– the first 6 units by end of 2006 and the rest by 2007
– all will be stationed at Gong Kedak AB, where the upgrading is now taking place to accept the bigger aircraft.
– weapon suite included AA-10 and AA-11 AAM but no AA-12. Air to ground including Kh-58M and Kh-31A.
– MKM is based on MKI (thus TVC and canard), but all Israeli avionics are going to be replaced by the french and the south african.

KH 58M not exist, you confuse it with KH 59M(115 km range tv guided cruise missile).

Can you be more specific?

like bazalt MPK bomb enhancement programme,and KAB 1500TK

India boosts its air-launched arsenal

ROBERT HEWSON Editor, Jane’s Air-Launched Weapons
Bangalore)

JANE’S DEFENCE WEEKLY – MARCH 19, 2003

India is moving forward with a range of new airborne weapon programmes that will significantly enhance the combat power of the Indian Air Force (IAF). An over-riding priority for the IAF is the expansion of its standoff land-attack and precision-guided munition capabilities.

International suppliers are expected to meet these needs, at least in the short to medium term. However, national industry is playing a major role in boosting the IAF’s air-to-air combat power, chiefly through the development of India’s own active radar-guided beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile, the Astra.

The Astra programme is headed by the Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO), an agency of the Ministry of Defence. While the existence of this project has been known for some time, the first official details of its development emerged only during February’s Aero India 2003 exhibition in Bangalore. The Astra is designed to equip India’s advanced combat aircraft types, such as the Mirage 2000H, MiG-29, Su-30MKI and the future Light Combat Aircraft. The Mirage 2000H has been identified as the first potential platform for the Astra when the weapon enters service towards the end of the decade.

The basic Astra design uses a metallic airframe with a long low aspect-ratio wing and a single-stage smokeless rocket motor. After launch, the missile will use a combination of inertial mid-course guidance and/or datalinked targeting updates before it enters its terminal acquisition phase.

In a head-on engagement, the Astra will have a maximum range of 80km. The missile’s onboard radio- frequency seeker has been largely designed in India but incorporates “a degree of outside assistance”, according to DRDO sources. It will have an autonomous homing range of 15km. The missile’s warhead is a pre-fragmented directional unit, fitted with a proximity fuze. A radar fuze already exists for the Astra, but the DRDO is currently working on a new laser fuze.

According to the DRDO, the first ground-launched aerodynamic trials of the Astra will begin within the first half of this year. This will be followed by the next phase of controlled in-flight test launches.

India already has the Vympel R-77 (NATO reporting name: AA-12 ‘Adder’) active radar-guided medium-range air-to-air missile operational on its Su-30MKI and upgraded MiG-21 fighters. The latter has the service designation MiG-21UPG Bison. India is also likely to acquire MBDA’s MICA medium-range missile if it selects the Mirage 2000-5 to meet an IAF requirement for 126 new-build fighter aircraft (Jane’s Defence Weekly 27 March 2002). Nevertheless, the IAF has always maintained a policy of multinational supply and indigenous development, so work on the Astra programme seems sure to continue.

The Indian/Russian Brahmos joint-venture company is, meanwhile, on schedule to conduct the first airborne trials of its ramjet-powered Brahmos anti-ship cruise missile next year, said a representative at the Bangalore exhibition. The supersonic weapon is a 290km-range derivative of Russia’s 3M55 Yakhont missile, developed by NPO Mashinostroyenie. A Brahmos official also confirmed that India’s secretive radar reconnaissance satellite programme is delivering the desired level of accuracy – equivalent to the 1m resolution offered by the Russian company’s own satellite systems – required to take full advantage of the missile’s very long range. The Brahmos team announced their latest test success last month: a ship-launched firing of the weapon from the Indian Navy’s Kashin II-class destroyer INS Rajput.

In the ground-attack sector, officials at Russia’s Bazalt also say India will be the launch customer for the company’s MPK bomb enhancement programme.

Designed as a modular upgrade for standard Russian-designed general-purpose bombs like the FAB-500, the MPK system adds a winged range-extension kit coupled with wind-corrected guidance to give an effective, accurate standoff range of up to 15 km.

Future improvements to the MPK system will include strapdown inertial guidance and a rocket motor to further increase range.

The IAF already possesses a significant arsenal of Russian FAB-series ‘dumb’ bombs that could be transformed by a system like the MPK.

India has already demonstrated its readiness to adopt novel weapons solutions for its air force. One example on display at Aero India was a UK-patterned 454kg bomb that had been modified with the Israel Aircraft Industries Griffin laser-guidance kit, which will be employed by IAF Jaguars.

The IAF is looking to Israeli suppliers in general to increase its precision-guided munition inventory, by acquiring more systems such as Elbit’s Whizzard family of laser- and infra-red-guided bombs. Elbit and Israel Military Industries (IMI) showed the latest variant of the IMI-developed PB-500 hard target penetration bomb, mated with Elbit’s Lizard 2 laser-guidance kit. Another highly significant exhibit at Aero India was IMI’s Delilah air-launched lightweight cruise missile, which is attracting great interest from the IAF.

strange that Russia produced all this huge series of KH series missiles but lagged so badly in fielding cheap laser kits and a good LDP.

this thing will change with the intoduction of SAPSAN E LDP and new region’s laser guided bomb with laser gyrostabilised kit……..

HI

MIG 21 CUTAWAY
http://www.cmcarter.demon.co.uk/mig_21_cutaway.htm

MIG 29 CUTAWAY
http://www.cmcarter.demon.co.uk/mig_29_cutaway.htm

F 16 CUTAWAY
http://www.cmcarter.demon.co.uk/f16%20cutaway.htm

SU 24 CUTAWAY
http://www.angelfire.com/ak5/lomach/aircraft/ru_su24.html

an other site but with “bad” cutaways
http://www.d0wn.com/static.php?op=cuteway.htm&npds=1

a superb cutaway of JAS 39 GRIPEN

http://www.gripen.com/download/18.10deb5ffd9e2557fe7fff1863/Gripen_Cutaway.pdf

russian devlop new LGB with a laser gyrostabilised seeker “LG” equivalent to pavewayIII LGB………………..