Krameryou might enjoy reading about the Su-7’s service in the IAF..and has some interesting schemes too.
article reproduced on BR, originally written by Pushpinder Singh Chopra, noted IAF historian.
KramerSomething like that ?!
Deino
Thanks Deino..if its a dedicated jammer variant then yes it’s almost a complete fit with what I was describing..there is simply no better dedicated EW jammer platform than the Su-30MKI.
KramerDefence aerospace has article saying 126 trench three eurofighters are offered for 12 billion. I’d that’s the case its a no brained.
could you post the article ?
added later- I found the article. thanks for the headsup.
June 9/10: At the ILA Air Show in Berlin, Germany, Reuters relays word from a Eurofighter GmbH spokesman that it has submitted a Trache 3B offer to the partner nations for 124 more Eurofighters, finishing the planned Tranche 3. Defense industry sources at the Berlin Air Show said the offer was around EUR 10 billion.
KramerTejas LSP-2 and LSP-3 complete hot weather trials in Nagpur.
Light combat aircraft (LCA) ‘Tejas’ which is scheduled to attain Initial Operational Clearance (IOC) by this year-end has undergone the second phase of hot weather trials in the past one week at the AirForce station in Nagpur.
The first phase of hot weather trails were conducted at the same venue in May-Jun 2008. On both occasions, the trials were very well supported by Air Force Station Nagpur.
The objective of the current phase of hot weather trials is to prove that the aircraft is in IOC configuration with the weapon system and sensors integrated.
During the trials, the two Tejas aircraft have undertaken trial sorties especially to check out the aircraft systems such as Digital Flight Control Computer, Avionics Systems, Multi Mode Radar, RWR and the Electrical and Environment Control Systems under extremely high ambient temperature conditions up to 45 degree Celsius.The trial team consisted of IAF flight test crew from the National Flight Test Centre (NFTC) and Scientists/Engineers from Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA), Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), Bangalore, ADE, NAL, CEMILAC and DGAQA, defence release said.
During the test flights, data, video and audio from the test aircraft were transmitted in real time through the fibre optic connectivity provided by the Air Force AFNET to NFTC Bangalore, for closer monitoring and detailed analysis.
This facility has proven to be very effective in optimising overall flight test effort, while enhancing flight test safety, it said.
The trial team was able to achieve all the objectives during the week long hectic trials.
The LCA is progressing steadily towards achieving IOC by end of December 2010 and subsequent entry into service under the able guidance of P S Subramanyam Director, ADA and the optimal flight test planning under the leadership of Air Commodore Rohit Varma VM, Project Director (Flight Test) of NFTC, the release from defence PRO in Nagpur added.
KramerChris, try asking on Bharat-Rakshak.com forums. there may be people who could point you in the right direction out there.
KramerThat overstates the prices of European fighters & understates US prices.
1. Amortisation of costs. Irrelevant. Only a small levy (& that can be waived) is charged on exports to attempt to recoup part of development costs.2. False imputations. The F-16IN has never been bought by the USAF, & can’t be priced by simply reducing the price of the F-18E. The F-16IN is a version of the F-16E which the UAE paid for the development of, & can levy a royalty on sales of (so much for the ‘amortised’ argument, as well!). That cost $6.4 billion for development & 80 aircraft. Depending on how much you think development cost was (AFAIK the estimates run from $2 bn to $3 bn), the unit production price was $40-55 mn – and that was ordered in the late 1990s. Costs have gone up since then.
3. Actual prices paid: it gives USD prices of 40-45 mn for F-18E – but latest flyaway price in the USN budget is $60mn. It says $80 mn upwards for Rafale & Eurofighter – but Eurofighter T2 (i.e current production) price to the UK, Germany, Italy & Spain is 55.1 mn Euros, or $66 mn at the current exchange rate, & Rafale costs in the 2009 French budget are 50.3 to 57.9 mn, depending on model – i.e. $61 mn to $69.5 mn.
I agree with you that the USAF’s price for F-16s cannot be used as a barometer for export sales. Ajai Shukla should’ve taken into account the total cost of the UAE’s Block 60 purchase to arrive at an estimate. And when recent F-16 Block 52s cost around $40-50 million per unit for export, how on earth would a more advanced Block 60 development be cheaper ? I’m afraid this price that Ajai Shukla has quoted are pretty much directly lifted off wikipedia. There might only be a small concession for the scale of the order (since it may help OEMs to extract cost reductions from their suppliers) but maybe even that may not work since the bulk of the production will be done by HAL..maybe SKDs and CKDs that will be sent to HAL will get cheaper as deliveries progress thanks to cost reductions by suppliers to the OEM. Later on, as HAL moves to full-on raw material to final assembly production, the prices may come down..but then again, ToT and licenced production cost money as well.
As for the F-18 E/F, its again wikipedia listed prices that he was quoting without doing any more research. All one needs to do is to look at the RAAF SHornet purchase to get at least some fair idea of how much the price may really be. I’m afraid that the prices that wikipedia quotes might be for for naked aircraft with no pylons, no avionics, no radars, no electronic warfare suites, nothing.
Otherwise how does one account for the kind of costs that Boeing showed for 36 SHornet Block 2s for Brazil in its notification to the US Congress? That was around $5.6 billion or so for 36 SHornets, training, simulators, support and a very very modest weapons package and it didn’t include any operating costs or anything of that sort. The Rafale’s prices quoted for the Brazilian deal aren’t much lower either.
Anyhow, this whole situation is quite favourable for the vendors that have a large European supplier base like EADS and Dassault and to a lesser extent Saab since they have quite a bit of US content. That might explain why Saab earlier said that they will not be submitting a new price quote but rather extend the validity of their previous quote for another 2 years.
KramerAkash SAM for Indian Army okayed
By Anantha Krishnan M.
Bengaluru
The Army version of the Akash missile system, valued at Rs 12,500 crore ($2.8 billion), has been cleared for induction by India’s Defense Acquisition Council (DAC).The India military services’ combined orders of the Defense Research and Development Organization-developed Akash, including two radars, have a total worth of Rs 23,300 crore. This is an unprecedented defense order for a DRDO-developed weapons system, and the biggest order ever for DRDO’s tactical missile and radar systems.
The June 8 DAC meeting was chaired by Indian Defense Minister A.K. Antony. Others in attendance included the service chiefs, Secretary Defense, Secretary Defense Production, Secretary Defense Finance, Director General of Acquisition, DRDO Chief, and the Chief of Integrated Defense Staff (CIDS).
A senior Ministry of Defense (MoD) official told AVIATION WEEK that Hyderabad-based Bharat Dynamics Ltd (BDL) will be the system integrator and nodal production agency for the Akash Army variant. DAC had earlier cleared an Akash order worth Rs 6,500 for the Indian Air Force (IAF), with Bangalore-based Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) as its system integrator.
“We have decided to split the IAF and Army orders between BEL and BDL to encourage competition within Indian industries and also to increase the synergy between the work centers,” the official said.
BEL Chairman and Managing Director A.K. Datt told AVIATION WEEK in April that the IAF has placed missile orders for two squadrons, and BEL is soon expecting follow-up orders for four more squadrons.The DAC had earlier approved Rs 2,800 crore worth of 3-D Surveillance-cum-Acquisition Radars, independent of the missiles, for all three services.
“Seventy radars have been ordered, each costing Rs 40 core,” the official said. In addition, the Indian Army has ordered Rs 1,500 crore of Weapon-Locating Radar, each costing Rs 50 crore.
“In the next 7-8 years, close to 100 Indian industries will benefit from these projects. The project support for the services for these systems will be there for 25 years,” the official said. “This is a big boost to Indian industries with so much of money being pumped into the Indian economy. It is a great wealth-generation opportunity, in addition to [the] creation of more jobs as a home-grown tactical missile system is finally getting on top in place of the French, Russian, British and Israeli systems. This will give DRDO the much-needed lift and the Indian industry know-how to manufacture complicated weapon systems.”
Considering that many of the current existing missile systems within the Indian armed forces are of foreign origin, DAC’s combined order is a boost to DRDO’s research and development efforts.
“The R&D cost of Rs 1,000 crore, including the project sanction of Rs 600 crore, is 8-10 times lower than the cost of similar system developments in advanced countries,” the official said. “Akash, which is considered as Indian ‘poor man’s Patriot,’ has certain unique characteristics like mobility, all-the-way-powered flight till target interception, multiple target handling, digitally-coded command guidance and fully automatic operation.”The Akash missile systems consist of a launcher, a missile with a 25-30 km. range, control center, multifunction fire control radar and supporting ground equipment.
KramerDRDO to test a new missile interceptor PDV by June month end.
The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) would be testing a new missile interceptor in Balasore by the end of this month, DRDO chief Dr VK Saraswat told India Today. “We will have a test in end June or early July and are calling this new missile the PDV and it will have two solid stages,” Dr Saraswat said. He revealed that the DRDO would begin ground-testing of AD-1 next year, a missile meant to shoot down intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
The DRDO-developed missile shield uses a system of long range radars and long-range missiles to shoot down incoming enemy missiles. The system has been tested successfully three times since December 2006. A fourth test in March this year was a failure. For the test planned in June, the DRDO now plans to replace the PAD-1 or the exo-atmospheric interceptor which has two stages, one liquid and one solid besides a ‘kill vehicle’ which destroys the enemy missile. It will be tested against an ‘enemy’ missile 100 km away.
The PDV is a modified version of stage 1 missile interceptors which can shoot down intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) of upto 2,000 km range like Pakistan’s Ghauri and Shaheen missiles. “The PDV will be the mainstay of the defence shield,” Dr Saraswat said.
DRDO officials say this system will be the backbone of the missile defence shield until Phase 2 missiles are fully deployed. Phase 1 of the system is to be completed and ready for induction by next year.
Dr Saraswat said that the AD-1 and AD-2, extended range missiles meant to shoot down ICBMs, were on the drawing board and would be fielded by around 2012 under Phase 2 of the missile shield. “Ground testing of the AD-1 will begin next year and the AD-1 missile will be test-fired in 2012,” Saraswat said. These would be capable of shooting down missiles which have ranges greater than 5,000 km. Phase 2 is far more challenging because it calls for detecting ICBMs hurtling at twice the speeds of intermediate range missiles. It not only requires bigger interceptor missiles flying at hypersonic speeds of between six and seven times the speed of sound (present missile interceptor speeds are between Mach 4 and Mach 5) but also radars to detect incoming ICBMs at ranges of over 1,500 km as opposed to the current detection ranges of over 600 km.
Phase 2 will be part of the DRDO’s attempts at incrementally increasing the BMD capabilities of the home-grown system. The system has been successfully test-fired three times since December 2006-the first test shot of the exo-atmospheric interceptor downed a missile 45 km away; the second test a year later proved the endo-atmospheric or Advanced Air Defence (AAD) interceptor which shot down an incoming ballistic missile 15 km away. A third test in March 2009 shot down a ballistic missile 48 km away. The interceptor used a ‘gimbaled directional warhead’ or a warhead only one side of which explodes close to an incoming ballistic missile, shattering it.
The DRDO has put into place the building blocks for developing extended range radars of over 1,500 km. The Phase 2 missiles will be in the class of the THAAD or Terminal High Altitude Area Defence missiles deployed by the United States as part of its missile shield beginning this year. THAAD missiles can intercept ballistic missiles over 200 km away and track radars with ranges of over 1,000 km.
Kramerone aircraft I would dearly love to see is an Electronic Attack/Jamming variant of the Su-30MKI, a Su-30MKE if you will. Its platform has such potential to fit in EW pods and jamming equipment and still maintain good performance with self-protection weapons. On board power generation is not such an issue either..IMO, a far better platform than the F-18 Super Hornet at least.
KramerIt’s a MP has decided to support this plan, not the whole conservative / UK government.
No AESA has been formally decided for the productional Typhoon, and I don’t think it is a good time to push such kind of project right now, especially when the governments of UK, German, and Italy have decided to cut 10~20% annual MOD budget, while the Spain has become the most awful and dangerous financial PIGGS in Europe.
On the other hand, if they don’t approve such a project ASAP, they can kiss goodbye to two export prospects, India and Japan. Neither will want a Typhoon with a M-Scan Captor when others with AESA are being offered.
KramerUS working on relaxing export control restrictions for India as well as in general. This might have some ramifications for the MRCA contest, since the biggest concern is regarding how much ToT will be made and whether they will give access to key technologies like AESA or not.
the reason I personally am skeptical is because of what we’ve seen happening with the LCA project where both Boeing and LM couldn’t manage to get licences to act as consultants. several DRDO and ISRO labs are under the entities list that cannot get any support or technology despite whatever noises the US may make. This is a development that the Europeans will be keenly watching because it can make or break several large deals for them.
Washington: The US is working on an India- specific export control regime and it could be announced before the November visit of US president Barack Obama to India, a top State Department official said on 7 June.
Noting that there is a wider review on the part of the administration of the overall export control regime, the assistant secretary of State for South and Central Asia Robert Blake told reporters that a India-specific review is under way.
“In fact we will probably split off from the wider review,” Blake told reporters at a news conference here.
“We have made a great deal of progress over the last six years or so in reducing the export controls that apply to India. Now less than one-half of 1% of all exports require any sort of a licence at all,” he said.
“There’s been a lot of progress, but there still are some controls. So there’s a reciprocal process under way to seek the necessary assurances from the Indians about the strengthening of their own export control regime that would enable us to relax our restrictions,” Blake said, adding that he anticipates that there’s going to be further good progress on this.
“We had a good exchange during the strategic dialogue in which we shared ideas about how we can achieve that good progress. So I expect that there will be some positive announcements to be made before the president’s visit, hopefully well before,” he said.
Blake said the US is having a close look at the entities list. “And many entities have already come off it over the last several years. But now there’s a focus on entities like Isro and DRDO — the Indian Space Research Organisation, the Defence Research and Development Organisation,” he said.“So again, we think that there are enormous opportunities for American companies to do more and work more with their colleagues in the space area and also in the defence area. So these are steps that would serve both our countries. We shared ideas about how we could make progress on that. And we to see progress on that in the fairly near future,” Blake said.
KramerUp to you fellers, but I’d prefer discussion without itemised quoting, as I can scroll back over my own messages if I suddenly turn senile and it seems less like trolling and more like independent discussion without itemised quoting.
This way we can separate those individuals who just marque point by point what someone said and argue with that, instead of having some opinion/discussion about what they were referring to/talking about, which is more like mature discussion.
I quite like a discussion forum but got the sudden impression I might’ve signed onto a troll forum, I hope I’m wrong since it’s such a common thing on the web it’s not even interesting anymore.
itemised quoting is seen on almost all forums and with the kind of long winding posts you make its necessary to discuss it that way. I’ve never seen anyone complaining about that..makes it easier for others to follow the discussion as well. if you think its trolling, take it up with the moderators. when you make wrong or ignorant claims and then pretend that pointing it out in an itemised way is trolling then one can see that you actually don’t have any arguments to make.
The IAF Fulcrum fleet serviceability rate is universally recognised as poor whilst the German Fulcrums managed only 50% serviceability for the year 1992 when the aircraft equipped were only five years old. The IAF also reported double the projected accident rate according to MAPO for the year 1992 (often due to engine failure, despite common belief the Fulcrum is not at all easily flyable on one engine), again with individual aircraft only five years old at most. Serviceability and accident rates (due to engine failure) have remarkable similarity throughout Fulcrum operators, all understated by at least 50% in MiG-MAPO marketing claims.
What is your source for the claim that the IAF reported “Double the projected accident rate according to MAPO for the year 1992” ? There was not a single MiG-29 crash in the IAF in the year 1992 as per the [http://www.warbirds.in/Crashes/crpage.php?qacid=71&qafdb=IAF&datesall=ON%5D Warbirds of India attrition listing[/url]. In fact it wasn’t till Feb 1994 that the IAF suffered its first MiG-29 crash when the tail apparently broke off during a 3.5g maneuver. The next IAF MiG-29 crash was in Jan 1997. In all 11 IAF MiG-29s have been lost leaving 62 odd operational.
What is known is that the MiG-29 fleet had a lot of serviceability issues at the beginning but this had been sorted out in 1994 itself when a joint aviation venture, the Indo-Russian Aviation Private Ltd., in maintenance & support was set up by HAL and MiG-MAPO and the technical problems were rectified to a satisfactory level.
Your problem is that you’re using texts and information dating back to the early 1990s period to basically paint the MiG-29s till now.
As for my citing Flanker expense, it’s made out of something like 65% titanium, in what universe is a Flanker not inherently expensive? It is cheaper than US contemporaries but is less sophisticated. Again I’m not interested in phantom variants, speaking in terms of anything actually put in service. IAF Su-30MKI is less sophisticated overall than USAF F-22A, its contemporary; Su-27S is less sophisticated than F-15C, its contemporary.
Flanker is easily one of the cheapest fighters for the capabilities it brings along. If you want to compare the Su-30MKI with the F-22 then take into account the cost as well. the Su-30MKI costs somewhere around $45 million per unit, and the F-22 ? Everyone knows it so I won’t even mention it since your point is so absurd. An air force would be able to buy nearly 5-6 Su-30MKIs for the price of 1 F-22 and maybe even 2 MKIs for 1 F-15E/K/SG.
The Flanker design approaches these requirements far closer than the Fulcrum, which isn’t really in the same class. It’s a very specialised Cold War general fighter, with very short range, low serviceability and a limited service life.
the Indian Navy’s MiG-29Ks have around 5000 hours service life. the MiG-35 being offered to the IAF for the MRCA has a 6000 hours service life, which is in the same ballpark as most western fighters. The things you’re talking about are all relating to the MiG-29A from the Soviet days. None of it applies today to the MiG-29’s latest variants and this whole talk about “Specialised Cold War general fighter” is non-applicable to modernised and latest variants of the MiG-29. period.
KramerEurofighter Consortium to re-submit bids for MRCA since its earlier bid validity expired on 28-April-10.
BERLIN: European aerospace consortium Eurofighter GmbH will re-submit its bid proposal this month for hard-selling 126 of its advanced fourth
generation fighters Typhoon to the Indian Air Force (IAF), a top consortium official said on Wednesday.Eurofighter completed the field evaluation trials of the medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) in April.
“We are re-submitting our bid to the Indian government for the IAF order later this month as the flight trials of the supersonic strike fighter have been completed in two phases, beginning in February,” Eurofighter chief executive Enzo Casolini said here.
The consortium is one of the six contenders for the prestigious IAF order, estimated to be about $10 billion.
“We are offering a better proposal as the early one made in April 2008 expired 24 months later and in accordance with the provisions in the global tender for the MMRCA order,” Casolini said at the 100th Berlin international air show on the outskirts of the German capital.The tender mandates the winning bidder to deliver 18 fighters to IAF in ready-to-fly condition and licence the Indian defence behemoth Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) to manufacture the remaining 118 jets with technology transfer.
The IAF plans to replace its ageing Russian-made MiG-21 fleet with the MMRCA in phases over a decade.
The US-based Lockheed Martin F-16s and Boeing’s F/A-18IN Super Hornet, French Dassault’s Rafale, Swiss SAAB’s Gripen and Russian MiG-35 are the other five bidders for the MMRCA order.
“We had demonstrated Typhoon’s outstanding operational capabilities during the flight trials when experienced IAF test pilots flew two of them under specific Indian conditions starting in Bangalore Feb 22,” Casolini recalled.
The IAF has formed two teams of two test pilots each for flight trials. In the first phase, the technical evaluation was completed in early 2009 after the six vendors responded to its request for proposals (RFP) in 2008.
The fortnight trials included flying the twin-engine Typhoons at Jaisalmer in Rajasthan and Leh in Jammu & Kashmir to demonstrate its desert and high altitude capabilities in early March.
In the run-up to the trials, the shortlisted IAF test pilots and engineers had undergone extensive training in Germany.
“The final phase of flight trials were conducted in Germany and Britain to test the fighter’s cutting edge weapons systems and advanced sensors. The exercises included dropping precision guided munitions and launching air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles,” Casolini added.Eurofighter used two Typhoons of the German Air Force’s squadron 73 based at Laage in northern Germany and two of the Royal Air Force in Britain for multiple checks, including weather parameters.
Admitting that there would be a tough competition among the contenders on their respective strengths and edge they claim to have, Casolini said Eurofighter was betting on the sheer operational and strike capabilities of the Typhoon.
“We are aware of the stiff competition for the IAF order and the role of geo-politics and foreign relations we have with India. It is a sensitive decision based on many parameters. But we have edge over others in Typhoon’s capabilities,” said Casolini.
KramerKilo submarine, INS Sindhurakshak being upgraded in Russia. I thought Sindhurakshak means Sea Protector, not Sea Giant.
Fifth diesel electric submarine of Indian Navy is being modernized at Zvezdochka Ship Repair Center in Severodvinsk. The corresponding contract has been signed in Delhi, said Nadezhda Scherbinina, director of the shipyard’s press service.“Contract on upgrading INS Sindurakshak is for the first time signed without intermediary of Rosoboronexport”, noted the shipyard’s official. “Zvezdochka shipyard enjoys the right of independent foreign economic activity given by the President of the Russian Federation”, she said. Modernization of Project 877EKM submarine INS Sindurakshak (stands for Sea Giant) will take 2-2.5 years. “The sub is planned to be delivered to Severodvinsk late June”, said Scherbinina.
Being specialized in overhaul and utilization of nuclear-powered submarines, Zvezdochka shipyard has upgraded four Indian diesel electric submarines. The shipyard also continues repair and modernization of similar submarine INS Sindukirti in her basing site Vishakhapatnam, India.
All these submarines are Russian-made Project 887EKM (Kilo class) developed by Rubin design bureau, St. Petersburg. They are designed for antisubmarine and antiship warfare; defense of naval bases, coastal and sea lines of communication; reconnaissance and patrol operations. Such submarines have displacement of 2,300 tons; length of 72.6 meters; submerged speed of 19 knots (about 35 kph); test depth of 300 meters; crew of 52; endurance of 45 days. Armament includes six 533-mm torpedo tubes. In the course of modernization subs are equipped with advanced Russian Club-S cruise missile system with firing range of about 200 km, Indian sonars and radio communication systems.
KramerThe handling qualities of the original MiG-29 were bad in comparison to FBW equipped western fighters, but these issues are settled now with digital FBW being integrated into the latest variants.
I don’t know what handling qualities you’re talking about. the IAF conducted DACT between MiG-29s and Mirage-2000s and the MiG-29s basically trumped them in pretty much every way maneuverability and performance wise despite being a non-FBW fighter facing off against a FBW controlled fighter. I can post an article by Air Marshal Harish Masand who was CO of the MiG-29 squadron that participated in the DACT.
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