Isnt there news that there is dragging of feet on the engine thing again now with the GTRE-Snecma deal approved? There is a big chance that the EJ 0r 404 deal wont go through and the LCA will have to wait for the Kaveri-Snecma engine.Oh well thats the way things work in India.:rolleyes:

absolutely not. kaveri/snecma is a parallel development which will be ‘considered’ for LCA Mk2 only if it is completed within time for Mk2. that’s all. otherwise it’s the winner of EJ-200/F-414.

Well thats what we have been doing for a couple of months and eventually we will suffocate and die before we see the first flight 😉

I’ve developed asthma in the meantime ! 😀

Correct. CAC/611 initially had consultation with Mikoyan OKB about a single engined fighter. So, I am not sure how the F-16 come in here. J-10 is not the mother of the FC-1/JF-17.

What was the original name of the Mikoyan aircraft? Was it MiG-33 or MiG-35?

http://www.aviation.ru/MiG/35/MiG-35d.jpg

hmm. never seen it referred to as mig-35 before this. mig-33 or project-33 is the designation I’m familiar with. also explains why the 33 number hasn’t shown up, they jumped straight from mig-31 to mig-35.
it was designed to be a single-engined mig-29 derivative equivalent to the F-16, so quite close to what the FC-1 ended up as.

trivia : incidentally, back in late 80’s russia offered India license production of mig-33 with complete TOT if India closed down the LCA project.
since china’s super-7 project with US failed to take off they used the basis of mig-33 in stead, which was very close in specs.
(US made a similar offer of moving the entire F-20 assembly line to India if LCA project was stopped.)
of course, GOI refused the offer in both cases.

nice one tho’

J10B is hardly low end. Don’t know how compared with Block60 but I wouldn’t me much suprised that it is really good. J10A is pretty much medium tech. Looking at the price you cannot use it to fil up lower ranks. Even the LCA should be more if you look at the price but then looking a the plane it is indeed the low rank. Small, light and we still need to know how it performs.

low end for PLAAF and PLANAF, for whom the MKK variants constitute the high end while su-27 comes somewhere in between for PLAAF.

there’s a difference between low end for one AF and low capability. of course J-10 will be low end for PLAAF but top end for PAF. but that’s quite another matter. similarly F-16 was low end for USAF but high end for PAF, as it still is.
I’m not talking about tech but cost, capability, maintainability and affordability.

I don’t want to go into a LCA discussion here as you seem to be itching to, but LCA is meant to be the low end for IAF just as J-10 is the low end for PLAAF. what this means is, both aircraft are likely to be procured in large numbers.

That’s why i was suggesting to go with with EJ200. Israeli radar would only be an issue with islamic nations nobody else. I don’t think it’s expensive as it would bring western engine reliability at affordable life-cycle cost. There are plans for mk2 version to be carrying on much more payload too and that’s the version to be exported.

the radar is not israeli. it utilises some components of the 2032 but rest is Indian including design.

but try to knock that into the blockheads here ! :rolleyes:

From 1974-2008 India was under the embargo of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).
When Pakistan did run into similar problems in the 80s.
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/pakistan/nuke/

:rolleyes: sun rises in the east, shakespear wrote macbeth and sushi is a japanese dish. all of which have NOTHING to do with the LCA program.
NEITHER does NSG embargo of the 80’s.

India was the first international customer of the MiG-29. The Indian Air Force (IAF) placed an order for more than 50 MiG-29s in 1980 while the aircraft was still in its initial development phase. Since its induction into the IAF in 1985, the aircraft has undergone a series of modifications with the addition of new avionics, sub-systems, turbofan engines and radars. In short the expensive Russian antidote to the F-16A.

and this is supposed to be a revelation ? 😀
everyone knows that the Mig-29s were bought to counter the PAF F-16s. what does it have to do with LCA ?
nothing whatsoever.

Project 33
……….

was offered to India in late 80’s including license production with the condition that LCA project will have to be scrapped.

GOI refused to scrap LCA and refused the Mig-33 offer instead.
LCA project was always backed. availibility of a foreign fighter had nothing to do with it.

After 1986 the LCA was the single option left and the SU collapsed in 1991.

as I have mentioned above, you are shooting off your mouth on a subject on which you don’t have the foggiest idea.

At that time-scale India had not the economic power to fund the new atomic forces and the LCA at the same time. Atomic forces are the most expensive to operate and in a constant need of upgrade, because all items are time-limited as the war-heads by radiation.

you are inventing stories to fill up your pet theories, never mind that they are fairy tales in the first place.
LCA project was never in competition with nuclear forces for funding. funding for all these comes from different budgets and if anything, the financial problems and supply troubles in the aftermath of SU’s downfall strengthened the resolve to fund indigenous projects.

From 1994 the later MKI consumed all funds to counter the Chinese Su-27 buy.

LCA project didn’t have any funding problem in that time period so you are wrong (again).

The constant delays do show, that the LCA is still low in ranking of military items. No confidence builder for intrested customers.

they show nothing of the sort, except in your wild imagination. the delays aren’t any more than what other programs faced, for instance consider the gripen. and given India’s nascent aero industry when the project started, it is very commendable indeed.

compare the timelines yourself : http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showpost.php?p=1515308&postcount=241

Actually I think you are wrong. IIRC Gripen was funded in 1983 (or -82) and the the first division was operational in late 1996 (or officially in 1997)

wrong. gripen was inducted in SwAF before it achieved IOC. IOC came in 1998 IIRC 16 years after project started.