Bars AESA will have an excellent market. IAF alone will need it hundreds for PAK-FA’s and Su-30 MKI MLU’s.

I remember reading in the Indian press last year, that the final batch of 40 Su-30MKIs were to be delivered with AESAs- at the time I thought it was a journalistic error, but things are a lot clearer now.

With PAK-FA, Su-30MKI/Ms, Su-34s/35s the ‘Bars/Irbis’ AESA demand will certainly deliver T/R MMIC economies of scale.

Flex, I’m pretty sure it’s an AESA ’cause the T/R mod. blocks are distinct & integrated vertically, the overall resemblance is close to Elta’s EL/M-2052 demo and it has a similar varying ‘vaneer’ shading like Raytheon’s AN/APG-63(V)2, as opposed to the ‘perforated oil drum’ appearence of Zhuk-AE & AMSAR.

Anyways, someone better phone ‘Professor’ Calo Kopp & tell him that his (out-landish) stuff of nightmares have taken a leap towards reality!

I think COMPOSITES is a very loose term in general as their can be different concoctions that can be gelled around . I remember BCA used to have 787-Dreamliner Teams sent off to Skeptical airlines with Sheets of CFRP along with Sheets of Ali and hammers and the folks would ask to see if they could damage the CFRP with the hammer to the same extent as they could with the Ali sheets . In general CFRP is pretty tough and can be well substituted for Ali in many areas , again high stress joints etc may be areas where they use titanium etc etc but we arent done with Ti or ali or steel completely for that matter.

Some of these numbers are also bit deceiving , By volume Composited are much lighter then Steel or Ali , so if we look at VOLUME uses the % of Composited on PAKFA or F-35 or f-22 will be much much higher then if we take WEIGHT wise .

Yes, composite applications by weight and surface area represent a totally different ethos, as 787’s load-bearing problems testify:

http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/20650/?a=f

If PAK-FA is gonna be 50% composite by surface area- that’s quite something, kinda explains what the recent Mitsubishi HI tooling-up at KnAAPO was all about.

Another potentially attractive project for overseas investorsis the next-generation PAK-FA fighter. This provides less opportunity for foreign suppliers, but there are opportunities to participate in export versions such as variant to be developed jointly by India and Russia

Flying the flag at MAKS, FlightGlobal 13/08/07.

Now, Gentlemen please, can we drop the 50/50 JV spin & counter spin -it’s getting tediously repetitive.

Another point to note is that much of AESA radar/EW suite/weapons systems developed for India’s PAK-FA variant will later be incorporated into some 200 Su-30MKI’s MLU programme, further spreading/reducing costs for India’s initial investment, not to mention significantly increasing the capabilities of an already formidable warplane.

The estimates of $65.5m unit cost are a bit on the low side (I’d say by at least 20%), imho. I mean R&D, EMD costs for their first stealth fighter are going to be huge- no-matter how much they’ve learned from the US, CAD studies, CFD simulations etc.etc.
Maybe they’re taking a leaf out of LM’s F-35 costing spin!

All news item are related to worker training in Germany/EU and imports from Japan.

The same composite fabs used for Boeing’s Dreamliner/787, supplied to YG KnAAPO by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

If it is set to fly in Q4 of this year or Q1 of next year and set to be operational in record time , I really dont see systems that are Not mature enough which can be taken over by the Indians or the Brazilians . Cooperation would in my opinion be in areas of MKI version which India can finance for their own needs and requirments with their own industrial participation.

Well, from what we know the MKI will be- “based on Sukhoi’s PAK-FA” hence we can deduce common airframe, engines, FCS/Avionics- but probably not the Russian AESA radar, EW suite & some next gen. weapons.

Co-developing/integrating the latter systems for the MKI will take a hefty chunk out of the $8bn (though some here have stated that that amount includes some aircraft batches also).

The IAF is likely to demand a significant strike capability (particularly Nuclear), though probably not as multi-role as the F-35, delegating those duties to upgraded Su-30MKIs.

As for Brazil, they’ll probably have to aquire those systems (AESA, EW etc.) on the international market & have them integrated in co-operation with HAL.

Russian series production is slated for 2015, with IOC maybe a year later, IAF’s MKI’s will probably enter service around 2018.