Definitely Derby’s on the outer racks of the dual rack pylons, on the starboard wing there appear to be Python 5’s towards the wing’s leading edge.

Any bigger pic? :p

I’m not sure if the outer missile is the Python or Magic IIs

pic courtesy of BRF, and only slightly better than the previous one..

Not really sure where to start.

You are proving the very point in some respects I was trying to make about the fact that it is not worth claiming you have X amounts of composites if the structure can not live up to the Job. Boeing are offering customers a traditional Aluminium fuselage should customers not wish to fly the composite one. But they will keep the Dreamliner monicker as this is marketing.

what the heck are you talking ?! do you have even the slightest clue how much work goes into designing a fuselage !?! I haven’t once heard from anyone at Boeing itself that Boeing is working on 2 different fuselages, because it’ll affect so many things that its as good as a new aircraft itself. It just goes to show how ignorant you are of the magnitude of the design effort that goes in. Anyway, since you made the claim, I want to see a source for this.

So what is the truth with regards to the G loadings? something you say you heard from a friend of yours and something B. Harry posted or something that is noted from the primary source? Does not matter if it is years old it is still the official word.

fine, don’t believe me, but did you even read my post ? I said that I have posted on this very forum, a pic from an ADA brochure from Aero-India 2009 where they state that the design G load factor is 9G/-3.5 Gs. Are you suggesting that ADA, the LCA’s design agency is lying in brochures it plastered around AI-09 ?! and the slide from the ADA presentation is right here

If the 8g’s is limited by the engines then maybe they would get over it by the Mk2 version.

thats the performance required by the ASR. there is no such 8G limit on the Tejas airframe itself. whenever the full envelope is explored and cleared, the Tejas will be 8G or 9G certified, although the airframe itself is designed to 9Gs.

However simple point is that it seems that they were so busy learning composites that they forgot to look at the performance side of things.

who are “they” ? the entire aerospace industry ? in case you don’t know, all fighters designed in the 1990s (excepting 3rd gen fighters like the FC-1) are designed with large amount of composites. people like you would’ve been cribbing about the lack of composites if the LCA was designed with aluminium and titanium alloys..oh and BTW, the LCA is still lighter than the FC-1, despite being designed to 1 full G more from ground up (which means higher loads can be sustained by the aircraft). there are also benefits for fatigue life by using composites, not to speak of the RCS benefits as compared to using conventional materials.

As they say, “they could not see the wood for the trees”. Did they do a trade off between composite and metal? If composite won out and they had a detailed enough study should they not have realised that the GTRE and even the GE offerings would be underpowered and start looking at other engines or possibly re-designs of the LCA at that stage?

this is what gets my goose- you seriously think that the issue of weight is a ADA/HAL/GTRE issue only ? when you conceptualise a design, you estimate weights based on performance requirements that the customer wants. if during the detailed design, it is found (and there are so many reasons for that, that it would be take too much of my time to discuss them) that some of the initial estimates were wrong or not conservative, you cannot go and throw away the design. it doesn’t work that way in any aviation company.

And yes i did say it would not be difficult to manufacture a turbon fan for a UCAV or Missile type role. The simple fact is that it has been done and it is being done the world over.

I cannot do anything but marvel at your ignorance in this matter. you choose to not do any research whatsoever on how many nations of India’s industrial base have an indigenous turbofan for a UCAV or cruise missile, or how complex the technology is, but always resort to generic whining about this or that. its rather typical of you, so no surprises here.

About the picture of the MKI buddy refuelling a M2K..i cannot quite come up with scanarios where that would be useful in general.That only underscores the fact that we dont have enough refuellers.So might be of some value in Indian perspective.That concept is more useful for the navy I think.

why would it not be useful Ray ? imagine a scenario where Mirages, MiG-29s, Jaguars or Tejas’ and other such (comparatively) short-legged fighters are part of a package with Su-30MKIs as well..the MKIs may not need any IFR but others will, and most air-refeulling tankers will be easier targets than a fighter carrying a buddy refuelling pod. a Su-30MKI can get itself tanked up and then loiter much closer to a battlespace (while being capable of self-defence) than a lumbering Il-78 would be able to without escorts. the Il-78 itself can stay in the interiors and away from any enemy fighters. considering that the Su-30MKI has been tested for 9 hour long endurance missions, a few of them can provided round-the-clock “waypoint gas station” type facility well within the range of enemy fighters operations. and you wouldn’t need to fill up a returning fighter- you could simply tank them up enough on the return leg to be able to get back to base with safe fuel margins.

its so funny to see that the Pakistani media will use an IAF Il-78 tanker image and photoshop it with PAF roundels and fin flash ! 😀

Please stop name calling and conspiracy theories.

Is it not within the realms of possibility that two people share some thoughts.

:rolleyes:

name calling ? its just a coincidence that you appeared around the same time that Ante_climax got banned isn’t it ?:diablo:

Was the designed G limit reached. If so please give a link to show that.

will be done during FOC. what the Vayu article said is that by December 2009 after the sea-level trials in Goa, the IOC flight enveloped would be cleared for service entry..

Vayu article image

image courtesy of Karan at BRF.

The LCA is going into IOC with a derated g loading? hmm derated from 6g?

that article is dated July 2008, more than a year ago. and anyway, its common to see aircraft being inducted while they still don’t meet the FINAL specs- thats what the Final Operational Clearance is there for. the Su-30MKI itself had a similar case, where the final Phase 3 Su-30MKI was the only one that met all the requirements and the previous ones had older software for the radar and other avionics. they hadn’t (in July 2008) yet flown the LCA at all its FOC-mandatory envelope points (max. AoA, max. Gs, etc.).

Maximum g for LCA is projected to be 8g?? seriously? I have heard this before but i was rather wishing it was some journalists typo, hearing from the horses mouth its a bit different.

nope thats the Air Staff Requirement (ASR). the aircraft is designed to +9G/-3.5 G and I got this information first hand from a guy who worked in HAL on the Tejas at their loads department for more than 4 years. I’d even posted an image from an ADA brochure from Aero-India 2009, where it clearly says that the LCA design G-limits are 9G/-3Gs. you can search for it in one of the earlier LCA threads.

also, you can refer to this article The Radiance of the Tejas by B.Harry, one of the best articles on the Tejas. it gives many details on the LCA’s design and their purpose as well as mentioning the 9G/-3.5Gs sustained load factor.

They key saying 90% of this or the other is composite, but they seem to have achieved not a lot of the aircraft g rating is 8g’s.

in many ways composites can be, if used conservatively, nearly as heavy for certain parts as aluminium or titanium would be..and the LCA has wing spars that are all-composites as well, something you don’t even find on modern jetliners like the 787..on that program, they did try to change some ribs to composites, but initial estimates found that they weren’t quite as light as expected earlier considering that they’re primary structures.

however, if you look at the payload, fuel fraction (30% now due to increased empty weight of 6500 kgs instead of the original 45% fuel fraction when the empty weight was supposed to be 5500 kgs) and the empty weight of the LCA, its still pretty good. its range is as much as the Mirage-2000 ( as per Test Pilot Cmdr Mavlankar) thanks to a fuel efficient, lower SPFC engine and low drag. add to that, with a payload almost equal to a Gripen C/D, while the airframe itself is lighter than the Gripen C/D. of course, the Gripen could’ve been affected by its own Air Staff requirements that might have needed a heavier structure (such as higher sink rate than usual fighters, to achieve short landing on roads).

no point in boasting how much composite you have used if your aircraft if heavier than it should be and also structurally can not perform what it should be.

yes, now please go and tell that to Boeing as well. :rolleyes:they’re struggling with the weight on both the 787 and 747-8F and would love to be told that there is no use boasting of the 787 being a “Dream” liner built with composites when it cannot perform as it should. I get this feeling that you’re not involved with the aviation industry and do not actually grasp how complex some of these technologies actually are..the fact that India mastered it is in itself a praise-worthy achievement. its the same with the turbofan technology as well, which you seem to think is technology even a chump can master and produce to world-class performance specs.

oh and by the way where did he say it “structurally cannot perform what it should be” ? he said that they’ve tested it to 6Gs and 20 deg AoA and as more test points are covered, the envelope will open further. what will be given to the IAF at the time of IOC will be a Tejas with de-rated performance which the IAF has accepted, as do most Air Forces which act as launch customers- just look at the Eurofighter tranche based deliveries with varied capabilities. and he clearly said that ASRs will be met by the time FOC is achieved in 2012. that will mean more weight reduction efforts and more time and consultancy with EADS on how to go about getting the edge of the envelope explored and cleared.

and more than a year ago (July 2008) he said that 500 flights more would be required to cover 3000 test points for IOC. at that time they had completed 860 flights or so, and now its closer to 1300 flights. more test points covered per flight as sorties can be of longer duration due to drop tanks and they’ve finished that work, with the full envelope opened up for IOC this year in December at Dabolim, Goa.

Here is a link on the subject.

http://defense-studies.blogspot.com/2009/12/saab-offers-sea-gripen.html

which will be of no use..the Naval LCA is much farther along than any notional Sea Gripen. and already the Indian Navy has placed an order with HAL for Rs 900 crore for 6 N-LCAs and an N-LCA prototype is under construction as of now.

link

Indian Navy has okay-ed the placement of an order for six Naval Tejas Light Combat Aircrafts (N-LCA). At an approximate cost of Rs 150 crore per aircraft, this will provide a Rs 900 crore infusion into the Naval LCA programme.

That investment in the Tejas programme is rooted in the navy’s plan to operate both light and medium fighters off its aircraft carriers.

The Naval LCA will supplement the heavier Russian MiG-29K, which has already been ordered from Russia. The Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC), being built at Cochin Shipyard, Kochi, has been designed with a separate aircraft lift and maintenance facilities for the LCA, in addition to facilities for the MiG-29K. That has linked the development of the Naval LCA with the construction of the IAC, which is expected to join the fleet by 2014.

But the LCA programme faces a bottleneck in choosing a new engine. Two uprated engines — the General Electric GE-414 and the Eurojet EJ-200 — are currently being evaluated, but will be supplied only by 2013-14. And only with the new engine will the LCA have the power to get airborne from an aircraft carrier.

P S Subramaniam, the Director of the Aeronautical Development Agency, which coordinates the LCA programme, explains: “We will fly the Naval LCA with the current GE-404 engine to test its flight characteristics, and whether its structural strength is sufficient for aircraft carrier operations. After the LCA is fitted with a new, more powerful engine we will take the next step of operating from an aircraft carrier.”

Meanwhile, a major shore-based test facility is coming up at INS Hansa, in Goa, which replicates an aircraft carrier deck on ground, complete with arrested recovery and a ski jump for take off. This facility, which is expected to be operational by October 2011, will be used for certifying the Naval LCA before actually flying off an aircraft carrier. This will also be used for pilots’ training and for training maintenance crews.