In other words; the 3,000 jobs in the UK are of no concern because we (BAE Systems) would get a huge chunk out of the 20,000+ Indian jobs made possible by selecting the Typhoon anyway. And, Indian employees would be much cheaper to employ with just as good skills the UK force would have had.

Everyones a winner…Apart from the poor sods that’d lose their jobs in the UK.

I wonder if this is part of Team Eurofighter’s L1 bid. I doubt French unions would accommodate such wholesale local assembly/manufacture of the Rafale at such a high cost to the french worker.

Meanwhile…the Austrians try to terrify the Indian President into selecting the EF:

Seconding Samsara on the IAF Thread, the incumbent ACM NAK Browne’s statement today that the IAF will adopt 166 single seat and only 48 two-seaters is highly significant. More details will probably emerge after Defence Minister Anthony’s 3-day visit to Moscow starting today, but many expected a 50/50 split instead of the announced ~78/22% composition.

It also falls-in with what Pogosyan said all along that RuAF and IAF versions will differ in “software only”. The Indian side will, no-doubt, be active co-developers for the 2-seater, but I guess this falls outside the remit of the current 18 month FGFA contract as the two seater will take significantly longer. Also, LCA mk2 problems probably mean an MMRCA of at least 200 is now a given.

Imho, the 2 seater will also be of interest to the RuAF as a dedicated stealth striker, successor to the Su-34 (it may explain why the Su-34 is not being procured in significant numbers).

Anyways, good news all-round!!

http://www.india-defence.com/reports-5113

Some nice pics from MAKS 2011, including PAK-FA:

http://www.hesja.pl/XPL/galeria/show/237

Not so simple, the economic fate of the US and China are intertwined, with the latter the biggest holder of US debt getting increasingly nervous over the fate of it’s foreign exchange reserves especially since S&P’s downgrade.

Barring all the shouting in the blogosphere, China’s bottomless appetite for US debt is a direct result of its own distorted currency regime, whereby it buys much of the foreign exchange streaming into the country in order to hold down the value of the Renminbi and, in turn, invests that foreign cash in US government bonds.

Beijing’s insistence on keeping tight control over the value of its own currency (keeping it artificially low to benefit exports) means it will have to continue investing its swelling foreign reserves in US government bonds for the foreseeable future- and it will pray that nothing precipitates a significant fall in the US$.

I suspect pre-MAKS.

I can’t imagine that they painted out the blue centre afterwards??:confused:

But you never know……. 😮

Ken

Well the guy sat in the cab of that truck is reading this morning’s ‘Pravda’, so there!!:p

I agree completely, Russia ideally needs to embrace COTS more than they are currently doing – in some fields they might stand a chance of catching up, but in others they’d better cut their losses and take the COTS approach. However, if for some reason (institutional inertia?) they do not wish to do so, their only, tenuous hope of accomplishing their aim is by maximising sales – and that means large-scale exports in addition to domestic production.

Maybe the Russkies are paranoid that some ‘Growler’ with a NGJ will tell their prized PAK-FA’s to head for Hawaii. The Indian armed forces no doubt will have similar concerns about COTS, I guess it’s a question of ‘who do you trust?’ Hell the Yanks don’t even trust the Brits!!

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&plckPostId=Blog%3A27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3A99a33f93-77bd-4b38-8983-79eccfd5e00e

However, I do think the Russians & Indians will co-develop/co-produce many future systems ( it wouldn’t surprise me if the Russians participate in the AMCA at some point), where one will often cover the other’s shortcomings. Their relationship is tried and tested.

Thats Mohanty speaking. And TBH as an analyst, he is so so. Not that clued in.

Take a look at his comments on the engine. He doesnt even know about the follow on engines being developed.

7. Lastly, and most importantly, Russia has offered India a workshare on the final, in development engine for the FGFA. This is the same engine NAK Browne just referred to and the one a Russian engine developer mentioned earlier this year. The HAL Director pointed out India should take this opportunity.

While I agree that the journalism is woeful, it is the quote that is interesting. Browne could only mean the second stage engine, I didn’t know of the project being offered to India as a partnership- but this is very good news.
Definitely a win-win for both parties as the Russians get a significant funding stream and the Indians get access to some very serious tech.

The IAF will definitely want all the ‘bells & whistles’ for their new toy so I think 2D nozzles are a given now for both airforces (the RuAF probably from the second batch with the new engine and for the IAF from the first deliveries) , the expected timeline for 2017/18 isn’t bad either. AfaIk, the FGFA design is not frozen as it is an 18 month project. We shall see how the tag “very different” pans out but iIrc, ~50 of the first IAF examples will be single-seaters.

In other news, no doubt Project PAK-FA will receive another boost in 2012 as Putin re-assumes the Presidency. The T-50 is to Putin what the Death Star is to Lord Vader.;)

http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=578502

There is no direct relation between physical dimensions and RCS, but there is ‘some relation’ between them.

Sorry, I should have been more specific- I meant frontal geometric cross section, where it appears the Russkies have spared no effort.

This is a good intro to RCSR (probably ‘beneath’ your knowledge), with an interesting table (scroll down), particularly cylinders:

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/electronics/q0168.shtml

Nice artwork, btw. Thanks.