I can’t imagine how such statements “past experience is not a pre-requisite” can be made with any degree of seriousness. Its just idle talk. Mahindra & Mahindra went & purchased a small Aussie aviation firm just so as to have some understanding and capability in assembling light commercial aircraft. And most countries keep heavy manufacturing & defense firms on a restricted list so that they cannot be acquired by other nations/nationalities as they are regarded as such a critical area of competence.

Let’s put it this way. Provided foreign tooling and training is available, it is not essential that the firm that is setting up an assembly line be an existing aircraft manufacture; because it is essentially setting up a new manufacturing enterprise as a joint venture with a foreign partner. All the technology, equipment and expertise needed for the purpose of building

How else are industries started from scratch? Mahindra didn’t always have experience in building automobiles: they started out by licence-building the Willy’s jeep. Likewise Maruti started as a JV between the Indian government and Suzuki to licence-build Suzuki model automobiles like the Alto and the Omni. Hero Honda was founded as a JV by bicycle makers Hero Group to produce motorcycles under licence from Honda Motors. By your logic, since these firms had no prior experience before licence-building their production of these foreign models should have been impossible.

Do you get what I’m saying? JVs for licence-building such as these are made because of lack of prior experience. Everything that’s needed for the licenced production can be provided by the foreign supplier, and while benefits gained from the experience are not the same as developing something yourself they provide a good start.

BTW this is how HAL started building jets and gained basic competence in the same. Let others repeat the experience now. Yes, HAL had built the HT-2 trainer before, but even if they hadn’t it would have been equally possible to licence-build jets.

HAL is off-loading as much work to the pvt sector as it (pvt sector) can handle at the moment. you need to go through each program to get the details.
one can’t expect the pvt sector co’s to start building su-30’s in a week starting from a non-existent base.

Weren’t HAL’s own licence-production lines set up from scratch for foreign tooling and training? I can’t see any more difficulty in setting up one under, say, Tata or Mahindra with foreign assistance.

Heck, back when the Mirage-2000 was in the MRCA competition, Tata had an agreement to shift the whole assembly line to India for manufacturing them.

I’m guessing it may have to do with the supply of assorted services like spares and infrastructure. Maybe the Indian Navy isn’t getting the full package it was expecting?

Correct me if I’m wrong; the SAP-518 is a self-protection jammer and the SAP-14 is a stand-off jammer, isn’t it?

Is the SAP-14 a ‘plug-and-play’ device that can be carried on any fighter on its center hardpoint or does it require special wiring and power generation equipment like the Growler’s jammer?

Also, check this out.
Active Towed Radar Trap:.

I hadn’t realised that there was a towed decoy system available from a Russian manufacturer.

Interesting video but it does show the fairly horrendous material state she was in when Sevmash took her on.

The misscalculation about wiring alone caused massive problems and now the video shows the horror coiled up on deck (3:10 into the video) – 20million extra man hours sorting out that issue . Also Sevmash had to use a submarine floating out basin with no Goliath cranes that must of hampered progress.

On a positive note they appear to of broken the back of the main issues and I look forward to seeing her in sea trials.

Won’t happen for another couple of years at least. It seems the internal work(cabling, living accomodations, electronics) is still a long way off.

Does anyone know if the Vikramaditya will have a sonar in that bulbous bow? I would think it necessary for such a high-value vessel to have a rudimentary submarine detection and torpedo defence capability.

Russia actually has an extensive UAV program, but most of these are just prototypes/technology demonstrators, and only a couple have actually entered service, like the Pchela-1. I wonder what is the shortfall that prevents the Russians from accepting them that they had to approach the Israelis to fill.

Overall cargo cabin area is not very different for the two, crew numbers can(and probably will be) reduced to 3 by eliminating the navigator, and the Y-9 does have superior range and payload figures for what will likely be a significantly lower cost. I think those would matter to South Africa if they were looking for a cost-effective solution.

I was under the impression it was in for a lengthy refit. Were the funds re-prioritised?