I am really lost on why Russia would want a side-by-side seating Flanker. The Su is already a very large fighter with a big radome. You don’t see Boeing doing the same with the F-15E/K…………….. :confused:

The same reason exists for the Su-24, -32FN and -34.

It seems that in long flights, especially over the ocean, you get better crew morale when the pilots seat side by side instead of front and back.

Errrr are you in some kind of special ed program? All engines have a warrentied specs. WHich means if and WHEN they are used they have to perform to specs (remember thats what the IAF did not like about the AL-31F engines…and thats why you found that article in the first place). If they DONT perform to specs then they hae a problem. So if the story that you found so efficiently was dated Dec 2003 then I guess the SPARE engines were covered under warrenty 7 years hence (thats why I keep repeating that you donno what you are talking abotu with respect to warrenties) and that should be another indication to you that these are not AL-31FP coz those planes were inducted only in Sept 2002 and they couldnt have flown 1000 hrs in 1.25 years. Remember we are talking about “premature failure” of spare engines here, which averted ANY grounding/cannibalization like the PLAAF coz of the very high sparing factor.

Excuse me, your math does not add up.

You are saying that your warranty is covered not because those are the original engines that came with the Ks were delivered. More likely these original engines would have been replaced, and that these engines are newer (accounting for your sparing factor) you are finding that these, and your spares have been discovered to have problems.

Now it seems you have a problem believing the sparing factor for the MKI (see you wont find open source # for the K but they are comparable, dont ask why/how). Since you have been sooooooooo efficent in finding the articles that talk about the nicks in engines I am sure you can find sources for the sparing factor too. Its not 7 to be precise its 6.57. I am not going to spoon feed you everything. You are the one with an axe to grind…I zimbly enjoy grinding your assertions. However since I still come from a civilized world I will give you a bone or two. The magic # you will be looking for is 920. You find 920 AL-31FP engines and you ve found your sparing factor.

Why don’t you show me an article showing sales of such? Show me proof. 920 engines btw is an extremely heavy budget when you have problems funding other purchases and upgrades.

If you cannot find proof, get Salyut, Lyulka or UMPO’s corporate balance sheets to show me the spike that indicated these engine purchases.

But you are very right…its an abnormally HIGH sparing factor, but you dont seem to understand or appreciate HOW MUCH trouble the IAF got into with the RD-33. I donno how old you were around that time…but those were real tough times for the IAF and it too some Indian ingenuity (I guess the Ukeranians were too busy helping the PLAAF) to figure out how to keep the Mig-29’s airborne. But wheather you like it or not the sparing factor for the IAF fulcrums is VERY HIGH and thats what keeps the operational tempo.

Uh uh. That is a lesson poorly learned. You continue to purchase engines after they failed. Not only that you bought a lot of engines—which only reinforces the factor for the Russians not to fix their engines, since their short and expendable life makes it profitable.

Why is why you sound so unconvincing once the facts are taken apart.

It would have been better to pressure the Russians to live up to their specifications or you tell them to **** off.

If your engines actually live up to an MBTO of 1000 flight hours, you don’t need a high sparing factor at all.

Since the chinese went from sub-standard Mig-21 clones to a Flanker they really didnt have a clue about how bad things could get when you errr…dont

Actually China’s MiG-21 clones are built quite well, and their engine life is double the specs from the Russian equivalent.

There is almost no complaints about the J-11s, and even the Russians admit to their build quality. Hence why China prefers to build their own.

reverse engineer (or cant) and have to adhere to a real world contract. Perhaps thats why they have so many problems. THe Indians learnt very well with what it takes to maintain these complex beast and threw as much money as they could to head off probelms with 920 AL-31FP.

Excuse me. You got nothing but to lead your own myths. Indeed China is licensed to recreate every part of the aircraft except for the engine (which the Russians refused) and possibly the radar (which the Chinese rejected but I think they rejected the N001VEP.)

China is using technologies used in the J-10 project to their own J-11s. That means indigenous slotted array/phase array radar, missile support for PL-12 BVRAAMs, PL-8C AAMs, YJ-91 HARMs, and YJ-83 ASMs; composite construction; digital cockpits; digital fly by wire.

Everyone by now knows what China is doing. Sukhoi tried to persuade them with the Su-27SKM variant and that didn’t seem to go well. Now it may be trying with the Su-35BN.

Its not some superiority complex it is simply stating the facts. IAF learnt from its very expensive mistakes.

It seems to me that you don’t actually. You didn’t bring the Russians to task about their quality, but instead massaged that habit by buying more spares. The fact that the IAF bought what it knows to be defective engines in such quantities is incredulous. The Chinese brought the Russians to the task when the Russians provided the AL-31FNs for the J-10 and required them to build the engines to a specific quality level.

Unlikes the reverse engineering Chinese the Indians always stuck to their contracts and knew full well what it would take to keep the -31F and FP viable.

You contradict yourself. It is obvious you don’t know how to make the engines viable and that’s why you have such a high sparing factor. If you know how to truly fix them you won’t need a high sparing factor.

If the chinese were dumb enough or naieve enough to think they could have reverse engineered the a/c in a matter of years you wouldnt be in this conundrum. Wheather you like it or not those are the sad facts.

They don’t need to reverse engineer much of the aircraft; all the technology was licensed to them. But of course the Russians withhold certain informations, which the Chinese apparently used espionage and reverse engineering to fill the gaps.

There is no conundrum by the way. Like I said, occasional grounding for safety inspections is routine for every airforce.

And yes, China has a large complex made to repair and maintain its Flankers. It choose Ukrainian help because it is not satisfied with Sukhoi. Yet obviously you are—but then China has a lot more Flankers than you do. Close to 300 and in 12 large regiments. Sukhoi is trying to clean up its act by relocating parts depots close to the Chinese border and opening an office in Beijing. The Ukranians is like a card in a poker deck. Suddenly it makes Sukhoi get worried, so now they come down kissing butt of the Chinese leadership and of the PLAAF.

It used to be that the Chinese visit Russia to see the latest armaments. Now, it’s the Russians who come down to China to show their stuff. Their joint arms exercise is more like a marketing exercise to them.

I agree with you. But I sincerely donno what the “exact problem” was. But from what I understood. There was a major disagreement b/w the IAF/Lyulka on what the root cause was. It was a very specific failure of components that the IAF refused to accept happend to its “handling/operations/deployment” of the Su-30K (coz some engines worked perfect and some didnt, no consistency in performance) and Lyulka thought otherwise, but they had to stick to their end of the contract which explicitly stated (this time around) what was and was not covered.

Which still does not fix the “fact” which I think is pretty stupid, that you would buy 920 engines knowingly they are defective and will fail prematurely?

The point is that IAF knew stuff like this happens with Russian engines and went crazy with the sparing factor and NEVER grounded the No.24.

Grounding for safety is actually the more logical choice. Because you just showed the Russians you are still willing to buy their defective products in large quantity knowing they got problems. That would not encourage them to fix their problems. That in the long run, would also endanger your pilots.

We are happy with the vendors coz when the engines worked as they were contracted for, the IAF had nothing to complain. Unhappy with them coz they were “new” to this brave new world of “after sales service and warriented repairs” 😀 But to cover you based you need 6.57 engines.

Excuse me. But the more you talk, the more unbelievable you get. You are happy with vendors that supply you with crappy engines?

Well we are not talking about the “cost” of the MKI program. WHy do I have to keep reminding you that this is about the grounding of the flankers for “both countries”.

Excuse me, but grounding is something you do to ensure the safety of your pilots.

YOu love to take on tangents when you have nothing else to contribute dont you. What ironic is that MKI has NOTHING to do with the K episode but thats the only a/c for which I can give you a # for the sparing fact that IAF has for its new flankers (something it did not need before the collapse of the CCCP, but something that really hit them hard after collapse, remember Su-30K/MKI are part of the new world order deals, these are hard cash deals not rupee-rouble bhai bhai equal equal deals)

It has everything to do because it involves the same engine.

I understand that you are totally unwilling to accept the fact that unlike the PLAAF all flanker service and repairs are done in India itself.

The PLAAF service and repairs now are done completely in China for sometime now. That includes both airframe and engine overhauls. One of the conditions about the AL-31F and -FN is that if China cannot be licensed to produce them, China must be able to overhaul them without sending them back to Russia.

So the factory that you refer to is in HAL Koraput and not in Ufa (right now they come from UMPO but they are fully serviced in Koraput/Pune). The N011M either goto HAL Bangalore (same as above) or and I know this for a fact HAL Bangalore comes to them. I know you have to ship stuff via fedex to Kieve to perhaps even get a ball bearning lubed but no such love for India…everything is done in the country. Yep those russians sure have tan working in India. :diablo:

What’s your point?

Thats it I guess. Now we just have to wait for you to get back to this post and get us going around in circles coz you will NEVER accept that the Indians have such great forsight (thanks to the RD33) to know what happens with Russian equipment. I am sure you will have to come up with some stupid twist to simple fact that Indians have never lost operational tempo on their flankers and the PLAAF (according to you) can barely keep its planes out of the hanger.

I really have to task you to find me an article or report that you bought and Russia delivered 920 AL-31F/FP engines. In past tense. Not an article planning or in future tense. You understand English tense do you? Those kinds of purchases in that size do not avoid the press, Indian, Russian or international, or arms registry treaties.

It just seems to me the more you talk, the more incredulous you become. Like as if you are inventing things out of nowhere.

If you have a problem you fix it. You go to the root of the problem, not bandage the problem and hope it goes away. Now that is what you call true foresight.

You don’t enrich the parties who make the faulty merchandise by buying more of it even for spares, because you only reinforce that habit. That is not great foresight. That is utmost stupidity.

As for the PLAAF, if they can’t get their aircraft from the hanger, why do they have 300 and counting, and why don’t you ask the ROCAF how come these Flankers would buzz close to their airspace testing ROCAF interception times, reading their signals, or just playing psych war with them.

crobato.

Your Tam from CDF? 😮

I thought everyone knew!

Now you claim that i wasn’t itegrated, last year you claimed , it was flying with J-10 and more engines will not be ordered. make up your mind liar. Now the latest AL-31 FN deal is for J-1- and not for any other planes. Why do you drag them in between.J-11 will have its own engine management practices. Crobato don’t lie. You are just making this up.You even don’t know which engine is going where. For hiding one lie, you are making up more lies.

chinawhite,

First tell me you translate english in simple chinese or Traditional chinese to understand?

tphuang,

What crap you are typing? You even don’t know why Craboto is being taken for task. You too have a habit of coming out with imagenery figures. It was proved last debate we had and even now!

You know chiko, when did I ever say that AL-31FN won’t be ordered again? Go around various posts and you will see I mentioned that China may order around 300 engines to justify the commitment they have with the Russians who has invested in a special production line and quality assurance program just to make the engines exclusively for China. I also mentioned there won’t be enough WS-10A for the J-10s at least for a while and it would require a new level of quality for the J-10 beacuse it is a single engined plane which has no backup if the engine fails.

I remember your type. Long time ago, you people disputed me that the Russians will ever offer TVC for China, much less for the J-10, TVC being an exclusive special for the MKI and not anyone else. Go back to many of my posts that go back for years, and I have long ago mentioned the TVC options for the J-10.

Just like it was integrated in J-10 and J-11 last year and China was never supposed to order engines again from Russia. :diablo:

It wasn’t integrated with the J-10 yet and China still has to order engines from Russia because of the MKKs (about a 100) and other Russian built Su-27s (about over 70 of them), not to mention early J-11s built from Russian kits. 150 engines are pitifully small, since you can only build 75 J-11s without leaving spares. It is very likely that the order is split into new J-11s and spares for the older planes, and that will only probably leave you around 30 planes at the most. This is at best, only a half a year’s supply at the most.

So yeah, the engines are ordered in order to partly offset the WS-10A slow initial production, and note, not enough for the J-10.

A new variant F-15 IMO would be the best choice for Japan.

The manufacturing infrastructure is already there. Pilots and technicians are already familiar with the type and it offers the most bang for the buck.

Something based on the F-15E with AESA radar, maybe or maybe not APG-63v2 but perhaps the Japanese would try to design a new AESA radar again. Use the GE F110-229 or -232 engines. Use AIM-9X and AIM-120C if APG-63V2 is used or use AAM-3 and AAM-4 if Japanese domestic radar is used.

I’m pretty sure that the Japanese politicans would not accept a pure US product for nationalistic reasons and go for another hybrid where they could incorporate home grown improvements.

Bubba…why do I have the displeasure of reminding you that we are talking about the K (you keep dragging the MKI into this coz of some grand delusions you have). They were definately 7 years old and YET their engines were covered under warrenty…which is why your 3 years claim is totally BS with regards to the IAF. If you could think out of your indoctrinated box you would know what elements are and are not covered. Hence the question of cannibalization (i.e. taking working engines with low hours and putting them into viable airframes JUST DOES NOT ARISE…they have a very high sparing factor. Wheather you believe it or not)

No reason to believe you. 7 year old engines still covered under warranty? Heh. You mean under a service contract, or you have replaced the original engines altogether. Given 1000 hours of service life, you fly them 200-300 hours per year and they don’t live up to spec, they will hit their limit in about three years or so.

7 engines per plane is ridiculous. Your engines must be so bad. The Russians, ready to launch a war at NATO at the height of the Cold War, never maintained such ratios even among their aircraft.

I just wonder how you can have so many spares for one plane type, while you can barely fly another.

There you go again…ASSUMING it happens….I didnt ask you for your assumption I was happily reading all the BS about MKK and Mig-29K even though everything stated in this thread was BS…then you decide to come along and poop on this thread by telling us what YOU think about “both countires” and someone has to set you stright. Also there is no logic in your assumptions and you know that too.

Oh I see. So you’re the Forum policeman out to set anyone straight because the IAF is above criticism and IAF personnel are above reproach.

Let me remind you that the problems on Russian aircraft and their engines happens to be quite well known around the world.

Do you WANT ME QUOTE the person who introduce FOD to this disussion again? I didnt say it was FOD, I told you WHY its not FOD….that tells me how much you read or are able to comprehend my posts. I dont wanna be repeasting things for a shanghai statistician like you, sit with a dictionary and re-read that post.

FOD would be the least of your problems man if you have 40 engines out 3 squadrons that showed problems.

But I must commend you for trying to think out of the box for once. Its not really a FOD issue at all…coz the IAF makes sure that FO are not strewn on the runway or taxi ways. Maybe PLAAF does not do that…and thats why you like to drag the IAF to that level. Its a much deeper issue, and that why the whole question of WHAT THE WARRENTY SAYS, WHATS COVERED comes into issue.

Haha. What’s your attitude that the PLAAF is below your level? I guess you have a superiority complex.

Go look up how many engines were contracted for the MKI (AFIK the K # is not public so you dont need to know).

Yeah, well show me.

But the sparing factor is comparable. And YES FINALLY YOU GET IT. The IAF was/is really really scared of the russians engines thanks to what happed with the RD-33. And they know what happens when engines start failing and they know how hard it is to get these engines serviceable with little or no support. Thats EXACTLY what the PLAAF might be going through with its AL-31F. SO if you had stated that PLAAF was cannibalizing and ground its flankers like the IAF did with its fulcrum I would have actually bought you beer….not kicked you around like this.

Now you are getting to understand the situation. The engines suck.

By the way, a high sparing factor would not resolve the engine problems. Why?

Because whatever affected your engine online would also affect your engine spares.

And you would be pretty dumb to order 7 more of the same engine when such engine is already basically defective.

You get your engines from Salyut and get the ukeranians to repair them coz your PLAAF guys donno the difference flat head and phillips head. Lyulka-UMPO comes to India and sets up service and production facilties. Big difference. But for the record the K’s engines went kaput it was all vendors fault for not being up-to-spec. You cannot even imgine why, all you need to know is that they were very well used.

[Thats not my problem, we dont have such issues. We are finally very happy with IAPO, UMPO, NIIP etc.

What a contradiction. You are very happy with your vendors, yet you blame your vendors for not being up to spec.

If you are really that happy with your vendors YOU WOULD NOT NEED BE KEEPING 7 ENGINES PER PLANE.

All the software, soapboxes, underwear and shoes that you make and you still need the ukeranians to maintain a plane that YOU build. Tch tch tch.

Or to pass some vital information that the Russians are withholding from the Chinese.

Ummm…I dont think they are loosing money :diablo:, they are being handsomly compensated for what they are currently doing. Thats why I called your 3 years warrently as BS.

Really. How much is an Su-30MKI by the way? 35 million? 45 million? How much is one AL-31FP by the way? 2 million, 3 million? 7 engines is what? 21 mllion? If you contract an Su-30MKI for even 45 million, and 21 million already taken up by the engines?

I donno the details but from what I picked up….the IAF has gone to great lenghts, money and effort to make the flankers viable. The problem with you and many oraclites is that you dont see the MKI as a program. When you start seeing it the way its meant you will understand why they are NEVER grounded or cannibalized…like your PLAAF flankers.

Lol. If your engines actually live up to their 1000 hours MTBO, you won’t need 7 engines per plane.

The problem with you, you think that because you have more spares, that fixes the engine problem?

Stupid.

If you have serious problems on the engines that is technical in nature, and possibly a design or manufacturing flaw by the factory, it AFFECTS your spares.

So you take out the broken engine, you replace that engine with a new engine that you know are destined to fail prematurely.

How smart.

You should have sent even the spare engines back to the factory, have the factory bench test them under diagnostics equipment, determine the problem once and for all, fix all the engines including the spares.

I just wonder why all these years, you would need to keep a high sparing factor. That’s because the problems are not solved. Again and again.

Boy I dont think the Indians are capeable of building their MKI from Nose to Tail. They are very happy seeing how fantastic their RC1/RC2, MC, RDP etc are doing perhaps the most technologically complex russian a/c in service.

Yeah, most complex Russian A/C with literally throwaway engines.

Sure you can build your basic flanker and go to town with it. HAL knows it has its work cut out for a long time. They know IAF wont accept riff raff stuff like the chinese, they will make sure IAPO, Lyulka and NIIP dont screw them over when they start assembling, and finally building their home grown MKI. Thats what they were PAID to do.

Yup. So smart to license the same problematic engine.

Finally to paraphrase your favorite face-saving phrase…”whey you were crashing/cannibalizing/grounding your home build 300 flankers…we got the OEM to come down and fix them under warrenty.”

Man you seem to be so proud being dependent on the Russians. If you have the OEM, why do you have to keep so many spares? Sounds like you don’t even trust the OEM at all.