Well all these new fighters from Russia, China are music to the ears of the US fighter business, and especially the JSF program, given Raptor production is stopped.

I didnt even know he was with Frontline. FL despite being a Lefty mag, seems to have had the best defence reportage – still continuing with articles from TS Subramaniam. That Ravi Sharma dude though is another gasbag and barely knowledgeable about defence though he sprinkles his articles with a lot of jargon…

Aroor has another article on his blog from some “IAF officer” who is writing secretly for him..

Basically, the crux of the article is:
-Sukhoi can make this aircraft on its own
– So HALs design contribution is nothing

No details at all..his quest to drive eyeballs to his blog continues.

just when you thought the man could go no lower he reaches bottom and starts digging. sigh ! what an amazing comedown for one who was India’s best military issues journalist at one time.

You are talking about his India Today days right? He, Hormuz Mama & a couple others were on my must read list. Somewhere along the way, Joshi totally gave up on serious authorship, source checking and fact based journalism, versus being another guy relying on rabble rousing.

I do not think they are in a hurry…..

With the Su-30 MKI upgrade in discussion & the MMRCA on the way, plus LCA MK-2s the IAF can wait for the FGFA.

The MKI will continue to be the premier air dominance platform, with the upgrade conferring new capabilities again. A 1mtr square aperture sized PESA upgrade, then AESA, plus the new LRAAMs the Russians are developing/offering with the Su-35S, plus a new EW suite would extend the MKIs dominance in the subcontinent & even versus advanced Flanker derivatives fielded by a likely adversary.

How would the air force define what they need from the plane thrust, weapons load, range, sensors, software, RCS etc., you know like the air staff requirements for the LCA Tejas Project? (may be government to government deals are different, however i think InAF must have been consulted about the JV and spent a lot of time thinking about these things).

Mostly, they’ll see what the Russians have, run it by their own guys, plus DRDO (ADA, LRDE, DARE, GTRE etc) to get a handle of what is feasible & try to have stuff put in that’s missing, from their operational requirement point of view. It won’t be a clean sheet design as the LCA was or AMCA will be, but the objective of putting our designers in Russia & vice versa is to evolve common standards for software & hardware, and have both parties on the same page as development progresses.

Will India have the choice of choosing third party (outside of Russia and India) hardware or hardware developed as JV with some other nation, on the FGFA?

Yes, but it depends on the equipment. You can integrate (for example) navigation equipment sourced from India or abroad, specific avionics items etc but given this is a RF discrete & volume optimized aircraft, you cant just put in any third party radar or EW or radio.

The Indian side will have to be far more involved than it was with the Su-30 MKI. Software integration will also be more challenging, since this will be more advanced than anything the Russians have done so far, with complete sensor fusion (360 degree situational awareness) & if India wants to incorporate its own weapons and systems onto the aircraft in future, like it did with the MKI, it has to be aware of design details from the beginning itself and seek to incorporate its requirements from day one.

I found three interesting bits of information in contract.

First is the funding being provided in tranches. This is better project management & keeps cost control honest & both partners engaged through the program, then all the funding released upfront & later complaints about escalation.

Second, the real bit of positive news is that India is not accepting a “downgraded” FGFA with the current engines & is willing to invest & go with the FGFA with the penultimate powerplant.

Third, the bit about reduced RCS being affected by a two seater cockpit (raised) – which should by itself not be a big deal given coated cockpits, yet the Russians noted this point.

This plus the really recessed, carefully “flattened” shape of the prototype aerodynamic testbed, is another pointer to how much effort the designers have already put into shaping to reduce the RCS.

Clearly, despite the talk of exposed fan-blades and Su-27 derivative from some sections, this aircraft has been designed for stealth & the designers are keeping the end objective in mind when it comes to production variants.

Yes at the time it was, but lately the N001 got improved as well regarding processor and chips arcitecture layout.

As I recall, the N001 was to receive a “bypass channel” with an additional processor to enable additional A2G modes & A2A modes and R-77 capability. Hardly a new architecture layout. It was a workaround the difficulty in integrating capabilities into the legacy N001 radar. In contrast, the Bars has an all new antenna, and a modern architecture, designed from the beginning to accept software & other upgrades. It also has a modern programmable signal processor & dual radar computers. Basically, while the 2 Phase N001V upgrade (if the second phase with new processor and receiver was carried out) increases the capability, it still lags in overall performance behind the Bars & has limited growth potential. The radars likely never received the inexpensive (read lesser performance) Pero phased array either & hence will have tracking rate, beam steering limitations as well versus a phased array system.

Teer congrats once again on the correct prediction of the akash orders ! 🙂

Thanks! I do think the MK2 may land a few as well. There were 30 Pechora Squadrons, and even with 8 Akash MK1 & 9 MRSAM squadrons, theres still a shortfall of around 13 squadrons, even considering the MRSAM/Akash are more advanced, I do think the IAF would want more SAMs to protect Vital Areas & Points. The Army orders for the SA-6 Group replacements are the icing on the cake.

I do wish though the IAF had picked up a few Trishul squadrons as well. From what is known, the system was a performer, by the time its guidance problems were worked out. It was very hard to jam & the Flycatcher & thermal imager combo made it very accurate, and hard to jam.

Anyways, the IAF moved on & picked up the F&F SpyDer & now there is the SRSAM program. It looks to be a very capable system as well & hope they get MBDA to sign on the dotted line fast.

Quad,

Theres a lot of public info for all of us to digest. I only post that. 🙂

Seems rather inefficient to upgrade such an old and obsolete system doesn’t it? Wouldn’t it be appropriate to acquire more Tunguska systems, with the added capability to fire SAMs? And the tender was released in 1997?! why has it taken 13 years for such an incremental upgrade to an obsolete system?!

Rookh,

A fair number of points, let me go one by one.

If you read the articles – one mentions missile firing capability can be added. Which missile – whether IglaS type or a heavier one, is not mentioned, but the FCS combo can handle it.

Even without the missiles, I’d disagree the Shilka is not worth keeping around. It has 4 very capable guns, which can literally shred any helicopter or aircraft caught in its zone of fire. The challenge was to incorporate sensors which would enable these guns to accurately get to the target.

The 1997 date is notional, in that I doubt funds were available to progress the project immediately. It probably got a renewed emphasis around 2003-05, when I first heard about the program.

Second, the Army’s specifications were pretty comprehensive, and even with Israeli assistance, it has taken a fair while to incorporate them. They have changed both engines (APU & main engine), incorporated all new interior electronics with LCD & new FCS, plus brought in a new thermal imager+LRF and a Phased Array radar (compact, 3D). Integration of this sort is challenging and time consuming, to incorporate ruggedization for all the new items introduced.

Now finally, why no more Tunguskas? Well, they are expensive & as and when the Army chooses to replace these upgraded ZSU’s, they may go for something more advanced than the current Tunguska variants in production. I am thinking they’ll ask for guns & fire & forget missiles both.

Overall, with this upgrade, the Shilkas can be kept around for several years to come & they’ll be effective both day & night, all weather, have better maintanability & survivability, even in heavy EW conditions with their passive thermal imaging.

Hi Teer,

If the new EW system combines RWR and jamming then is the Tarang RWR going to be replaced or will the interfaces be changed and the cockpit display of the Tarang be removed and information shown on a MFD instead ? The MiG-27 in the picture shows it carrying the Tarang..

They might keep the original Tarang – I’d presume the new EWS will work with the Tarang interfaces as well, since DARE designed both & would keep that in mind to minimize integration hassles.

Coming to display, the Tarang introduced a dedicated display with symbology for the 8222 pod as well, to avoid overloading the limited single MFD in the original MiG-27 Upgrade. IMO, the Tarang was designed keeping IAF issues in mind, that the Tarang could also be used with older legacy cockpits without compromising on functionality, ie displaying color images, symbols

But the new DARIN-3, the Tejas, the MiG-29 Upg all have full glass cockpits, so they may drop the dedicated display and have the information fused on one of the MFDs. The new R118 RWR (which succeeds the Tarang & is being used on recent upgrades) can reportedly do sensor fusion as well, combining both radar and RWR information into one display.

So will the MiG-29UPG carry out integration tests for this afterwards ? I’m asking this since a couple of IAF MiG-29s were sent to Russia to act as templates for the rest of the fighters to be upgraded in India.

I’d assume the trials for EW on the MiG-29 may be conducted in India but with OEM (partly) informed to make sure no EMI/EMC issues arise at a later date. An interesting thing is thanks to upgrades of the MiG-27 and 23 series (first DARE jammers were developed for 2 squadron LSP of MiG-23/27 types) they are fairly familiar with Russian aircraft & possible challenges.

The MiG-29 program started at least a year back itself.
http://www.flightforum.org/military-aviation-news/dare-wants-bel-iaf-to-fund-ew-suite-for-mig-29s/

Whereas this year, we had confirmation & the report implies that the program was extended for the MLU of the Su-30 MKI as well (with 100 aircraft to begin with). Replacing the RWR alone makes little sense & the report from the recent EW confernece provides the context that this meant jamming as well.

http://www.allbusiness.com/defense-aerospace/aerospace-industry-military-aircraft/14838964-1.html

What this means IMO, is the phase 2 of the Su-30 MKI may receive the follow on EWS mentioned as Gen 4.

It’ll be good to replace the Elta El/L-8222 pod since it uses up a station on all the fighters that use it. The Bison especially would’ve been a good candidate for it with just 4 pylons. But maybe it really lacks internal space for an internal EW suite?

It uses up a station & the new EWS will be even better placed with more sophisticated capabilities. Its a multi transmitter EW system, implying more effective radiated power & per public reports, can handle far more targets than the EL/L-8222.

The Bison as you said lacks space & plus it’s on the way out, with the aircraft to be retired in another decades time.

Whats interesting is the progress on the AEW&C system. Tarmak (one of the better journos) notes the program is progressing well, with systems being supplied to Embraer for integration. DARE is also supplying the ESM & CSM suite plus self protection aids for the AEW&C program. The ESM suite is of particular interest. Again, per whats been publicly discussed, this is the most sophisticated suite developed locally so far, with a wide range of techniques used for precision threat location.