IAF to upgrade oldest of its Jags

HAL gets Rs2,400 cr IAF deal to upgrade Jaguar fighter jets
A new version of avionics will be added to the planes for the long-range ground attack fighter

Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), the state-owned military plane maker, will upgrade 68 so-called “deep penetration” Jaguar fighters of the Indian Air Force (IAF) with modern avionics in a contract valued more Rs2,400 crore that will increase the life and efficacy of the fighter planes.

HAL will upgrade these British-designed planes with a new version of the avionics, called display attack ranging inertial navigation (DARIN-3), replacing the initial version of the system, DARIN-1, for the long range ground attack fighter.

“These (68) planes were built in late 1980s to early 1990s, (and since then) aircraft avionics have improved phenomenally,” said a person familiar with the development, who did not wish to be named.
The Inertial Nav-Attack System Integration Organization (IIO), a multiple agency unit set up by the Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO), IAF and HAL built the Darin system first in 1980s.

In 2001, DRDO’s defence avionics research establishment and HAL had to built the DARIN-2 version, after Britain’s Smiths Aerospace backed out of a deal to build avionics for the planes. Since then, DRDO has gained expertise to build avionics for the Sukhoi 30 MkI fighter, the Tejas light combat aircraft and upgrade the avionics system for the Mig 21 fleet of the IAF.
“This is like a mid-life extension for these planes. It will be lethal for some more years,” said a former HAL official, who was involved in manufacturing Jaguar aircraft for the IAF. He did not want to be named.

IAF got the first batch of Jaguar planes in 1979. These 68 planes were among the first lot of Jaguars produced at its Bangalore factory by HAL under licence from BAE Systems Plc., (then known as British Aerospace). It had closed the Jaguar assembly line twice before opening it in 2000, to make 37 such planes.

HAL, the only manufacturer of Jaguars globally, has produced the last of these planes, called Shamsher in the IAF, this year.
The same assembly line is being used partly to produce BAE Systems’ Hawk advanced jet trainer for the IAF.

Nick_76

Man i have to disagree, with you in this too, i feel the moderators are doing a fine job, what happens is sometimes people are too demanding, you can not expect everyone to have the same opinion even if not praising an aircraft means disagreeing with the opinions others hold dear.

In the last thread of new and emerging asian fighters i found many people who like the LCA to be excessively sensitive about what other members can write or write about the LCA.

Insults as personal attacks, racism or threats should not be allowed in the forum but i find having different opinions about aircraft does not constitute an infringement of the forum rules, if some one thinks let us say the LCA is not as good as X plane, that does not make him a troll, what makes a person a troll are insults which have a racist remark, threats of violance and agression with a criminal intent, however if a person`s disgreeing that is not trolling and as SOC mentioned before every one is entitled to his or her opinion

All of you should accept people disagreeing with matters about indian aviation, and only when a person passes the real threshold of civility and passes to the liabilities of racism or criminal intent we should report them, but when a person is just bothering in a thread by trying to belittle an aircraft with different data or opinions if we do not agree we should only ignore that person and that is it.

And believe me Nick_76, i do like the LCA, i found it a very nice design and India a very interesting country ( i do like a lot indian food and music) but honestly i do not see the LCA as many other forum members do, they see the LCA as a something it is not, in my opinion i see the LCA as it is with its good points and bad points

MiG-23MLD, you have to understand the psychology behind many of these jibes..as Nick pointed out, the reason this Buraidiah posted the image of Dr Subramanyam was to belittle his looks. trust me, i know enough Pakistanis back in college who’ve mocked Indians based on their looks, and it has a lot to do with the “martial superiority” belief that was ingrained in Pakistan from decades ago..there was a time when they believed that just because the average Pakistani was less darker and taller than the average Indian, they were somehow a superior race..it was racism practiced by an entire nation and defeat after defeat at the hands of India in the battlefield has’nt really changed that belief. its the same attitude that made West Pakistan dominate East Pakistan and finally culminated in genocide at the hands of the Pakistan Army.

link

Fazal’s wisdom is the wisdom of hindsight, expressed some two years after Pakistan Army had fought the disaster and humiliating war in its history and Pakistan was dismembered into two countries. The Pakistani nation had been fed on propaganda about martial superiority of their army! Brigadier A.R Siddiqi who served in the army’s propaganda/media management wing known as the ISPR (Inter Services Public Relations Directorate) states that “the 1965 war had exalted the military image to mythical heights”. 31 The common man drew false conclusions and to compound things further, the 1965 war was viewed differently in West and East Pakistan. The West Pakistani populace and particularly the majority West Pakistani ethnic groups i.e. the Punjabis saw the war as a triumph of a preponderantly Punjabi Muslim army over a numerically larger Hindu army!

there are certain things that we sub-continental people know which is hardly ever mentioned on these forums, but I think its time its out in the open.

SOC, I hope you’ve gone through the other posts and discussions on this forum to see how the tone and intent was in them. and then once Buraidiah, who has REPEATEDLY done the same, appears and flames, passes snide remarks against other posters, insults a top Indian official insinuating that he’s lying, while using articles that have been painstakingly debunked by others- as Abhimanyu put it, its malafide intent, and frankly, its disappointing to see that you’re just saying that there is nothing in the rules that says its wrong to do what Buraidiah did..

I had once asked on a Pakistani thread, about the genocide that Pakistani Army had committed in Bangladesh, considered one of the worst in all history and in response to that, I’d been given a 3 week ban. A question relating to a historical truth fetched me a ban, whereas all the garbage that Buraidiah repeatedly posts here on every single LCA thread (2 of which were going fine and then got locked thanks to him), and nothing can be done about it?

Frank, really no one’s suggesting that you have greater affection for Pakistanis than Indians or need to be interested in our aircraft programs (just like I don’t give a fig about the F-35 and most other American programs). But, does that mean that even as a moderator, you can turn a blind eye to a particular aircraft and nation’s threads being wrecked again and again?

As a moderator, you’re someone who needs to make a call about who is contributing to the discussion and who is here simply to mock a nation, its people and its aircraft programs. otherwise, as Nick pointed out, people who’ve been here for years will simply not frequent it anymore since their topics of interest are either locked up, or absolute nonsense is being written and not much more can be written to defend the truth, since we’re busy as well and it takes time to debunk some lies that are spread.

and if nothing else is done here, you’re basically giving the free licence for posters to go into Pakistani and Chinese threads and wreck them with name-calling and snide remarks.

article on the Dhruv’s recent sales to Ecuador.

Last week, India, a rank newcomer, outbid some of the biggest helicopter-manufacturing nations in the world to bag an order, etching its very first imprint in the international aviation market. India sold seven indigenously built advanced light helicopters for $50 million to the Ecuadorian air force, marking a new beginning.

It was after taking on some of the best systems in the world that the Bangalore-based Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) won the bid. “Our offer emerged 32 per cent lower than the others,” gushes Ashok Baweja, chairman of HAL. His excitement is understandable. HAL had outbid Elbit Systems from Israel and aviation giant Eurocopter, a consortium of several European countries. Both companies have decades of experience in building helicopters.

Dhruv, the advanced light helicopter that HAL successfully sold, took 24 years in the making. It began as a modest project in 1984 when the defence PSU put together a team to build a helicopter that could meet the multi-mission requirements of the Indian army, navy and air force. With a little help from MBB, a German aviation company, the Indian team of rotary wing designers came up with a machine that could take on the best in the world. In its 24-year-old journey, the Dhruv saw several setbacks and many design challenges.

But now that HAL has made its entry in the international market, the company’s efforts at indigenisation will also be strengthened. International recognition of quality is indeed a big plus. Points out Baweja: “If we can sell more of Dhruv in the export market, it’ll boost our bid to indigenise complex military systems. We are already in the process of working out a design for a light combat helicopter. It must be ready to fly in two years.” Meanwhile, HAL has started working on the weaponisation of the Dhruv and its Mark iii and IV variants. In fact, the helicopter, designed at a cost of Rs 1,000 crore spread over 20 years, will now be the flag-bearer of India’s indigenisation programme in defence aeronautics.

The Dhruv, which saw its first prototype take to the skies on August 21, 1992, has had a chequered history. By 2002, HAL had produced a machine that could be marketed to international buyers. But there were no takers. A joint marketing venture with the Israelis raised false hopes. Indian diplomats failed to convince the Israelis to buy a Dhruv to raise international confidence levels in the product.

It was indeed a long haul. Recalls wing commander C.D. Upadhyay, now the chief test pilot of HAL’s rotary wing and one of the first to fly the Dhruv: “For us, just to fly in a completely indigenous helicopter was an overwhelming feeling. But we also knew that we had a long way to go.” A major hurdle was the refusal of international aviation companies to share technology. “The biggest challenge for us was to develop a transmission system at a time when even private car manufacturers refused to share details of their gear-box systems,” says N. Sheshadri, who is the chief designer of the Dhruv team.

Dhruv, say officials, has become a testimony of Indian design and product enhancement skills.

“For the first time, we have a product that has a 70 per cent serviceability,” S. N. Mishra, joint secretary, HAL, in the ministry of defence, told Outlook. This means the Dhruvs would spend more time in the air than in the hangar for maintenance. This 70:30 ratio is comparable with the best helicopters in the world. Earlier, serviceability was a major issue as the Dhruv’s performance was below international levels. “There were issues of design, and the line replacement units were frequently failing. We worked on this for two years and upgraded serviceability to 70 per cent but we aim to go higher than that,” says Mishra.

Distant drones: Dhruv helicopters at the 2008 Berlin Air Show

For months, the design team along with senior HAL officials would regularly meet in Mishra’s office in South Block to monitor progress. In 2006-07, the Americans had edged out the Dhruv, which came close to bagging a huge order in Chile. Similar marketing efforts almost paid off in Turkey and Malaysia. By the time the Dhruv went to Ecuador last year, the HAL team was ready with impressive performance data. Points out Mishra: “Not only was our helicopter cheaper by 32 per cent but its operational costs were 30 per cent less than the competition. While other helicopters in the similar category cost $850 per hour of flying, the Dhruv operates at $650.” According to him, HAL has also managed to break through several design challenges such as developing a unique carbon fibre composite that has reduced the helicopter’s weight by 50 per cent.

Having convinced Ecuador’s air force, the Dhruv is close to clinching orders from Peru and Bolivia. Suddenly, South America is emerging as a market where HAL has ambitious plans. “We will set up a team there. It will not only be in a position to give good maintenance support, but will also be able to market more machines to other countries,” says Baweja. Clearly, HAL is learning from past mistakes. Many years ago, it had assembled Dornier aircraft under licence and sold them to Mauritius. Poor product support, but, severely eroded the company’s credibility.

However, with Dhruv, HAL seems to have a winner. It is now all set to sell 159 helicopters to the Indian armed forces. For the military establishment, long used to importing and setting up assembly-line production facilities under strict licence regimes, Dhruv is the first major step towards India’s emergence as a global player in defence aviation.

superb pics of the Dhruv ! first pic cross post from BR

pic 1

pic 2

pic 3

pic 4

pic 5

actually I find the two seater Typhoon more attractive than the single seater ones..and the twin seater Rafales are very attractive too..and the twin seater Gripen is not at all ugly ! if anything, its the twin seater Jaguar, and the twin seater MiG-29UB which are the two most ugly two seaters combat fighters around..the MiG-35 looks a lot better than the MiG-29UB, but still, the smaller radome makes it look a lot less attractive than the MiG-29KUB which otherwise looks similar.

My question was regarding the benefit of spending milllions per plane to fit a new radar that was more beneficial to have been left turned off in mock air battles.

As you say, if AWACS could now be used to guide BVRAAMs after launch, provided you have the AWACS, a cheap and simple datalink upgrade would give planes like the J7 better BVR capability then the Bison.

I agree with your assessment that the upgrade was a good idea for the IAF at the time, but times have changed since then, and I doubt even the IAF would opt for such an upgrade now.

The Bison upgrade is good to boost BVR capable platforms fast and especially useful in a BVR-free combat environment, provided of course that you have the support to allow them to make the most of the missiles. However, as soon as real BVR capable planes enter the field, the Bison’s BVR limitations really start to show. As such, I do not see anyone who is operating in a BVR enabled environment to go for a Bison like upgrade unless they are especially desperate (for cash or planes).

My views is that the latest J7s are focused in what they want to be and are uncompramising in being the best they can at that role. The Bison, on the other hand, tries to be two things at the same time, and because of the limitaions of the airframe itself, it is able to do neither especially well.

I was responding to Crobato’s post on how the MiG-21s would slow down MKIs.

those were part of the tactics that the IAF used to surprise the USAF..also, they were dealing with a very capable fleet of F-15s that were manned by pilots very competent in BVR..that represented just one scenario where a large bunch of strikers needed to be inserted and had the Bisons as integral escorts with Su-30Ks clearing the way of defenders.

its not like the Bisons are always operated with their radar off..when they operate from their FABs, they are on their own and would have their radars on.

as for latest J-7s, they dont have BVR because its too expensive to incorporate for the kinds of air forces that operate them and most of them lack the kind of training capabilities that are required to be proficient in it..its not because they want to retain their strengths in the WVR arena as if thats some great virtue when they are totally vulnerable to any BVR capable fighter. for instance, the PAF could definitely get a significant boost if its F-7PGs were SD-10 equipped with a radar like the Kopyo.

and the topic of discussion was Bisons vs J-7s, not other BVR fighters like F-15s or MKIs..of course the MiG-21 airframe has its limitations, especially in the radar that can be fit in, but its adequate to deal with older J-7s and is a threat even to older F-16As. even now, the Bison provides the IAF with a platform that can deal with the bulk of the PAF’s fleet, except for the newer F-16s. its potent for its size and cost and almost everyone here agrees with that.

very nice looking aircraft ! whats the unit price for this? the build quality looks simply amazing !