21AnkushI had the good fortune of talking to one of the ADA persons who was involved with the LCA program from around 1991 at a meeting on Hybrid materials. He’s a PhD from IIT Delhi, and was one of the top guys in the development of the AutoLay composite application by ADA. He was telling me that they started to test the composite materials beginning from 1986, to start getting material data and the allowables that have been used on the Tejas have been conservative. the reason he offered (which I’d already guessed) was that they wanted to ensure that under no circumstance should a catastrophic failure occur due to their over-estimating the material allowables data.
other things he mentioned was that co-curing and co-bonding of the LCA wing has reduced a lot of fasteners, and most crucially, takes care of fatigue issues due to holes drilled after panels are built and then fastened to the underlying structures. and, when I asked how many hours service life is estimated, he said it was done keeping aircraft of 3rd generation, like the Mirage-2000 in mind, and was kept at around 6000 hours.
and most importantly, he said that the initial flight loads were close to the predicted loads, and that weight reduction is an ongoing process as they change parts that are currently metallic and try to replace them with composites or lighter parts.
also, NAL is now indigenously manufacturing its own carbon-fiber composites, whereas they were being imported at very high cost from the US earlier.
21AnkushYou two should think about getting a room in a hotel…
someone’s getting jealous ! :D;)
21Ankush21AnkushReason for the first failure of a Brahmos test
DEFENCE
Why BrahMos failedSUCCESS stories at the Defence Research and Development Organisation are occasionally interspersed with failure. An experiment on January 20 was one such.
The supersonic cruise missile BrahMos missed the target at the Army’s range at Pokhran in Rajasthan because its global positioning system (GPS) blanked out, said DRDO officials. The American satellites that run the GPS had been switched off on the day Barack Obama was sworn in the United States President, they said. The missile, therefore, travelled for 112 seconds instead of the slated 84 seconds and fell 7 km away from the target.The officials could not say whether the Americans had deliberately switched off the GPS satellites to test whether India’s missile mission would be a success without them. They conceded that it was possible to switch off GPS-linked satellites selectively. The failure of the mission, therefore, has underlined the need for India to have its own GPS-linked satellites instead of depending on American or Russian constellations, said an official.
BrahMos, jointly developed by India and Russia, is essentially an anti-ship missile. It can hit targets 290 km away, and can cruise at a particular altitude at Mach 3 (three times the speed of sound). BrahMos is the only missile in the world, according to the DRDO, that can hit targets both in sea and on land, without any change in its hardware; only the software in the missile’s computer has to be changed.
Officials of the DRDO described the January 20 mission as a difficult one because the target was just 50 km away instead of the normal 290 km. The missile, launched in a land-attack mode, had to hit a particular target out of a cluster of targets. The Army insisted that the error in hitting the target, which resembled a chemical weapons factory, could not exceed one metre. Reflectors had been installed to mislead the missile.
The DRDO, therefore, made a new seeker for the missile to meet this challenge. A software was developed with a new algorithm, which was to help the missile reach the target by using the GPS data obtained from the U.S. satellites. The mission demanded that the missile’s inertial navigation system (INS), its GPS receiver and its seeker should all work together.
But there were constraints on the mission. A DRDO official said: “When the missile is flying very fast, it is difficult to perform manoeuvres…. The GPS data did not come in time, so the INS data with its uncorrected error was taken as the reference and we missed the target.”
A repeat mission on March 4, with the American GPS-linked satellites turned on, was a success.T.S. Subramanian
21AnkushIts also worth noting…………Why would Russia want new built Mig-29K’s. When it could have new built Su-33’s???
because there is an assembly line for MiG-29Ks that is currently running. There is none for the Su-33s. the MiG-29Ks are multi-role, modernised and are capable of all the roles that the Russian Navy could need including fleet defence, anti-shipping, recon and strike. and because the IN will operate MiG-29Ks for the next 3 decades, hence they will be able to find a partner source for funds to keep the MiG-29K modern and updated.
the only thing they’ll lack is the range on internal fuel that the Su-33 will provide. But, the Su-33 is a dedicated fleet defence fighter, and will need a lot of work to bring its avionics and weapons up to multi-role standards like the Su-35.
21AnkushMiG would be fervently hoping that the Indian Navy’s follow-on order for 29 more MiG-29K/KUBs comes through..they’ll be done with building the current order of 16 MiG-29K/KUBs by 2011 itself, and unless the Russians order some or the IN orders its follow-on MiGs, they’ll be left with no work at their factories.
21AnkushI am not sure Russia is trustworthy. Soviet Union was but they both are entirley different countries.
As for France their record with us is good, but we only had their aircraft during one war ie. Kargil war which was not a full scale war. Their record with other countires , such as Israel is less remarkable one remember the Mirage episode.
Russia is still an ally. it always has been. they’ve been trying to gouge India by making more money, but they’ve never backstabbed India. as for France, its strategic interest lies in making money, thats all. If Pakistan offered more, it’d offer it the same stuff offered to India. but, because of that, they’re reliable suppliers and don’t kowtow to US pressure when it comes to defence deals. and remember, these two countries are hte only ones that backed India after the nuclear tests- almost a litmus test of which countries are our real allies and which are simply fair-weather friends.
21AnkushWe may not get one we can try and develop one. The same people who argued that the indigenous nuclear program has taken a few steps back with the Nuclear Deal has not such arguments with regards to projects like the Brahmos. Don’t you think our money is spent better elsewhere?
utter rubbish.. the Brahmos JV is one that has given the IN, IA and soon the IAF, a very credible supersonic CM. And FYI, there is a longer range cruise missile in development.
if you even bother to read, you’d have read how the US realises that its Navy is most vulnerable to Brahmos type supersonic cruise missiles (Sizzlers and the like). its defences are weak to be able to handle such a threat and for training against that alone, they’re developing supersonic CM simulators. and here we have you saying that our money could’ve been spent better !:rolleyes: In my opinion, its the single best AShM in the IN and with its precision strike capability, offers the IAF and IA a very potent weapon.
and 1 failure in 13 tests and we have people criticizing it ?! if you apply the same yardstick to American arms, you’d be surprised just how shoddy it’d make their arms look.:rolleyes:
21AnkushWith a real possibility that F35 production line might be closing down in the US, India should look into to acquiring that production line maybe in a JV with Israel. F18/F16 are are old technologies with limited upgrade possibilities. IAF needs a fighter which will viable 20 years from now and there is no way that either F16 or F18 will be that fighter.
F-35 production line closing down in the US ? what’ve you been smoking dude ?! its going to be producing fighters well into the 2020s !
21AnkushWith a real possibility that F35 production line might be closing down in the US, India should look into to acquiring that production line maybe in a JV with Israel. F18/F16 are are old technologies with limited upgrade possibilities. IAF needs a fighter which will viable 20 years from now and there is no way that either F16 or F18 will be that fighter.
F-35 production line closing down in the US ? what’ve you been smoking dude ?! its going to be producing fighters well into the 2020s !
21AnkushWrong way round: this saga led to Dassault closing down the production line. India could have had the entire Mirage 2000 production line after Dassault closed it (it was offered), but chose the current farce, with its permanently mobile goalposts.
because its govt. wanted to avoid a single-source deal and there were other vendors who also wanted to participate in the deal. whats so wrong with that? previous deals also didn’t entail any offset obligations, so that India got zilch from Russia in offsets despite having spent nearly $8 billion for its MKIs. this “farce” will result in the IAF getting a fighter that would definitely be a leg up on the Mirage-2000-5 and its going to serve another 35-40 years, so its not a bad deal. the disadvantage is that the MRCA isn’t joining service till 2013, but then the Bison upgrade and the extra 40 MKIs plus their faster induction into service will prevent force levels from shrinking too rapidly. a lot hinges on the LCA Mk.2 as well.
21AnkushWrong way round: this saga led to Dassault closing down the production line. India could have had the entire Mirage 2000 production line after Dassault closed it (it was offered), but chose the current farce, with its permanently mobile goalposts.
because its govt. wanted to avoid a single-source deal and there were other vendors who also wanted to participate in the deal. whats so wrong with that? previous deals also didn’t entail any offset obligations, so that India got zilch from Russia in offsets despite having spent nearly $8 billion for its MKIs. this “farce” will result in the IAF getting a fighter that would definitely be a leg up on the Mirage-2000-5 and its going to serve another 35-40 years, so its not a bad deal. the disadvantage is that the MRCA isn’t joining service till 2013, but then the Bison upgrade and the extra 40 MKIs plus their faster induction into service will prevent force levels from shrinking too rapidly. a lot hinges on the LCA Mk.2 as well.
21Ankush“The Elta designed and developed MMR, Elta EL/M-2052 which will be an interim option since India is developing an indigenous one, has already undergone tests on the flight test bed and ground rig in Israel.”
There are two systems, one from Israel and an Indian with Israeli modules and expertise.
I didn’t understand what you just stated. could you explain a little further and provide a source for what you’re stating ?
21Ankush“The Elta designed and developed MMR, Elta EL/M-2052 which will be an interim option since India is developing an indigenous one, has already undergone tests on the flight test bed and ground rig in Israel.”
There are two systems, one from Israel and an Indian with Israeli modules and expertise.
I didn’t understand what you just stated. could you explain a little further and provide a source for what you’re stating ?
21Ankushthat Ravi Sharma got it wrong. Vayu magazine (which is very trustworthy) in an article on the Tejas mentioned that it was a hybrid Elta 2032/ MMR radar. the antenna and radome are from LRDE (India), scanner from ECIL (India) and the Elta 2032’s power amplifier unit.
as per Rakall on BRF, who was at AeroIndia 2009
“LSP-3 is ready to fly and will do very soon (within next 1-2months). LSP-3 has the radar integrated in it. The radar is has the LRDE/HAL antenna, ECIL/BARC developed APL, indigenous power amplifier and indigenous FRP radome.. the rest is all Elta stuff — all the signal & data processing units, all the software for AA, AG, AS modes and the fire control algorithms come straight out of 2032.”
so, there is a little doubt on whether the Elta 2032 Power amplifier unit or an indigenous Power amplifier unit is being used.
The MMR/2032 is currently being flight tested in Israel aboard a Boeing 737 ‘Hack’ aircraft and another is mounted on the ADA rooftop in Bangalore, keeping track of LCAs and other aircraft flying around.
in Rakall’s words
So the radar is neither MMR or 2032. It is a hybrid of both.. as of now – for the near future, not thinking of 2052.
Coming to this MMR+2032 radar which will be in LSP3 — the radar has been extensively tested.. Very very extensively and works very well in all 3 modes.. after the airborne qualification was completed — they installed this radar somewhere on a rooftop in the vicinity of CABS area of HAL airport and kept tracking the fighter planes flying out of HAL airport evreryday… that is the LCA’s, Jags, Kirans etc..The LSP-3 radar tracked “smaller aircraft” (smaller than LCA – probably Kirans/Hawks) at 100-120km range.. That is the capability of the radar.
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