India don’t have any immediate ambitions beyond our shores or see lines. But there is no denying that it is an offensive platform and we have to justify its cost vs benefit. It is the second most valuable asset for IN after INS Arihant class SSBNs.

1) Do you honestly think that Russia would have refused to try and sell you military hardware if you pulled out of the carrier and asked for your money back….after it became obvious what they were trying to sell you was far less than they advertised originally?.

2) Theyve just screwed you over on a deal and have done nothing to dispell the fear that they would cut you out of joint technology development deals, key to Indian defence interests, if you dont just stump up the price for the ship. Is this a good bilateral relationship or one that could stand a little adjustment back in your favour?.

On first point … you are wrong, as Russia said it is a dead project. Sorry India’s money is in air.

One second point … you are mostly right. We are badly screwed and joint developments are door to disputes. It has damaged the bilateral relationships but it is no where near at breaking point.

Lessons learned point.

India got 2nd P-8I Neptune Maritime Patrol Aircraft

Exclusive pictures from on board INS Vikramaditya

AK Antony formally inducts INS Vikramaditya into the Indian Navy

Defence Minister A. K. Antony formally inducted INS Vikramaditya into the Indian Navy on a chilly Saturday morning in faraway Russian waters, marking the end of a tumultuous journey that tested Delhi-Moscow ties due to a nearly five-year delivery delay and numerous cost overruns.

Between 2007 and 2010, the refurbishment programme nearly destroyed Indo-Russia ties when the Russians reported that the scope of work on the erstwhile Admiral Gorshkov had been severely underestimated. The deal was one of the last big ticket items pushed through by the then Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.

While Navy chief Admiral D. K. Joshi was polite when he said the ship was the result of “exceptional perseverance”, Antony remarked, “Now that the ship is ours, I can confide in you. The whole programme very nearly failed.”

“The Indians changed a lot of specifications, and asked for many things that had not been contracted initially,” Igor Leonov, chief commissioning officer for the Vikramaditya project, said. He will be among the 183 people travelling with the aircraft carrier to India next month to ‘guarantee’ her for the first year.

The Indian side, meanwhile, has had far less experience on the ship than it would have liked. Of the 19,500 miles covered by INS Vikramaditya during trials, barely 1,700 miles were under the command of Commodore Suraj Berry, who is now the commanding officer of the vessel.

Over 188 days, during the two rounds of sea trials between 2012 and 2013, Indian personnel are said to have been irritated with the manner in which the Russian trial team on board ran the show, speaking largely in their own language, and ticking off mandatory test points on the ship.

Hundreds of Indian officers and sailors have been rotated through Severodvinsk over the last decade in embedded observation teams or specialised training units. The length of their commitment has meant that most of them brought along their families on two-year stints to the Russian town whose economy is centred around the shipyard that converted ‘Admiral Gorshkov’ into ‘Vikramaditya’.

Many among Vikramaditya’s crew belong to Himachal Pradesh, but they have never experienced the unrelenting, almost hostile cold of Severodvinsk, helped heartily by freezing cold winds from the north that bring snow and sleet in abundance.

Now with only her hull dating back to the erstwhile Soviet warship she once was, and virtually everything either new or fully refurbished, the Russians suggest that INS Vikramaditya is effectively a new warship and not a repaired one. This, the Indian Navy agrees with. With an operational life of approximately 40 years, the aircraft carrier is unlikely to need any major work for at least a decade. As INS Vikramaditya sails home, escorted by four Indian warships, including the Indian Navy’s sole aircraft carrier INS Viraat from the Persian Gulf, the Indian crew knows that their new ship was perhaps worth waiting for all these years.

India’s priority is not getting a big working unit but gaining the knowledge. ToT might be good for maintaining the already acquired systems but it does not help in developing (or upgrading) next iteration of a unit.

So that is why we slowly moving away from ToT concept also. No matter what we or anyone develop there are technical difficulties and iteration but that is part of gaining knowledge and learning (which no one is going to share). So why not develop ourselves instead of funding an external project. It is nothing against Russia and we hope you will understand our position also, you feel the most pinch as we imported 70% our military hardware from Russia.

Development does not mean that it will be successful at first try e.g. aero engines (still work in progress) or Radar (now OK). But it is a step in the right direction. To minimise the risk, ideally should start 2 parallel development programs but we don’t have such money. So we take a longer route which in all cases is not cheaper but costs are spread over a long period.

x-posting from LCA thread

NLCA made its first flight after landing gear redesign. If no problems discovered during next weeks then it will do land based deck operations.

I hope MoD let it continue with drip funding and let people be happy with comments like “AMCA is in making for 3 decades and still not operational” :very_drunk:

Even your donkey cringes when it reads articles about the “much stealthier FGFA will be compared to the PAK-FA with its all-metal body”, one seat? two? R U sure?

down to earth and knowledgeable post … compared to your jingo mood …

….
On the topic of stealth, there’s probably a lot of “stealthification” involved in T-50-6 and onwards, both externally in terms of coatings and omissions of various minor protrusions, and internally in terms of structural details/materials et cetera, but the overall “shape” of the aircraft itself is probably not going to change.

The design process that led to the current bunch of prototypes has dealt thoroughly with shape for a long time and the current set of prototypes themselves (and various test beds) have evaluated the real life aerodynamics, shaping, integration of base avionics and controls, ejection system and so on and so forth. Call them ambitious wind tunnel models if you will.

We’ve been treated with little glimpses of closer-to-serial concepts (like T-50-6 models and what not), and as expected they’re visually different only in terms of stealthy things such as coatings. Now, such models aren’t necessarily very reliable sources for speculation but I think in this case that they pretty much nail it. We also know that some things have been developed and produced though yet to be installed, like the new canopy. That has to be tried out in situ as well, and a “KNS-2” fits like a glove over this scheme.

…

Even your donkey cringes …. one seat? two? R U sure?

Your likely next PM, Narendra Modhi, is a highly intelligent and pragmatic man. I’m sure he’ll make the right decision on the FGFA (to ‘codevelop’ on Russian terms, buy FMS or neither) and for the right reasons.

My :applause: to your posts are getting tiring …
1. Shows how much you know about the person if you can’t spell the name correct :stupid:
2. Damn the country and praise the decision maker (or potential)

You want to partner with India and ridicules us in the same post? You don’t know yourself what you want and what is the basis of this discussion. Bringing in US, France and what not … when we are discussing T-50.

No Thank You … you can carry on with your gaga. You are going in my ignore list.