KramerLight Utility Heli (LUH) project runs into trouble with engine maker Turbomeca
by Ajai Shukla
Business Standard, 1st July 10The Light Utility Helicopter (LuH), which Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) is designing for the Indian military, has encountered turbulence even before leaving the drawing board. French engine-maker, Turbomeca, whose vaunted Shakti engine was to power the LuH, is demanding what MoD sources term “extortionist prices” for integrating the Shakti with the LuH.
HAL had paid Turbomeca to develop the Shakti engine for the Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH); and the Shakti also powers the Light Combat Helicopter (LCH) that HAL is developing. Because the Shakti is custom-designed for the high altitudes — between 15,000 – 20,000 feet — that characterise much of India’s border, and because HAL and Turbomeca will jointly manufacture the engine in India, the Shakti was selected to also power the LuH.
But the Dhruv and the LCH are twin-engine helicopters, while the lighter LuH will fly with a single Shakti engine. That requires Turbomeca to design a new transmission for the LuH. Additionally, the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) will have to certify the Shakti for single-engine operation. To HAL’s dismay, Turbomeca has demanded Rs 190 crores for these jobs, more than half the LuH’s entire budget of Rs 376 crores.
In formulating the LuH development budget, HAL had assumed that Turbomeca would design the new transmission system cheaply, to benefit from additional orders of hundreds of Shakti engines over the service life of the LuH.
An outraged HAL board, having decided against paying so much to Turbomeca, has approached other engine-makers — including General Electric, Honeywell, Rolls-Royce, and Pratt & Whitney — for an engine for the LuH.
Reliable MoD sources tell Business Standard that Turbomeca is now negotiating with HAL to compromise on a price for the Shakti. The French company has offered to reduce the cost by Rs 90 crores, provided that amount is adjusted against its offset liability. But HAL rejected that offer last week, telling Turbomeca that even Rs 100 crores is too high a price. Turbomeca is now preparing a fresh proposal.
Senior HAL sources complain that Turbomeca is taking advantage of the rigid timelines that the Ministry of Defence has imposed on HAL in the LuH project. The MoD has split its order for 384 LuHs between a global tender for 197 ready-built LuHs; and an order for HAL to develop and build 187 LuHs by 2017. The MoD has specified a target date for each of the LuH’s development milestones: building of a mock-up; the design freeze; the first flight; Initial Operational Clearance, and so on. Each time HAL misses a milestone its order reduces from 187.
Turbomeca apparently believes that these time obligations reduce HAL’s bargaining leverage. HAL, however, has decided early not to put all its eggs in the Turbomeca basket.
HAL Chairman, Ashok Nayak — responding to a question from Business Standard whether a new engine for the LuH made sense when the Shakti would allow the standardisation of a common engine across many more helicopters — replied, “We are using the Shakti engine for the Dhruv and for the LCH. It is not necessary to also use it on the LuH. How many helicopter manufacturers use a common engine on three entirely different helicopters? One should not overdo the standardisation aspect”.
So far HAL is comfortably beating the MoD clock and plans to beat the 2017 deadline by a full two years. It has built a mock-up within the timeline; plans to freeze the LuH design by the end of this year; fly the LuH for the first time by 2012; certify it by 2014, and begin delivery by 2015.
Kramerthe HJT-36 is hardly delayed and is due to join IAF service soon..the IAF has no real shortage of intermediate jet trainers, so your point about it is totally moot. If anything, the Sitara program’s deadlines were only delayed because they changed the engine to the AL-55I and it was delayed. I’m sensing that you’re only interested in criticizing indigenous programs for some reason, so I won’t discuss this any further.
KramerThat may well be your preference, but there is no reason why it has to be operational before getting a HF designation. There was a HF-73 concept- mind you, a concept, not even a prototype was built and it had a HF designation. We have a HJT designation for the Sitara, a HTT-40 designation for a basic trainer that is not even designed..the Tejas LCA project just never got around to getting a designation. When it reaches IOC by year end and the IAF formally accepts the first 8 LSP Tejas’, it’ll be nice to see a HF-XX designation associated with it.
Kramerand we again hear that the Tejas will soon recieve a “HF-XX” designation.
Angle of attack has been informed that Hindustan Aeronautics Limited has forwarded a request for a new “HF” designation for its LCA- Tejas fighter aircraft. HF stands for Hindustan Fighter and is followed by a two digit number which indicate a year of some significance either to HAL, the aircraft or the nation itself. The last fighter to get the HF designation was HF-24 Marut which was India’s first indigenous jet fighter.
The request contains various options for the number which will follow the designation. The numbers currently known to us are of the the year when the project started, first roll out, first flight, Bangladeshi Liberation war and Kargil war. One will be selected in few months time and will replace the infamous LCA tag. The LCA tag won’t be used after that by the authorities. Other designations for indigenously produced aircrafts are HTT-Hindustan Turbo Trainer for Turbo prop trainers, HJT-Hindustan Jet Trainer for intermediate trainers and HT-Hindustan trainers for advance trainers.
Along with this update the Tejas is also ready for service in first quarter of the year 2011 and will be stationed in Bangaluru. The negotiations for new more powerful engines will also begin very soon with GRTE of DRDO putting forward its Snecma-Kaveri engine into the negotiations. The airforce for some reasons is upset with that and had recently accused DRDO for trying to slow down the progress of second version of Tejas.
KramerWhy do you want the EASA to ceritify Shakti for single engined military operations in India. Don’t we have our own safety agency to do so ? I think its outrageous that Europeans must certify something that is to be used by Indian military, I can understand in the future if its for sale outside India but now it seems outrageous.
its easier to certify it with the EASA because Turbomeca will be more used to their certification guidelines and procedures. each country has its own procedures and laws that define how the certification is issued. for them to work with CEMILAC is not out of the question but it will likely be more time-consuming as they will need a lot more coordination.
KramerMay be not but there will be a payload penalty operating from a Ski-jump. In June 2010 dti Admiral Nirmal Verma says that the Navy is looking into EMALS as they are finalizing the design of the second IAC. 😉
you’re not getting the point. you can do with a steam catapult, not an EMALS. IAC2 need not have an EMALS catapult, a steam catapult will do for the F-35C.
Kramerthere is no need for EMALS for the IN to be able to operate F-35Cs if it chooses them.
KramerLatest on MRCA
NEW DELHI: The race for the “mother of all defence deals”, the $10.4 billion project to acquire 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) for IAF, is getting hotter.
Defence ministry sources said the technical evaluation report of the gruelling field trials, during which the six foreign fighters in contention were tested by IAF pilots both in India and abroad under different weather conditions, was “virtually ready” now.“IAF is likely to submit the exhaustive report by next week. Subsequently, a shortlist of the fighters which have done well in the field evaluation test and the staff evaluation will be made,” said a source.
The commercial bids submitted by the six aviation majors — American F/A-18 `Super Hornet’ (Boeing) and F-16 `Falcon’ (Lockheed Martin), Swedish Gripen (Saab), French Rafale (Dassault), Russian MiG-35 (United Aircraft Corporation) and Eurofighter Typhoon (consortium of British, German, Spanish and Italian companies) — will be opened, examined and compared only after that.
This will be the first time that “life-cycle costs” will be taken into account rather than just pitching for the lowest bidder. The “direct acquisition cost”, the cost of operating the fighters over a 40-year period, with 6,000 hours of flying, and the cost of the ToT will all be taken into account to arrive at a “verifiable cost model” for the commercial evaluation.
Complex negotiations on the 50% offsets specified in the contract, under which the selected foreign vendor will be required to plough half of the contract forex value back into India, will also have to be conducted.
IAF is keeping its fingers crossed that the actual contract, under which 18 jets will be bought off-the-shelf and the rest will be manufactured in India under transfer of technology to Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, is inked within a year.
IAF obviously wants to get the fighters as soon as possible, grappling as it is with a sharp fall in the number of its fighter squadrons (each has 12 to 18 jets), which is down to just 32 from even the “sanctioned” strength of 39.5.
KramerKramer then please explain to me why everyone including Sukhoi is going for Low RCS now even in non VLO designs like Su 35. There is always a difference, the Super Hornet for example is never expected to fly with a clean loadout, but still then it has some really good RCS reduction measures ? Why ? Are you suggesting these people are fools ?
because they will hang their ordnance INSIDE the airframe. Then, when you shape it well and use RAM, you get an overall RCS that is low. Put drop tanks and external pylons with AMRAAM and JDAMs or LGBs on the F-22 and pfftt ! its RCS will spike up to a degree that for all practical purposes, the F-22’s LO stealthy airframe will not be a big factor anymore. It will most likely be seen by other modern radars at ranges that will mean no advantage of stealth whatsoever.
the Su-35 won’t need to carry drop tanks, so that is an advantage that its airframe has, which when treated with RAM or intake blockers will lead to a significant drop in its RCS. Nevertheless Sukhoi doesn’t go around trying to pass off treated Su-35s as being LO the way the French talk about the Rafale’s RCS. A smaller fighter with some minimal LO shaping (like the Rafale) with a drop tank is a totally different kettle of fish as compared to a clean Rafale whose RCS is what is advertised as part of marketing. If a regular fighter radar can detect a 5m2 target at anywhere more than 100 kms, then a 3m2 or 3.5 m2 target will be detected at a significant distance as well. There is no huge advantage worth talking about.
its not for no reason that the F-35 is designed to carry such a lot of internal fuel and even most of its ordnance. The trade off is a larger airframe with its associated drag and performance penalties, but LM thinks its worth the reduction in RCS for a true VLO platform. Rafale, Typhoon, Gripen NG, etc. cannot be compared in this respect in a real sense for a typical mission loadout.
KramerI think that you missed the point mrmalaya,
The point was to compare the RCS of an aircraft with a full AtG load on a rafale against a full AtG laod on the sukhoi Mki.
Despite that the AtG load increases the RCS of both aircrafts the starting point of the rafale is much lower. In the end the RCS is lower and that have still an impact. A 5m2 RCS (for a fully loaded rafale for instance) is still harder to detect than a 15 or 20 m2 RCS with a fully loaded Mki.
arthuro, with all due respect, you’re simply speculating here as to the RCS of the MKI..3 times higher than the Rafale with all its ordnance hung outside? sorry, but it’s just not believeable.
About Rafale and Typhoon RCS comparison we have now direct pilots experiences and they say rafale has a much lower RCS. This is inderictly cross checked by the FAB evaluation which rank the rafale as the most invisible compared to the gripen NG and the SH.
you’re talking about CLEAN RCS as seen in DACT where as it is most aircraft fly with almost no weapons but an ACMI pod maybe. Typhoons carry semi-recessed weapons too, a better solution than the Rafale which generally carries them on wing pylons with no recessing.
KramerIt always matter : you will detect a 15m2 RCS fighter before a 5m2 RCS fighter and a Boeing 747 before the 15m2 RCS fighter.
According to the lattest A&C special edition many of rafale weapons have been designed from the beginning with RCS reduction. According to many french pilots the rafale enjoy a much lower RCS than the Typhoon (A&C report from rafale vs Typhoon in Corsica) and according to the Brazilian evaluation the rafale has a lower RCS than both the Gripen NG and the Super Hornet.
It doesn’t matter if a fighter can detect a MKI from 120 kms and a Rafale from 100 kms. They’re still far from any weapons employment capability and neither are stealthy so as to press home any advantage.. The whole story about the Typhoon or Rafale being stealthy is a relative non-issue when you hang pylons and weapons outside the airframe.
What is the Rafale’s RCS with those full stores and pylons ? nowhere even close to what is quoted for a clean fighter. For all practical purposes, when weapons are hung out on pylons in the airstream, all stealth is gone.
KramerThat is of course not true.
how so ? explain more in details than 1 liners.
KramerYour link is to a different article. Thats to a story claiming LMTAS may offer F-35 for MRCA. This has not happened and they are offering F-16IN.
The link to livefist claims F-35 being offered to Indian Navy. Which I doubt….
you can choose not to believe it if it somehow assuages your national pride..I’m saying this because other Pakistani posters too get very upset when someone says on this forum that F-35s may be offered to India if the IAF or IN want them. that article did not speak about the MRCA since it was in 2010, and well after the F-16 Block 60 trials as well as home-country trials on the F-16 in April. There is no question about the F-35 for the MRCA and LM knows that.
KramerI think there would still be lesser RCS on the Rafale compared to the MKI if both are during a full loadout, simply because Rafale has a lower starting point.
when you hang such a lot of weapons, whether or not its an MKI or a Rafale doesn’t matter anymore..any decent fighter radar will spot them at stand off distances that will negate any advantage that a clean Rafale had over the MKI in the beginning.
KramerGTRE has a partnership with NPO Saturn for a Gas Turbine for a UAV/UCAV.
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