What Kind of Critical Flaws in guidance for Uran , Do you have any credible link to support your claim.

I have credible support but can’t link them. The terminal phase guidance was a “bit” buggy.

I was led to believe that the project number for the Amur acquisition is P-78.

AFAIK, the Kashins might be the first to get the PJ-10s then the Tarantuls and then the first four of the Khukri. Of course, there might be some variance and mix and match in the order depending on which ship is scheduled for their maintainance and what missile handling quays are available at the respective bases. All of these will get the inclined launched PJ-10s while the new built ships will get the VLS version.

Then the replacement of the SS-N-25s will take place but some smaller ships may not get them replaced due to weight and CoG issues associated with the bigger and heavier PJ-10s.

It would be interesting to see if the first batch of IN Mig-29Ks do a stint on the Kuznetsov as that will be the only platform available for initial shakedown tests and IN pilot training.

The Prodigal Son (29K) will return to the Father (Kuz), only temporarily though. DACT with the 33Ks would be a nice metric for the 29Ks.

Will the Mirages come with their weapons or will the IAF be using S530Ds and MagicsIIs with the new birds?

Not totally out of the blue…

Exerpt from Defense News Feb 28 05

Indians Divided on Air Defense
Weigh Domestic, U.S. Solutions

By VIVEK RAGHUVANSHI, NEW DELHI
More capable air defense has been a top government
priority here for several years. To meet the Army’s
future requirements, the DRDO diverted some funds from
its missile program in January 2003 to begin
developing its own air defense system capable of
tracking ballistic missiles.

The Research Centre Imarat (RCI) in Hyderabad, a
premier defense laboratory that produces the Agni and
Prithvi missile systems and is under the
administrative control of DRDO, has been developing a
system since early 2003 that would have a range of 100
kilometers.

A DRDO scientist said the previous National Democratic
Alliance government was so impressed with the RCI
proposal that $444.4 million was allotted in June 2003
to complete the indigenous air defense system by 2008.

Vijay Kumar Saraswat, RCI director, said Feb 10 that
the system RCI is working on will be superior to the
Patriot-2 and Russia’s S-300 PMU, and will be ready to
enter service by 2008. Saraswat claimed the system
will have a mobile launcher carrying three
surface-to-air, solid-fuel missiles, equipped with
directional warheads.

He said the unnamed system will begin flight trials in
mid-2006. RCI will carry out about 10 flights before
deploying it with the Indian defense forces.

The DRDO scientist said the indigenous air defense
system will have a mission control system that will
conduct target acquisition, classification and track
estimation, among other functions.

He said another major element is the active
phased-array radar system purchased from Israel.
Called Sword Fish, the system was purchased in early
2004 for $50 million and is undergoing trials at Hasan
in Karnataka state.

Once the air defense system is operational, the DRDO
scientist said, RCI will integrate it with other
defense systems via satellite links and a secure
digital data link that will enable it to track and
transmit data up to a range of 1,000 kilometers.

Folding wings add weight to maintain the same strength plus the weight from the additional folding mechanism itself. For a plane that is already small and has a reduced payload compared to its land cousin, the NLCA probably will not have folding wings.

Added later: Also, folding wings might also reduce the fuel load due to the folding mechanism intruding into the original fuel tank space.