they are planning for a higher thrust engine with French collaboration for the Tejas Mk2 with a thrust of 90kN.

I still cannot understand why such a stupid plan of 90kN thrust engine sooooo late in the show when a higher thrust RD-33MK is available or just around the corner….

Mk2 will be powered by GE-414 engine of 98kN.

LCA Mk1 might be refitted later in MLU with the new kaveri.. but i have my doubts on that.

From SNaik in BRF:

http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewtopic.php?p=1217328#p1217328

Teg scheduled for delivery trials between 23 March-16 April, 2012. Tarkash started mooring trials on 25 November. Trikand lags behind even the revised schedule.

Schedule for tests and delivery of Vikramaditya:
First two turbines already tested (steam supplied from pier), last two will be tested by the end of the year. Steam raised in first boiler on 26 December, other 7 to be tested by the end of January. After that mooring tests will continue using onboard steam supply.
The crew will start to man the ship 90 days before trial, end of February.
Electronic equipment tests and fine-tuning have started, scheduled to be finished by mid-March.
De-gaussing scheduled in April, test runs to start on 25 May. First 2-3 weeks scheduled for builders trials, next three and a half months – joint tests of aviation systems and airwing. In October V. should go into dry-dock, November is scheduled for for final shake-down and in early December the ship is expected to be delivered to India.

Looks like Vikramaditya faces a very tight schedule.

What was the failure specifically?

Weird, Al-31 has a pretty good reputation reliability wise.

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww304/d9aplus/Mi171SAR1sm.jpg

Slick cockpit, Mi-17V5

Will the 80 new IAF Mi-17s come with a similar cockpit config ?

^That sounds great. I wonder if it will fit through the lift though.

2 per carrier would be enough while they keep 1 spare on shore for repairs/emergency replacement.

I am looking fwd to IAC-1 launching by mid of next year. It will just be the base hull and a lot of work on would still be required on the upper structure. Still would be nice to see.

23 RAAF F-111s are being buried.

Thanks for the informative post Scorpion82.

Indian Navy to induct 24 P-8I maritime reconnaissance aircraft

– 12 more will be ordered at a future date.

http://idrw.org/?p=5656#more-5656

India has very long way to go to catch with China assuming its economy does not blow up with all the imported spending.

You have a serious misconception of the Indian economy. Its not based on import consumption but internal consumption. Internal consumption forms the primary part of internal growth along with exports.

Anyhow, this is OT so please dont bring your misconceptions to this thread.