models of which it has been putting on display in various trade shows, with MESMA AIP and is also trying to stress commonality with the existing project 75 line. Meanwhile Spain’s publicly owned Navantia which broke its partnership with DCNS a while ago has been offering the S-80 design with an ethanol based AIP supplied by Abengoa. Navantia also has a tie-up with Lockheed Martin for combat management systems. In India it is known to have been working closely with L&T albeit on surface ship projects.
Elsewhere in Europe, ThyssenKrupp Marine has offered the HDW Type 214 which is ultimately a descendant of the Type 209, four of which are operated by the IN as the Shishumar class. The Germans will seek to emphasize the stealthiness, AIP capability (PEMFC based) and weapon versatility of their design. Now Russia’s Rubin has offered the Amur design on its own and possibly an upgraded S-1000 design in partnership with Ficantieri. There was a time when the aim was to build one line of submarines with Western Bloc philosophy and the other with Eastern Bloc philosophy. If that sentiment still prevails then Rubin may actually end up being the front-runner for Project 75I. This would be especially so if the IN desires a vertical launch system (VLS) plug for these submarines that can fire the Brahmos. Amur models with an eight Brahmos VLS plug configuration have often been featured in trade shows.
Incidentally besides the Russians, the Germans and Spanish have also approached Brahmos Aerospace (BA) for installing Brahmos VLS plugs on their respective designs were it to win the Project 75I contract. All three seem to be assuring the IN that Brahmos VLS will not affect the stealthiness and motility of their designs.
The prospect of an AIP equipped Brahmos is of course very attractive for an IN that wants Project 75I submarines to feature land attack and serious standoff anti-ship capability. According to BA, which demonstrated the submerged launch of the Brahmos a while ago, in salvo mode all eight missiles could be fired from the VLS at 3.5 second intervals to attack different targets over a 360 degree azimuth. While that is certainly impressive, the IN also wants Project 75I submarines to perform stock ASW, ISR and special forces support roles. Moreover AIP itself will need room is these modest sized SSKs. So it remains to be seen if the VLS plug option ends up being exercised. There is also the question of cost.
Fortunately cost concerns related to the AIP system itself have eased somewhat now that DRDO’s Naval Materials Research Laboratory (NMRL) has readied an indigenous phosphoric acid fuel cell (PAFC) based AIP which has been selected for the last two of the six Scorpenes under construction at MDL. This AIP system will extend submerged endurance to 14 days and generates hydrogen on-board using standard hydrogen rich chemicals like methanol. The ability to produce need based Hydrogen in situ and the exclusion of any combustion process in the system add to the safety of this design since hydrogen need not be stored and nor is there a need for any heavy rotating machinery. This also recommends the stealthiness of the system. If this AIP proves a success on the last two Scorpenes there is every chance of Project 75I fielding this system.
Project 75I is expected to give India the ability to construct many state of the art submarines simultaneously by seeding another submarine construction line in India. As such L&T at the moment seems a strong candidate for this on account of a variety of reasons. However L&T may have to arrive at a work share agreement with HSL in the interest of sustaining that yard’s submarine build capability. Of course if the ongoing move to build at least half a dozen nuclear attack submarines (SSNs) indigenously fructifies quicker, securing work for HSL may not be an issue.
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