21AnkushAs Borat would say “nice..varrry nice..i like”..:D
the anti-glare black paint is now being applied on all MK series fighters all along the canopy rim..saw it first on the MKM and its there on the MKA too..first few MKIs did’nt even have anti-glare paint fore of the canopy..
21AnkushSo why didn’t India go for MiG’s LMFS offered from inception?
So if the PAK-FA’s a joke, why didn’t India take LM’s offer on F-16/F-35 follow-on? If the Indian Aerospace industry is so ‘advanced’ why didn’t they go it alone?
The FC1/JF-17 went from prototype to serial production in just over 3 years, where is India with it’s beloved LCA? oh yeah, 25 years later it enters LRIP!!
Congratulations!! Can’t wait for the ‘N’, (what does the ‘N’ stand for? ‘Not yet’ perhaps?)Did you notice in the past year how the Russians were downplaying Indian involvement? whilst the Indians were banging the PAK-FA drums? Hmmm…could it be that the Russians realised they don’t need Indian money afterall? ’cause Indian bargaining power has looked somewhat impotent recently, or maybe the Russian government wanted to reiterate just who exactly needs who here- especially after the Yeltsin years.
I think all that eyerolling’s impairing your intelligence.
25 years for the Tejas and 3 for the FC-1 is it ? :rolleyes: the FC-1 started in 1989, at a time when the Tejas design was not even frozen..going by your claims, the T-50/PAK-FA has already been in work for more than half a decade and will take another 5-6 years at least to get into low-rate production..
the Tejas has already gone into Limited Series Production, with LSP-1 already flying and 7 more being built as we speak. and get off your high horse..the FC-1 is technologically far below what the Tejas is..just a glorified 3rd gen fighter, something that the Chinese should not have much trouble building considering all the reverse engineering they’ve done over decades. the impressive achievement of the Chinese is the J-10, which is by far much superior to the FC-1.
21Ankushfrankly, there is no tearing hurry to get the PAK-fA into service by 2015 or so anyway. at least not so for the IAF, which will have its hands full inducting the MRCA and Tejas into squadrons while phasing out Jaguars and Bisons. As for RuAF, they are looking at upgrades to their Fulcrum fleet and maybe the Su-35 and Su-34 could be intermediate before the PAK-FA is introduced into their fleet.
21AnkushBut are these, in any way, bad statistics, relatively speaking, or are they in fact very good figures for a 4th generation combat aircraft nowadays??:confused: :rolleyes:
What are the readiness levels for the F-14/F-15/F-18/Tornado ADV/Mirage 2000 etc, they’re hardly any better, are they?
I won’t even try enquiring about the MiG-29/MiG-31/Su-27:rolleyes:
I can tell you that IAF MiG-21 Bison readiness levels are near 60% or thereabouts. thats a 3rd generation fighter upgraded with 4th generation avionics that had major spares and supplies issues. the IAF MiG-29 and Su-30MKI readiness levels will be better than that since most spares issues are completely sorted out.
21AnkushAW&ST issue Oct.18 has an article that states that EPAF (European Participating Air Forces) users of the F-16 Blk 10 and 15 are looking at a major wing structural upgrade plan. They either will have structural upgrades to the wing or will replace the wing itself. Norway and Denmark, both of which have open fighter competitions and may need to keep their F-16s in service till 2020 are in favour of complete wing replacement itself, whereas Belgium, Portugal and the Netherlands are in favour of a simpler upgrade.
Apparently, cracks to the spars have been noticed due to heavy usage. The F-16, which was designed as a light-fighter is used very extensively by the RNLAF and the other operators in a swing-role fighter-bomber role, with heavy stores and carrying out high g missions, due to which the wing has shown premature fatigue issues. the Falcon STAR upgrade that RNLAF is carrying out to 109 of its F-16s is due to be completed by 2009, but does not take care of this particular issue. Most of these EPAF operators’ F-16s have already undergone MLUs.
21AnkushPython 4’s seeker is not that far off from the PL-8B’s seeker. Again, you’re talking of cryogenically cooled seeker using multispectral wave bands, which leads you to suspect if there was any more Israeli influence that goes on to the improved PL-8B seeker (used on the PL-9C).
As for your Python 5 seeker imagery, you can’t tell an F-16 from a J-10 with that. Since you (Flogger) cannot tell the difference between a Lavi and a J-10, a microcomputer with less intelligence than a cockroach isn’t going to do any better.
actually, looking at the image of the IIR seeker posted by Flogger, the F-16 can be clearly distinguished and so would the J-10..
21AnkushDeja vu. Crobato replied to the same article an Indian had brought up on Sept. 12 in this very same thread.
what I posted was an AW&ST quote and not something I saw on the PLAAF thread.
anyway, Crobato, what about the service rates ? the snippet claimed that at any given time, only about 16 of the remaining Su-27s are in operation..
21AnkushSorry but I have read of Indian fighters crashing a lot and some from Indian newspapers online itself. I remember reading about how Indian pilots don’t have the option to leave service because of substandard living and operating conditions which contributes to morale problems, thus leading to pilot error.
exactly. we’re read of Indian fighters crashing because they get published. on the other hand, PLAAF attrition figures are never open and the only time (apart from earlier when I’d read about a Su-30MKK crash) I’ve really read a reputed source talk of it was in this snippet.
21AnkushIndia’s record of crashing Russian aircraft numbers in the hundreds. India claimed bad Russian parts, Russian claim bad Indian pilots and poor Indian maintenance. Truth is MiG-21s in other parts of the world crash with far less frequency.
As far as training is concerned, it behooves me how China which has three times the economic resources of India and a far more militaristic background (Mao’s “power flows from the barrel of a gun” versus Gandhi’s “passive resistance) is somehow determined to train its pilots less. It doesn’t makes sense. I think the “PLAAF has more poor training” is more wishful thinking than reality.
I could’nt care less what you think of..back up your BS with figures from a reputable source on how the PLAAF’s flight hours are more than what the AW&ST article claimed and then talk, rather than your usual conjecture.
talking BS about Mao’s philosophy versus Gandhi’s wont change the fact that the PLAAF has lost 15-16 Flankers (and using your logic, obviously several hundreds of J-series jets that will never come out in the open thanks to the media gag.
21Ankushwere’nt they supposed to be happy with the KLJ-9 radar and the SD-10 ? why go in for what many Chinese posters on this forum considered an inferior missile to the SD-10 ?
21AnkushSorry I don’t know the figures on how many of the Su-27s China still has left and as a result of lack of pilot training. It’s still suspicious how these Western sources get this information when the West always complains that China isn’t transparent. But it seems India has the same problem. I hear and read about their Flankers crashing all the time too. The Indians accuse the Russians of bad quality while the Russians say it’s because of bad Indian pilots.
Hell King, not even ONE IAF Flanker has ever crashed since they were inducted in 1997.
what the Indians accused the Russians of was poor spares support for the MiG-21 and MiG-23 (which had the worst attrition record among all fighter types in IAF service). Russians accused India of sourcing spares from CIS countries instead, without being careful about their quality..
and the difference between China and India is that all news spreads and is not curtailed. I’m sure that the news report in AW&ST has some basis in truth if not totally accurate as Crobato says.
21Ankushdouble post.
21AnkushOld propaganda recycled about the training hours. I’ve read quotes straight from PLAAF pilots that say it’s far more at least minimum double that. I remember reading those guesstimates back when they said all of China’s fighters will be gone due to old airframes and China had no way to replace them with modern fighters. We know that one was wrong. Just like China wouldn’t be able to shoot down a satellite for at least ten years.
but what about the attrition figures? quite high for a new type like the Su-27 dont you think? and 4 Su-27s in the past 6 months ? why is this never heard of anywhere else?
21AnkushI’ld take that with a BIG grain of salt. There would have been news coverage.
Besides, that wiki post says “the ship is expected to be commissioned into service by October 2007″, not that is actually was commissioned.Shivalik was scheduled as followed (from Bharat Rakshak);
Laid Down – 11 July 2001
Launched – 18 April 2003
Commissioning – September 2007.Yet, on April 18 2003 the Beeb already reported
“India trials stealth frigate”, thus confusing launch (=hull hitting the water) with commissioning (=entering service).See: http://www.wikimapia.org/#lat=18.969184&lon=72.849028&z=18&l=0&m=a&v=2
Why do you think there was a follow up order for 3 more Talwar class ships? Because the P17s were coming along as planned?
more P17 infos: http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=73443
a funny little side note that I noted on the map you just showed, Wanshan..a tribute to India’s secularism..:)
a Muslim graveyard (kabrastan) right next to a Jewish cemetary and just a little further up, a Hindu crematorium..
21AnkushIndian Air Force – Vampire F3s in 1948 (First Jets operated by an Air Force in the Asian continent)
my grandfather, Air Commodore Atmaram was among the first ferry pilots for the Vampire when they were flown to India from Britain. He was CO of the No.3 Cobras in 1946, prior to Independence.
Jagan, BR incorrectly mentions his rank as Group Captain. Could that be corrected?
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