I don’t know why HAL should have exclusive rights from every major contract.

Yes Reliance doesn’t have the experience or pedigree of HAL.

But I do think these things are a bit over stated, Dassault themselves can train Indian engineers working in Reliance.

In this day and age essential skills/tech can be taught relatively easy.

HAL is so full of middle aged government salaried engineers who will get paid regardless of whether the do any work or not. Yes they may have ‘skills’.

But if Reliance can hire freshers from the IITs in the country and the French can teach them proper, they will be much better than these old dinosaurs at HAL anyway.

I don’t think experience matters in Engineering as much as it does on Management.

You know what I will do if I ran the country is this.

Look around the world for disaffected engineers from major aerospace firms, offer them outrageous salaries, may be even take over entire companies and then use their expertise to teach Indians. In a globalized world money can bring you anything.

And we’d get the first Rafales manufactured in India in another decade from signing of the contract if Dassault had to train fresh engineers for the MRCA. And who’d pay for that? Get real.

HAL is going to be e prime agency building FGFAs in India after it finishes Su-30MKIs. Where this “HAL does not have the capability to manufacture Rafales because it is so special and we French have different standards” comes into the picture is beyond me.

I mean HAL is working on a 5th gen fighter, then the MTA, builds entire Do-228s, Hawks, Su-30MKIs, LCAs, Dhruvs apart from a host of other aircraft and helis and overhauls them entirely in house. Where was this concern when they were getting the multi billion Mirage upgrade contract that will be executed by HAL after requisite ToT? How was it that HAL was the only agency outside France that was authorized to overhaul the Mirage-2000?

Get real- Reliance to date hasn’t invested anything in a greenfield facility, hasn’t hired any engineers (and anyway they’ll poach HAL, NAL and ADA engineers if they got any work on the MRCA) and has no project management or aeronautical experience whatsoever. There are far more competent Indian private companies in this area like the Tatas, Taneja Aerospace and even Mahindra.

What India needs is the high tech manufacturing tech of the Rafale. HAL has absorbed technology in the past (such as with the Su-30MKI which was a generational leap for HAL manufacturing) and will manage to do so own the MRCA also. No need for a massively unethical Reliance like company to get into the picture. HAL is inefficient and something needs to be done about it, but don’t kid yourself about a company like Reliance that has no high tech manufacturing experience in any other field either suddenly becoming India’s aerospace messiah.

It’s still ongoing. Negotiations between Dassault and the Indian Government and HAL are still being discussed however, a hurdle has been knocked over it seems with Dassault not wanting responsibility with the Indian/HAL produced units where as the latter do want Dassault to be responsible, neither side is backing down and the discussions regarding this will be discussed at a later date. So all fun and games with a bucket load of arrogance thrown in with them right now. Dassault, and every other bidder for that matter, knew India’s requirements regarding local production…

Eurofighter GmbH are believed to be on “stand by” should the negotiations go ar$e over t*t.

Dassault showed up just how ridiculous their argument on HAL’s ability was, when they actually argued that Reliance Aerospace (without having even set up a single facility, or having worked on a single project before this) would instead be their preferred partner.

So, Dassault was in effect saying that they could take responsibility for a total novice delivering a 4th generation Rafale, but not a
state manufacturer that builds Su-30MKIs and has built and overhauled nearly every aircraft that the IAF has through ToT. The aim was obvious- try to get back as much work as possible and tie up with the most unethical Indian private sector company, one that is well known in India for their ability to bribe Govt. officials and bureaucrats to get their way. In this case, the MoD’s stance was sensible.

Naval LCA’s NP-1 prototype to fly again by mid of 2013.

March 06, 2013: The LCA Navy, which has been on the ground for many months now since a short spate of just four flights starting in April last year, could take to the skies again later this year with major modifications underway to the platform’s landing gear, environment control system, fuel system, lightning protection, water ingress proofing etc.

The LCA Navy team is currently working to complete all modifications since the Shore Based Test Facility (STBF) at INS Hansa in Goa, where the LCA Navy will conduct ski-jump trials, will be ready for take-off and recovery ops by July-August this year.

Sources in Team LCA Navy say that the landing gear changes have contributed to the delays as they involve a significant amount of re-engineering. The process is being done under the technical supervisory of consultant EADS, which had been contracted some years ago to help speed up the programme in this crucial test development and test phase. A second prototype NP2 is currently under build, and will incorporate all changes being effected on NP1. NP2 will feature the fully redesigned landing gear and all other changes. The project envisages a total of five prototypes.

SP’s aviation

INS Arihant’s nuclear reactor to go critical in 2-3 weeks time as per DRDO

link to article

NEW DELHI: Moving towards completing its nuclear triad, India will activate the atomic reactor on-board the indigenous nuclear submarine INS Arihant in the “next two to three weeks” paving way for its operational deployment by the Navy soon.

“The nuclear reactor on-board the INS Arihant would be made critical (activated) in next two to three weeks,” DRDO chief V K Saraswat told PTI here today.

Nuclear triad is the ability to fire nuclear-tipped missiles from land, air and sea.

He said after the nuclear reactor is activated, the agencies concerned can work towards readying the warship for operational deployments soon.

INS Arihant has been undergoing trials at Navy’s key submarine base in Vishakhapatnam and would be launched for sea trials after the nuclear reactor goes critical.

The DRDO has also readied a medium-range nuclear missile BO-5 for being deployed on the Arihant and its last developmental trial was held on January 27 off the coast of Vishakhapatnam.
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JAS-39E/F.

And when does it enter service? Is it ready yet? Even a Mk2 variant of the Tejas will fly and be I service by the time the Gripen E/F enters service with the Flygvapnet and the SwAF.

So really state of the art light fighters don’t even exist in service as per you?

Tejas Mk I seems to be regarded as a failure in IAF circles with only 40 to be acquired (less than Mirage 2000 acquisition). IAF seems to be pinning it’s hopes on a Mk2.

The greater proof lies in expanded acquisition of Su-30MKI (now at least 272 aircraft) and new acquisition of large number of Rafales (up to 200) and later Pak Fa.

With a total of 183 Tejas fighters in 3 different variants planned for induction into the IAF and IN, how the Tejas is a failure I cannot fathom.

The Mk1 orders were capped at 40 so that HAL can begin delivering the Mk2 right after the 40th Mk1 is delivered. If the Gripen E/F were available from 2018-19 onwards, why would any customer order more C/Ds to be built post 2018-19?

Why did India, a country obsessed with self sufficiency since 1950s, not allow HAL to develop an aircraft they could appearently develop in 5-6 years. And why did they then buy a foreign product?

India has pursued self sufficiency at the cost of human lives (e.g. all those crashed MiG-21s which were meant to be replaced by Tejas). Why then not allow HAL to pursue HTT40 in order to maintain self sufficiency they’ve craved for decades?

That was an IAF and MoD decision to not develop the HTT-35 as well as the HTT -40. It could have been easily done in 5-6 years. Maybe they wanted HAL’s resources used elsewhere at that time. A poor choice since it led to imports for a basic trainer, something India built even 2 decades earlier in the form of the HPT-32.

Black Archer,

Tejas is not state of the art.

As for KT-1 and T-50, the point is they got aircraft into service, with export sales as a bonus.

HAL has failed here with both the HTT-40 and HJT-36 not attaining production due to issues and being replaced by foreign designs (PC-7 and BAe Hawk). The Tejas is blundering about too.

Only HAL Dhruv has done ok despite long lead time and teething problems. And it involved design assistance from MBB/Eurocopter.

I seriously doubt HAL can design AMCA and make an operational aircraft out of it.

Well, it depends on what you call state-of-the-art. Many aircraft being sold today are not technologically too much more advanced than it is. For instance, what other light fighters are out there? The JF-17, which lags behind the Tejas technologically but is also in service and the F/A-50 which is not as advanced either. The Gripen C/D is mature, but once again, technologically at nearly the same level. So what is state-of-the-art in the light fighter class?

The SoKos managed to get the T-50 into service thanks to the extensive help and guidance that Lock Mart provided. They took an existing F-16 design, modified it for a lighter class trainer and provided support to KAI for getting it ready and in service. The plus point is that it speeded up the program since they didn’t have to develop everything from scratch. But the negative point is that they are still looking for someone to hold their hands with the KF-X project. There is no way that they can do it on their own, and suggestions of taking an existing design and just iteratively improving on that give clear signals as to what their own analysts think of their knowledge base. Even the Surion is nothing more than an iterative design of an existing design.

I’m not suggesting that India has done everything on its own with the Tejas either, but it’s mostly an indigenous program with skills being built up in a variety of areas. Some have failed, such as the Kaveri and MMR radar, but at least there is some base that is there- nothing like that exists in South Korea.

HTT-40 cannot be brought into this discussion since it was the IAF which in its strange ways, refused to sanction the project in the first place when HAL initially wanted to start its design and development. Later on, the HPT-32 was grounded and sudden requirement (!) arose to replace them, and since no work was sanctioned on the HTT-40, the only option was to urgently import. Now, HAL wants to develop the HTT-40 on its own and if a prototype fails to fly by 2015, they are willing to let the IAF order another 37 PC-7 Mk2s. If the IAF had permitted HAL to build the HTT-40 when it was first mooted, they’d have had it in service by now. Believe me, a KT-1 level project is no great shakes for India’s aeronautical industry.

The HJT-36 program alone is more than what KAI has managed so far. At least it’s an original program, but poor project management led to a decision to change engine from the Larzac to a totally unproven and undeveloped Al-55I, which delayed the entire program. Otherwise, the IJT was developed in record time- 36 months from metal cutting to first flight with the Larzac engine. It should now attain IOC by Dec 2013 or early 2014.

BTW, it’s not HAL that will design the AMCA. It’s the ADA, which is a separate body that will do that. They are the design authority for the LCA as well. HAL designs some assemblies/sub-assemblies and then manufactures the final aircraft.

As for the rotary wing side of things, the Dhruv program is quite successful today, with multiple variants including a weaponised one, and has led to significant new programs such as the LCH (which is doing well in flight tests) and the soon to fly LUH. Both the LCH and LUH have been designed in-house with all the experience of the Dhruv program allowing that to happen. South Korea lags India in this field by at least a decade if not more.

The biggest bug bear for India has been aero engines, with no successful program to show so far (except JVs with some workshare for India, like the Shakti engine on the Dhruv). But neither does South Korea, and they aren’t even close to India on this so far.

The Koreans are quickly bridging that gap. Look at the KT-1 trainer which has so far sold to 3 export users including NATO member Turkey.

India had more success with HF24, HT2, HPT32, Kiran and Ajeet (reworked Gnat) in past than it has in recent years in terms of developing indigenous aircraft.

The Tejas has been a disaster that has cost human lives in terms of pilots flying outdated MiG-21s that were meant to have been replaced years ago.

And all to get a F/A-50 equivalent fighter.

Basically the Korean process was far more efficient.

And bare in mind that the Koreans did not have a pressing need for an F-5 replacement as it’s a far more reliable aircraft than MiG-21 the Indians were in need of replacing.

You’re comparing a KT-1 with a light fighter project?

No need to exaggerate with over the top statements like “The Tejas has been a disaster that has cost human lives in terms of pilots flying outdated MiG-21s that were meant to have been replaced years ago.” The IAF is only flying those MiG-21s that still have life left in them, or through service life extensions that are based on extensive fatigue testing. In case you didn’t know, the IAF had the safest year in 2012 out of its entire service history- that too with nearly 250 MiG-21s still flying.

Technologically, the Tejas is more advanced over anything that the South Koreans have attempted, including the T-50. And more importantly, the bulk of the work has been done on their own, instead of taking a design from a foreign OEM and doing just a portion of the work in-house;

There is still no F-50 fighter variant that they have managed to get into service either, despite heavy assistance from Lockheed Martin. They’ve only managed to get a non-weaponised T-50 into service so far. No mean feat considering they’ve got precious little experience before this, but let’s not kid ourselves into believing that they did it on their own. When the bulk of the F/A-50’s design work is done by the Americans then the learning curve that they’ll encounter on the K-FX will be far too steep. This is something that some quarters in South Korea already recognize despite all the optimistic market and schedule predictions some vested interests are making.

Rubbish statements like the Tejas not being in service when the K-FX (whose design isn’t even frozen and there are 2 configurations floating around, depending on who is going to “help” them) is at IOC only serve one purpose- to provoke. The South Koreans are efficient, but their knowledge base still lacks India’s aeronautical knowledge base by quite a bit.