Is there a good Reason that the U.S. hasn’t offered the F-15SE or the F-35?

The F-15SE is too close to the Su-30MKI in size and the IAF with 270 on order doesn’t want anymore of the biggest fighters. Thats the same reason that the IAF didn’t ask for the Su-35 to be included in the MRCA competition.

The F-35 was yet to begin testing when MRCA began initially and LM at that time offered its top of the line F-16 which was still being supplied to UAE. The F-35 is also very unlikely to be available in the timeframe that the MRCA needs to start deliveries. Unless partner nations with early slots start delaying their deliveries for any reason.

I suggest that before commenting, & especially before asking questions, people should read the SDSR.

The new plan is to delay completion of Queen Elizabeth (thus, necessarily, delaying PoW) to allow her to be reconfigured with cat & trap. It’s now planned to have one carrier operational, & one in reserve, able to be rotated with the active one, or regenerated to give two carriers if needed. There will be another review in 2015, & it is stated that it is possible that one carrier may be sold, if circumstances change to permit it, e.g. if a shared carrier arrangement is made with an ally – but it is implied that’s something to be looked at in the 2015 review.

This report from Flightglobal also says that there is a possibility that the second CVF may be sold. Otherwise both will need to be equipped with catapults to be able to embark F-35Cs.

A second CVF vessel will also be completed, but initially held at extended readiness and possibly later sold.

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These are posts on BRF by Group Captain Hari Nair (retd.) who is a TP for the LCH program now. He was a former Sarang Display pilot who flew the Dhruv ALH.

Yes indeed, the LCH does sound distinctly different from the ALH. The aerodynamic interaction of the rotors with the different fuselage may be a reason.
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I don’t believe we should mess around with that tail rotor. Presently, its an absolute aerodynamic wonder – gives some amazing Darth Vader-like control power to the pilot. No namby-pamby stuff like “loss of tail rotor control authority” or whatever that afflicts a whole heap of helicopters, including certain Russki & Yank types. This tail rotor delivers control power when demanded – I have never felt it giving up (or about to give up) in a mess of stall or vortex ring.

Whilst flying as part of the first Sarang DisplayTeam, I recall that it was fairly easy to match other formation members turn rates during ‘stall’ (or torque) turns while pitched up in the near-vertical attitude at zero airspeed. In that very demanding condition, its pure tail rotor control power that comes into play. Its the same for single aircraft displays. All this is irrespective of prevailing wind conditions. And in that context, there was once, whilst displaying over the sea (near the coast-line), and carrying out a manoeuvre in adverse wind conditions, when the lead Sarang ALH encountered a particularly nasty gust of wind that threatened the purity of the display. I recall stomping on the rudder and the tail rotor held the ALH in-line as it always has. The combination of forces, however, led to a fairly nice crick in the neck to both of us (the young co-pilot, who now is a distinguished A2 QFI in the IAF) and yours truly. The end result was – nobody noticed anything amiss, but both of us required liberal doses of Iodex on our necks to recover for the next day’s display sequence!

And this was his reply regarding the CAG report on the content of indigenous components in the ALH..even that has been cleared up as being mainly because they are still importing the basic raw material for the composites till a facility in Gujarat state is able to get its material upto spec and certified.

The CAG is definitely NOT a bunch of hare-brained babus as has been made out to be. I have found some of their remarks and analyses on certain aircraft acquisitions surprisingly precise and accurate. Don’t underestimate them, they are good.

However, in the case of the ALH (Dhruv), I do believe their conclusions on 80-90% imports (probably by cost percentage) being a point for audit is incorrect. Yes, most of the avionics and quite a few systems are imported but then, consider this:-
The critical high-tech main & tail rotor blades are made locally.
The entire transmission systems are made locally – all the gear boxes including the Main Gear Box (that holds the helicopter up and provides the drive from the engines to the rotors. All these essentially amount to the very core of the helicopter. Worldwide, there are just a handful of countries making these components & we are actually one of them.
The fuselage & undercarriage are all made locally – including the very critical crashworthy sections.
The ALH has been made to a very exacting Air Staff Requirement of the IAF & Indian Army and to meet all the stated objectives, it may not be possible to use everything indigenously made. In any case, a whole lot of systems & avionics are just simply NOT available locally.

Barring the US of A (and erstwhile Soviet Union), most countries do NOT make the A to Z of an aircraft. Consider this – open up a BAE (British Aerospace) navigation system LRU and don’t be surprised to find cards & chips made in Taiwan! Check out the European helicopters – all of them are multi-country projects!
It’s a globalised economy and its just plain stupid in these times to try to make every single thing at home.
The game really is to make a reliable and maintainable helicopter – that meets the performance requirements of the Services & also has a reasonable indigenous content at its core (which I believe the ALH already has).

I believe most people would take a pilot’s word (that too a Test Pilot) as being quite true and accurately reflecting how the IAF and IA look at the Dhruv.

When even Indian Army and Navy are going to purchase foreign light choppers, why would Russia go for Dhruv!?

The IA and IN are only looking to buy a foreign heli because the Dhruv is not in the weight category that they want.

They want a single engined chopper in the 3.5 ton category to replace the Cheetah and Chetak. The Dhruv is a 5.5 ton category twin engined helicopter.

BTW, there is a Light Utility Heli (LUH) being developed by HAL as well, and the current goal is to buy 187 foreign light helis and then shift to the indigenous LUH.

As it is, the IA, IAF and IN together operate more than 80 Dhruvs and another 165 or so are on order, including WSI Dhruvs.

great picture of the Dhruv ALH in operation at 12,000-14,000 ft while rescuing 120 soldiers of the IA.

Exercise Indra-dhanush (Rainbow) begins today at AFS Kalaikunda in the eastern state of West Bengal.

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The flying exercise missions of Indo-UK Air Exercise Indradhanush began today i.e. on 20 Oct 2010 at Air Force Station Kalaikunda. Elaborate briefings on standard operating procedures, rules of exercise and familiarization of the local flying area etc were carried on initial two days of the exercise i.e. 18 & 19 October 2010.

The Royal Air Force is participating with Typoon Eurofighters, the E 3 D Sentry, and VC-10 mid air refueller while the IAF has fielded the Su-30 MKIs, Mirage 2000s, Mig 27s and its AWACS ( for the first time in a joint Air Exercise). These assets would be combined along with the aircrew and then divided into the blue and red forces. The red forces are the agressors while blue forces are the defending side. The roles of the participants are changed through out the exercise. The degree of difficulty during the exercise missions is increased by random denial of mid air refueling, and radar silence etc. The major highlight of the exercise is large no of aircraft operating together and against each other in limited time and space putting the skills of the pilots and the fighter controllers to test. This is known as large force engagement operations (LFE).

Air Marshal L K Malhotra of the Eastern Air Command met the participants and addressed them today. In his address he said “apart from the pilots flying these missions, it is an excellent opportunity for the controllers who would be either controlling these missions or will be on board AWACS aircraft as observers.”..
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He also said “the aim of the exercise is to enhance mutual understanding and refine procedures. During this exercise a specific emphasis will be laid on exposing the controllers (ATC & AWACS) to large force engagements and protection of high value aerial assets. Another area of emphasis would be the management of logistical needs to move large forces from one part of the world to another.

The Exercise Indradhanush concludes on 03 November 2010.

Say buy 24-30 Rafale F4 in five years and we sell you for cheap the expertise to upgrade and maintain Mirages independantly. As well as offering Greece to market upgrades for other Mirage 2000 users (India comes to mind), while Dassault focuses on Rafale, Neuron etc…

The truth of the matter is that India is much closer to a Mirage upgrade deal than Greece is with a Rafale purchase or a Mirage-2000EGM upgrade. The final contract signature is most likely when Sarkozy arrives in India this December. So, with India paying around $2 billion for upgrading 51 Mirage-2000H/THs alongwith the weapons, HMDS, etc. and 49 Mirages to be upgraded in India itself, I feel that this will be the last money spent on these jets in the IAF. They will all serve till 2025 and then be retired peacefully (I hope) to be replaced by PAK-FA or AMCA jets.

There is really no possible money to be made by Greece by offering upgrades for the Mirage-2000 since the only other operators are those with too few (Egypt, Peru) or too less money (Peru) to be able to afford the cost of Mirage upgrades or those who are looking to sell off their Mirages (UAE, Qatar). Taiwan has the numbers and the money but with China bullying, I doubt that Greece could afford to lose China’s business rather than make a few hundred million offering upgrades to the Taiwanese -5s.

This is one aspect that also applies to a lot of the MRCA contenders too (if the provision is there to offer locally developed upgrades, or pick a workshare in OEM offered upgrades for the MRCA)- that even with India buying such a large number of MRCAs, if the Gripen NG/MiG-35/F-16IN/Super Hornet or Rafale win, there are too few customer countries to make much money off by selling cheap upgrades licenced from the parent companies. Regarding the Typhoon, the numbers in service are large, but whether or not there will be any serious volume of upgrades is debatable. Since Eurofighter consortium has 4 partner nations, each that wants a pie in the workshare, work allocated to India will be quite small. So in most cases, these workshare opportunities may not be too substantial.

This is where F-35 partner nations will be making a lot of money simply by developing new upgrades and solutions over the life of the F-35 (maybe 30-35 years) that will be integrated to a large worldwide fleet of F-35s, similar to what is happening with F-16s but with more partner support and participation.

Aspis, how concerned is the HAF about the impending F-35 threat? Do you believe that a Gripen NG can adequately deal with the F-35 threat for the coming 20-25 years? And I mean a real threat of a war over resources, rather than just dogfighting and chasing away intruders. Sure, the Meteor is a big addition to the Gripen NG’s arsenal, but how confident are you about TuAF F-35s being truly deterred by the Gripen NG?