^ Only news I read was that MOD has disallowed purchase of a foreign ship design for the P17A.

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Navy gets ready to add more muscle

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Navy-gets-ready-to-add-more-muscle/articleshow/10876589.cms

India is all set to formally launch the hunt for over 75 heavy-duty “stealthy” naval helicopters with potent anti-submarine and anti-warship warfare capabilities, as also customized for amphibious assaults and commando operations against conventional, terror, piracy and other threats.

……

The project is likely to get even bigger at a later stage, with more such helicopters being ordered after the first 75. An initial lot will be obtained off-the-shelf from abroad, while the rest will be manufactured in India with the foreign collaborator’s help,” an MoD source said.

5 vendors have responded for RFI/RFP. Guess that would be NH90, S70B/MH60 and what else?

What is P1E ?

source for the $40 million figure? A Parliamentary report from long ago stated the figure as being closer to $30 million. The Mk2 may be costlier though.

Well, as per this article by Anantha (from Tarkmak) it costs about $42 mill per airframe.
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_channel.jsp?channel=defense&id=news/asd/2011/01/11/04.xml

Each of the Mk-1 platforms will cost $42 million and the Mark-II variant will cost $47 million each.

While the rediff article states Navy ordered 6 LCA’s for 900 crore ~ $31 mill.
http://news.rediff.com/report/2009/sep/21/navy-places-order-for-6-tejas-lca.htm

whats the cost of the TEjas so far? 30-40 mill?

also HAL considered making the two seat derivative into an advance trainer in the veins of the Original Korean T-50?

Yeah, it costs about 40 mill per airframe as of now. Hopefully this will reduce as production ramps up and economies of scale takes effect.

No, the advanced trainer role is being taken up by Hawk. LCA is also too expensive to use in the advanced trainer role.

The two seater is primarily for conversion type training.

Well, recovery of development costs is normally done over a desired break-even count of airframes. Expecting UAE to take the burden of the remaining 25% of the development cost is a bit ridiculous. Thats like saying hey, we dont expect anymore export sales of Rafales ever, so lets screw UAE and break-even with sales to them.

In Dassault’s current scenario, each Rafale sold for over-and-above the airframe construction cost goes towards repaying off the development cost. So even if they sell an airframe for 85 mill while the actual construction cost was 75 mill, Dassault would be getting an extra 10 mill for recovery of development cost. Ie, reduction of losses.

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[edited]

I imagine that with a 120Kn engine Mk2 is not going to have speed problems but it’s not just going to be a re-engined Mk1 with the wrinkles ironed out, so I suppose it could be subject to delay as is Mk1.

The Mk2 will have 98Kn version of the GE414. The 120Kn version is still under development and thus was not available for Mk2.

98Kn should be enough. Gripen manages with less thrust than what the Mk1 has while the Gripen-NG was to use about 98Kn or lower thrust too.

Its the major re-design of the aircraft which is worrying. It will take several years to undergo tests/development.

I dont see how Mk2 would be operational before 2020.

That has worried me for a long time. Those exposed engines would be a very significant radar reflector. Doesn’t bode well for the T-50’s all-aspect stealth prospects.

Hopefully when the final engine(with flat nozzles?) is installed the nacelles will all be covered like in the concept art we’ve seen.

Was the concept art an official image presentation?

If so, can you please post the link.

Otherwise, I do agree with you. Without a major re-design / change in nacelles and nozzle, T-50 will not be a full aspect stealth aircraft.