He does get quite critical of Rafale, to be sure, and he clearly rates it as inferior to Rafale in some ways but I’ve seen him make far more positive comments about Rafale (good programme management, more mature, better current Air-to-Ground capabilities) than I’ve seen his critics making positive comments about Eurofighter.

Mostly delivered in the form of backhanded compliments at the end of a vigorous session of slagging all the french contributors, misspelling their names, calling them fanboys, dismissing all their sources as PR hacks and dassault flunkeys.

A single article on the Rafale comes out, praising it, and after a bitter whinging session on this forum against it, a certain “two time aviation journalist of the year” coincidentally happens to write a vitriol laced article in turn dismissing the above article, coincidentally almost line and verse in common in sections with aforesaid gents comments on this forum. Coincidence, surely. Yeah, right.

And at the end of it all, some self justifying bombast saying “but but the Rafale has better program management..that I admit..”…really doesnt cut it.

Supporting the EF is fine, but taking it to such levels is somewhat nuts. Its near obsession. Not to mention this uncouth behaviour invariably drags everyone else to the same level.

Robban

On my spare HD lying somewhere at home, are pics copied from the net ..including pics of a Su-30 HUD with a F-16 in it, some pics from old Mike Spick books with HUD shots..
What I mean to say is that by no means are the French unique in taking HUD shots and allowing them to be published.

To be fair though they do seem to be relatively easy going about such things..I cant imagine my nations AF for instance allowing the kind of aerial footage shot for that Mirage 2000 film Les Chevaliers something something or even footage of low level flying as of the Chad Mirage F1s etc.

I’m not surprised to see a Typhoon getting “killed” by a Rafale. I’m sure the a Rafale has been “killed” by a Typhoon as well.

I’m more interested in the French fetish of taking HUD shots and posting them all over the internet.

So many HUD shots from so many AFs all over the net. Whats being French got to do with it?

PS- I am not French.

We’ve all been on the net long enough to know how ppl react to these things and statements like the one below from Teer just underlines this.

Before acting as his sockpuppet, take a look at the number of posts he has made which literally wrecked discussions on the Rafale and entire threads. One respected poster TMor even left.

And before getting more whiney, take a look at the first post in the thread which cites him as well – no complaints there?

Then – take a look at the smileys. Sarcasm, see?

Finally, if my post makes you get so upset – theres always the ignore list. And if its Friday where you are at, have a beer.

If they werent up for the job why would the IAF agree to them?

Plus Tejas production will ramp up from 2015 onwards, thats six years away, why should the IAF ignore its Mirage 2000’s till then. If the French upgrade offer is too expensive, theres always Israel.

PS: The above news points out that the IAF has “upped” its stated demand for LCA MK2 to seven squadrons from five. And the increased confidence in the LCA is also evident from the report that the 2nd MK1 squadron will be a standard combat one (18 single seat, 2 trainers). A nine squadron run for the IAF is substantial by itself, and more can definitely be ordered over time – just look at MKI orders, and Jaguar ones.

Not really, what happens to the 787 can only be taken in the context of the 787! you can not paint the whole of the industry based on results from the 787. Remember as much as many people would like to make the world believe it Boeing is not the global aerospace industry.

Whether one likes it or not, many a/c manufacturers and observers are seeing the 787 closely to see whether Boeing’s attempt will work or not. If it doesnt, then the fact that a huge, rich OEM couldnt make it work will mean a plus for the naysayers and an incentive for many oem’s to stick to simpler tech. for the time being, thats the reality.

Honeywell:

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Interviews/Honeywells-future-flight-plan-to-be-driven-by-Indian-engineers/articleshow/5258858.cms

Honeywell’s future flight plan to be driven by Indian engineers
23 Nov 2009, 0149 hrs IST, Peerzada Abrar, ET Bureau

Rob Wilson, president, business and general aviation, of Honeywell , the world’s largest maker of airplane controls, told Peerzada
Abrar that his company’s engineers in India have developed the next-generation flight management system and are set to play a significant role in evolving Honeywell’s local presence as well. Excerpts from an interview:

What kind of engineering innovation do you see coming from Honeywell’s India research centre?

Our flight management system (FMS), designed and developed by engineers in India, is flying on Gulfstream G650’s first flight. It is a very complex technology which will allow Gulfstream to take advantage of every current and future air traffic modernisation functionality worldwide. The product will be driven by the engineers here.
We have made a strategic investment in our general aviation product line, the Bendix King, which is mainly focused on the North American market for design and development. We moved their major products KSN 770, which offers the latest in aviation digital Nav/Comm technology.

Several hundred engineers are working on that design and development. We are also developing flight control for small GA aircrafts. It is a control technology in the US, which limits our ability to sell all over the world.
The engineers in India are developing indigenously-designed flight control in co-operation with National Aerospace Laboratories, to offer it worldwide.

How complex are these technologies and can engineers in India move up the value chain?

The kind of work we are doing in India for the future is quite advanced and complex. For instance, FMS is on the order of 3-4 million lines of software code, that probably is the highest level of interaction and complexity. There is no limit for working on most advanced products. We are already working on some of the new software and products that have applications on the most advanced jets, that even haven’t been announced yet.

Do you see more offshoring and outsourcing by global aviation industry to emerging markets like India?

We look at it from a global perspective, it is going to grow where the best work is done. Business jets are made worldwide and it is all about overall growth.

As chairman of the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, what is the outlook for the aviation industry?

After contracting, it will start expanding again from 2011 and we will get back into shape by 2015. However, in India, which has a small fleet of over 300 aircraft, roughly around 120 jets, it is growing faster at 10-15%.

So can we or can’t we say that the MCA project has already started officially?

If you go back & read what I have said – the official start, ie fully funded FSED program will come later. That is not what was under debate however, which was whether the IAF etc were even interested in the MCA to begin with. That they clearly are – note HAL mentioning it as the clincher. Capex is not decided on whims of fancy.

The reason why I used these words or asked these questions was very simple. Over the years there has been way too much debate about the start date of LCA project. Some say it was 1983, some say no it was later because ADA was being established during first few years and some say no it was in early 1990s because of so on. Some people have often quoted a book written by a retired indian armed forces official putting the actual start date of the project around early 90s or so. The debate, however, goes on. So, I just wanted to see whether people (on this forum) could agree whether this project has officially started or not, and/or when do they think such a project starts officially.

Unfortunately, the so called debate is because mostly trolls are the only people concerned about saying that the LCA was started in 1983 etc and it gives them an easy trick to sidetrack the discussion. So whenever the LCA etc achieves something, they will pop up with this theme. Its irrelevant though.

I still fail to understand what relevance this issue has in the present context, since I have repeatedly noted that this is not the FSED development of the MCA. And that even the involved PD phase which takes a lot of time is kicked off with user interest, which is what is going on here.

Anyways, the retired armed services official you are apparently referring to is none other than the man who headed ADA, AM Rajkumar – and he was a distinguished combat and test pilot to boot.

If he is too unreliable for your tastes being a retired service official, then perhaps the current incumbent, ie head of ADA might do – P Subramanyam, who went on record in July 2008:

People say that the project was started in 1983. The truth is that ASR itself was not available in 1983. All that had happened was that conceptually the country had decided on a need for LCA. It took five-six years to arrive at a definition of what the LCA would be. The ASR was given in 1985, and it took us till 1988, we understood what the IAF was looking for..

He goes onto say that the PD et took till 1991, and it was then that the GOI released only Rs 21880 Million for two Technology Demonstrators. Only when these flew, did the clearance for an actual combat aircraft come at end 2001, with 3301 crores for 5 PV, and 8 LSP.

So that is two people, saying exactly the same thing. Does one have to find a third ..i hope not.

So – hope you now understand what I was referring to, that the MCA is currently at the stage where the IAF is deciding upon its ASRs, while the ADA does some of the preliminary scoping and groundwork.

This is fairly involved stuff and this is where they have come up with the estimate of Rs 5000 Crore and some 5-6 prototypes.

The formal Engineering development program is likely to be kicked off only by 2015 onwards – till then they have time to thrash out the issue with the IAF & decide on what is what. And the IAF will itself know more about what it wants.

And that is when the MCA will formally begin, ie the actual development of the fighter itself & not the bureaucratic paperwork, the initial scoping etc. which is often a key cause of delay (if you dont have money in time, your suppliers are not happy either)!

And all this is being done because the IAF has asked for it, and HAL is keeping its future capex in mind, likewise. The entire point is to do this so by the time the MK2 development is complete, you dont have to waste time thereafter doing “all this” but concentrate on the engineering, and the MCA program can begin smoothly.