Is that LCa’s IFF?, I dont know if there are other payloads in it or not.

This is the IFF for the AWACS?

Someone please confirm..Thanks.

…suddenly everything is clear!!! Russia should scrap it’s PAK-FA and buy India’s(?) LCA…and it better come with Sony OLEDs too!! 😎

That’d be national shame for us, when we can offer so much more, you should try to bid for the new bomber we are making :rolleyes:

Jokes apart,

We need the Pakfa, if there is proper workshare for us which there willl be incase we select it.

Russia sells it or not remains to be seen.

thus to arrive on a conslusion that we will buy pakfa or not or Russia will allow it or not is only what time can tell, shouldnt you wait before calling those uncalled adjectives? 😉

Integrated Self protection system from ADA

A lease of Akulas and the purchase of Backfires are not latest technology… Even with the lease of Charlie class subs the Indians were annoyed because of their lack of access to some areas of the boat… but of course the russians will sell everything to everyone.

Its Akula 2, and Backfire tu22 M3 version, they are sigficant technologies compared to a HUD a Jammer a Mission computer etc.

You analogy of Russians was in the process of getting those is alright, and as nick said was not available right when MKI was being made and Indias found its own solution better suited to her, I’m sure we will choose Indian Mc, Radar processors over others if it gives us good performance, better control over the system and things like that.

Amusing that everyone assumes that Russia is the Soviet Union and that every Soviet weapon was made fully in Russia. The reality is that many Soviet systems were made in the various republics and that the russians have had to learn to fill a lot of gaps and the first 10 years of that learning period was also a period of no money or support.

This is correct, and the reason why many things in MKI was from outside, There was significant gap left between Russia and USSR.

Es-USSR Belarus will setup a laser-optical institute research unit in India, there are lots of things ex-USSR country still has and many unused.

Interesting that the Russians are the ones with the 5th gen fighter project that India seems to want to join and then doesn’t want to join. Surely if all the parts will be indian or french or israeli it should be an Indian project or European… that way the only Russian items might be the ejection seat and perhaps the engines. :rolleyes:

hehe well kinda true you forgot the airframe which will be russian , :p

We will join PAKFA if there is significant work share for us like in the MTA 40:60.Else I dont think joining just for the sake of funding is of much use.

If we join, we might as well use Israeli Radar, Indian electronics including MFD’s et al. No reason why we shouldnt select our own things for IAF for better control over it.

UK denied our request of including the Vixen AESa IIRC, and we dumped the idea of buying because without it its of no use IIRC.

India to get revamped aircraft carrier from Russia (Part 1)
19:01 | 07/ 06/ 2007
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20070607/66864044.html

MOSCOW. (Viktor Litovkin for RIA Novosti) – In early May, an Indian naval delegation headed by Vice Admiral Birinder Singh Randhawa, Controller of Warship Production and Acquisition at the Integrated Headquarters, Ministry of Defense (Navy), visited Severodvinsk, a major submarine construction centre in the Arkhangelsk Region, northern Russia.

In spite of cold temperatures, piercing winds and snowfalls, the visit proved very fruitful. The delegation visited the local Northern Engineering Works (Sevmashpredpriatiye) and inspected the Mk 1143.4 Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier, now being refitted under a bilateral contract. The aircraft carrier, due to be renamed the Vikramaditya after a famous Indian general, is expected to enter service with the Indian Navy in August 2008.

Vice Admiral Randhawa was very pleased with the visit’s results and noted many changes in the warship’s upper-deck structures and interior. Although the Admiral Gorshkov’s modernisation is somewhat behind schedule, Mr. Randhawa said this extremely difficult project would face problems from time to time. But he said he saw that Sevmashpredpriatiye was doing its best to solve them in time.

What is the Admiral Gorshkov?

On December 26, 1978, the keel of the Mk 1143.4 Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier was laid at the Nikolayev shipyard in Ukraine. The 273-meter long warship displaces 48,500 tons, has a beam of 49 meters and a 10.2-meter draught. The Admiral Gorshkov, which can cruise along at 30.7 knots, has a 30-day sea endurance and a 1,610-man crew.

She entered service with the Soviet Navy in December 1987 and was assigned the task of guarding strategic missile submarines. For that purpose, the Admiral Gorshkov operated 14 Yakovlev Yak-141 Freestyle vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) fighters, eight Yak-38 Forger VTOL fighters, as well as 16 Kamov Ka-25 and Ka-252RLD Hormone and Ka-252PS Helix anti-submarine warfare (ASW), reconnaissance and search-and-rescue helicopters.

Moreover, the aircraft carrier, which supported warship formations and naval strategic bombers in combat areas, was supposed to attack enemy aircraft, warships and submarines. For this purpose the Admiral Gorshkov had 12 Bazalt anti-ship missile launchers, six ten-tube Udav-1 anti-submarine rocket mortars, four torpedo tubes, as well as four Klinok air-defense systems comprising 24 launchers, two 100-mm AK-100 guns and eight 30-mm AK-630 anti-aircraft guns.

However, it turned out that VTOL fighters did not correspond to specifications, carried small ordnance loads, had a short combat range and crashed rather often. The disintegration of the Soviet Union and subsequent financial shortages made it impossible to eliminate these drawbacks. These warplanes were scrapped, and the Admiral Gorshkov had to be berthed.

The warship could have suffered the same sorry fate as her sister ships, namely, the Kiev, the Minsk and the Novorossiisk, that also carried Yakovlev fighters, and which were eventually sold for scrap. However, the Indian Navy took an interest in the Admiral Gorshkov and therefore prevented her destruction.

Moscow and New Delhi negotiated the carrier modernization contract for many years. The Indian side insisted that Russia charge less for overhauling the Admiral Gorshkov. According to some rumors, the warship was sold to India as scrap metal, that is, for $150-$200 per tons. Moreover, New Delhi insisted that the Russian carrier be upgraded in order to accommodate horizontal take-off and landing fighters, and that its arsenal should include weapons popular with the Indian Navy. Moscow accepted all these proposals.

The $1.5 billion Gorshkov modernization contract was signed in 2004. The total overhaul expenses amounted to $600-700 million. The rest will be spent on deck fighters, equipment and weapons from third parties. The Nevskoye Design Bureau in St. Petersburg, which had developed the Admiral Gorshkov, submitted the modernization project. The warship is being overhauled at Sevmashpredpriyatiye in Severodvinsk.

All redundant artillery systems and missiles, including Bazalt launchers and AK-100 guns, will be removed during the project’s initial stage. All other weapons, namely, Klinok air-defense systems, AK-630 anti-aircraft guns, and most radio-electronics and specialized equipment will also have to go.

Instead the Admiral Gorshkov is to receive new-generation air-defense systems, whose specifications are not known yet. The initial modernization stage will end after obsolete machinery is replaced with up-to-date equivalents. After that, New Delhi will become the ship’s legal owner.

During the second stage, India will list all the required weapons and equipment for the Vikramaditya. Her upper deck will be extended until the bow section, and a 14-degree 20-meter-wide ramp will be constructed there.

The 280-meter flight deck will have a 198-meter runway for operating Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-29-K Fulcrum supersonic fighters chosen by India.

The 24-meter-wide runway will feature three arrester wires, and there will also be a 130 by 23 by 5.7-meter hangar below the deck. The hangar will have a 30-ton 18.91 by 9.96-meter lift located amidships left of the island superstructure and a 20-ton 18.91 by 8.65-meter lift behind the superstructure and in front of the arrester wires. The top-deck aircraft parking area will measure 2,400 square meters. The Vikramaditya will therefore become one of the best aircraft carriers in her class.

Viktor Litovkin, deputy editor in chief, Nezavisimoye Voennoye Obozreniye, a weekly supplement to Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

The continuation of the article will be posted soon.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.

India to get revamped aircraft carrier from Russia (Part 2)
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20070608/66897461.html

MOSCOW. (Viktor Litovkin for RIA Novosti) – In February 2007, Indian pilots and sailors were quite impressed to see the single-seat MiG-29K Fulcrum deck fighter and the two-seat MiG-29KUB deck trainer/combat plane at an airfield in Zhukovsky near Moscow.

“We have known about the top-class MiG warplanes for a long time, but the MiG-29KUB that was developed by Russia and India is even better,” said Commander Jasvinder Chauhan, India’s Air Force Attache in Moscow.

This statement is no exaggeration because Indian experts had teamed up with designers and engineers of Russia’s MiG Aircraft Corporation to develop the MiG-29KUB. They listed all the required specifications, which were embodied in the warplane.

In some cases, Indian specifications may have seemed exorbitant because they exceeded the best achievements of the global aircraft industry. However, MiG complied with the requests of its clients. The Indian side helped to integrate foreign electronics into the plane’s avionics, to develop simulators and to choose the required weaponry.

Nikolai Buntin, chief designer of the MiG-29KUB project for India, said the Russian Air Force and Navy lack such good planes. The MiG-29-KUB’s radio-electronic system features the French-made Thales TopSight helmet-borne sighting device and the Sagem Sigma-95 laser-gyroscope inertial navigation system. Thales TopSight is, in fact, a shock-resistant helmet that will protect the pilot if a bird shatters the cockpit canopy. Its sighting device is activated by a movement of the head. The fighter’s unique open-architecture and modular-system avionics will not become obsolete in the next ten to 15 years. Only separate components of the MiG-29KUB’s radio-electronic system will have to be replaced if the need arises.

This radio-electronic system is an upgraded version of the one installed on the MiG-29SMT fighter, also serving with the Indian Air Force. It retains the MIL-1553B-type bus, to which the plane’s electronics are attached, and four-channel multiplex settings. Nikolai Buntin said the MiG-29K has a more sophisticated multiplex bus than other Russian planes being sold elsewhere. He said the MiG-29KUB’s vital systems feature fiber optic communications channels.

Fiber channels and fiber optic lines expedite data-exchange speeds 100 times over and enable the pilot to outmaneuver and outgun the enemy. No MiG warplane has ever had any high-speed data-exchange channels before. All three multi-purpose MFI10-6 data screens in the MiG-29KUB’s front and rear cockpits, the IKSH-1K heads-up display (HUD) and the Thales TopSight sighting device/target-acquisition system receive video information from the Fazotron-NIIR radar, the new-generation Zhuk-ME optronic radar, other sighting and radio-electronic warfare systems and the built-in digital terrain contour matching (TERCOM) map along fiber channels.

The wide-angle sighting and navigation system, developed by the Ramenskoye PKB avionics design bureau, features a revamped BCVM486-3M computer with a 486DX processor and a 90 MHz tact frequency, as well as indicators and consoles. The system, which is the main aircraft element, also integrates other systems in line with their software packages compiled by the main MiG-29KUB contractor and main-system suppliers. The Ramenskoye PKB is responsible for integrating the plane’s radio-electronic system.

The IKSH-1K (Russian acronym for Wide-Format Collimator Ship Indicator) heads-up display has never been installed on Russian planes before. Previous export-oriented aircraft versions, namely, the Sukhoi Su-30MKI and the Su-30MKM Flanker, were fitted with Israeli and French E1OP and Thales systems. However, the brighter Russian HUDs display teletext data and allow the pilot to take aim through these systems round the clock, even against targets obscured by the glaring sun.

The warplane’s RD-33MK engine, which was designed at the St. Petersburg-based Klimov Plant, a major national aircraft engine manufacturer, is made at the Chernyshov Machine-Building Plant in Moscow.

The first MiG-29KUB, shown to the Indian delegation, featured experimental RD-33MK engines that were delivered in December 2005. But the Klimov Plant has made considerable headway since then and increased the engine’s total service life to 4,000 hours. Each engine is subject to overhaul after operating for 1,000 hours and develops 9,000 kilogram-force thrust in the afterburner mode.

Alexander Vatagin, general director of the Klimov Plant, told journalists that production engines would differ in terms of maximum thrust, smoke levels and radar visibility from those installed on the prototype plane. He said the engine would have brand-new hot section components, a new accessory box and a FADEC (Full Authority Digital Engine Control) system for greater dependability and failsafe operation.

Vatagin said the customer would receive aircraft with engines completely matching the request for proposal (RFP) and specific recommendations, and comments made during bench and flight tests.

The MiG-29-KUB will be fitted with standard missiles and probably the Russian-Indian BrahMos anti-ship cruise missile.

In all, the Indian Navy is to get 12 single-seat MiG-29K fighters and four two-seat MiG-29KUB planes and will also have the right to buy another 30 MiG-29-K/ MiG-29KUB warplanes. However, the latter would only be produced after 2010, if New Delhi confirms its order.

The Admiral Gorshkov/Vikramaditya contract is behind schedule due to numerous reasons. It took a lot of time and effort to choose the required weapons, to eliminate ship defects and to finance specific operations. Energy resources, materials, components and spare parts have become more expensive since the contract was signed in 2004, the cost of labor in Russia has also grown.

Moscow would like New Delhi to provide additional funding because the loss-making Sevmashpredpriyatiye is having trouble fulfilling the contract. However, the Indian Navy is dissatisfied with that because it was agreed that budgetary allocations should not be exceeded. Although the Indian stand is clear, the cash-strapped Sevmashpredpriyatiye needs more money. They say that the aircraft carrier will only enter service with the Indian Navy in late 2010, instead of the initially planned late 2008.

However, sources in Severodvinsk said Indian admirals have reacted with understanding to all these problems, which hopefully will not affect bilateral relations.

In the meantime, the future Vikramaditya crew has been living in Severodvinsk on a rotation basis for over a year and learning to operate, service and repair the aircraft carrier and its sophisticated systems. In all, eight groups of Indian military personnel are expected to complete their four-month tours of duty at Sevmashpredpriyatiye. Indian sailors have come to Severodvinsk together with their families, who enjoy playing snowballs, making snowmen and organizing concerts that attract up to 5,000 spectators each. These concerts feature Indian songs and dances, comedy sketches and martial arts bouts; popular Russian melodies are also performed.

The people of Severodvinsk have come to love those friendly, kind-hearted and smiling Indian officers, their wives and children and are proud to have a “little New Delhi” and a “little Mumbai” in their city.

Although it is deplorable that the Indian Navy will not receive its new aircraft carrier as scheduled, the time spent by Indian officers and their families in northern Russia will help them get to know and love this cold but infinitely beautiful region and the Russian people – as open-hearted and sincere as the Indians.

Viktor Litovkin, deputy editor in chief, Nezavisimoye Voennoye Obozreniye, a weekly supplement to Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

———————————————————-

I wonder when will this carrier actually come as navy said 2008~09? , and it speaks of installation of new gen air defence system hmm as well.

some suspected thigns are the deadline given in the article when IN said its slightly behind schedule not by so much.

And also it says carrying brahmos, i dont know how can it get up from a carrier carrying those?

It doesnt speaks of the indian components in Mig 29K.

Probably Harry. It’s not me, my employer would be less than thrilled if I was actually a foreign national 😀

IIRC, There is no way Harry is Indian, and hes one of the best moderators out here, How can someone have something against Harry? :rolleyes:

I still remember he posting a pic of a watch he recieved from a PAF base as a gift inside a blue box IIRC.