JaiBut, I want videos……….whaaaaaaaaa….booooo–hooooooooo
Something to cheer you up !
JaiHAL sells three Dhruvs to ONGC
Bangalore, June 24 (PTI): State-run aircraft maker Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd., today said it bagged its biggest civilian order from Oil and Natural Gas Corporation for three homegrown Advanced Light Helicopters (ALH) for a value of Rs 100 crore.
HAL will deliver the civil variant of the 13-seater ALH, christened Dhruv, to ONGC for ferrying staff and machinery to oil rigs of the oil exploration company, a statement from the Bangalore-based HAL said here.
Dhruv’s capabilities were proven over the Bombay High a few months ago after ONGC expressed a desire to buy the helicopter, designed and built by the public sector HAL.
HAL said it has already bagged an order to supply two ALH’s to the Jharkhand government, besides leasing one Dhruv to the Karnataka government for ferrying VIPs.
It has already entered into an agreement with Israel to lease one ALH for ferrying VIPs in the West Asian nation, while it is holding talks to sell Dhruvs to the Chilean armed forces.
India’s armed forces have already deployed over a dozen Dhruvs in their operations, officials said.
JaiBoeing plans Super Hornet offer to India
Speaking at an update on the Super Hornet, Chris Chadwick, vice-president F/A-18 Program with Boeing Integrated Defense Systems, said the US and Indian governments were holding talks over what technology could be released for the approaching competition for 126 multirole fighters.
“What we would like to offer, if the government allows, is the Block 2 capability. The F-15 will not be offered.”
The Block 2 includes advanced systems such as the APG-79 Active Electronically Scanned Array, Advanced Targeting FLIR and Multi-Functional Information Distribution System.
The Indian request for proposals is expected this autumn, with the winning aircraft likely to be chosen in late 2008 or early 2009. Co-production with India is likely.
JaiStandard Requirements for Fifth Generation Airplane Being Created in Russia Should Be Looked at Again – Mikhail Pogosyan
The standard requirements for the Russian fifth generation airplane should be looked at again, thinks Mikhail Pogosyan, the general designer of the Sukhoy Aviation Holding Company, which is the lead developer of the future combat aviation complex for Russia’s defense ministry.
According to him, these requirements were developed as early as the Soviet years and have not changed since then. “If we stay at that very level, the outward aspect of the fifth generation airplane will not appear for still a very long time. Taking into consideration the international nature of the program, and taking into consideration the overall tendencies for worldwide integration, including in the area of military programs, the standard requirements need to be corrected. Then the program will move forward,” the head of the Sukhoy company declared.
He also reported that during the recent official visit to Russia of India’s president, the Indian side’s interest was confirmed again in joint work on future trends, including in the sphere of the creation of the fifth generation combat complex. Discussions with Delhi on this question are continuing.
On the whole, if one is to speak of aerial military equipment, Pogosyan noted, “we as before possess the basic technologies and we understand how they have to be developed.” The Sukhoy company has serious and long-term plans for development with the leaders of aircraft construction – Boeing and Airbus – and therefore, are up on “those new solutions, which today are being used for the provision of progress in the area of the aviation equipment characteristics, materials and various trends in avionics.” These view, in Pogosyan’s opinion, are confirmed by “what we see at an exhibition, where products that for the most part are not ready and future technologies in all trends are being demonstrated now.
Technological leadership, in the opinion of the Sukhoy Aviation Holding Company’s head, is today a surety of success. Therefore, the main trend of an exhibition’s development is the one that leads in the technologies and leads in the manufacturing of ready products. And undoubtedly, Pogosyan thinks, this is the area which demands constant attention and investments.
Source: 16.06.06, ARMS-TASS
JaiFirst photos by Chris Mouthaan.
Arrival of SB-010.
JaiBAE Systems Delivers First Hawk Tools to Bangalore
The first shipment of Hawk production tools has been delivered on schedule to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in Bangalore. The shipment is the first batch of tooling and test equipment to be supplied by BAE Systems for licensed production of the Hawk Mk132 airframe and engine in India.
India has ordered 66 Hawk advanced jet trainers. Of these, 24 are being supplied by BAE Systems ‘ready to fly’, 6 are delivered in kits and 42 will be built by HAL.
More than 3,000 tools will be sent to Bangalore during the next 18 months, along with kit sets and raw materials for airframes and engines. This is a complex logistical operation during which tooling and aircraft hardware will be shipped to India for the production of 42 Hawks at HAL under licence from BAE Systems.
This element of the Hawk for India programme is the biggest logistics exercise carried out by BAE Systems for many years. In order to facilitate it a 36,000 sq. ft outbound logistics centre has been set up at the company’s Brough site in the UK.
Mike Swales, Head of Offshore Logistics explains “The licence build contract is a massive logistical task for the Hawk team. It is some time since we have been involved in a programme of this complexity. The BAE Systems team in India comprises 13 people who manage all of our offshore business and this will grows to 20 people later in the year as we start major deliveries’.
Throughout the Hawk for India programme engineers from both BAE Systems and engine supplier Rolls Royce will be based in Bangalore to provide technical on-site assistance to the HAL engineers.
The Hawk Advanced Jet Trainer for India contract was signed on the 26th March 2004 to supply 66 Hawk Mk 132 AJTs to the Indian government
aditya, have you donned your anti-flame suit ?
JaiSV-2000 : X-Band radar for naval ALH
Attached are brochures of the SV-2000 radar developed by BEL for Naval variant of ALH.
Some background information on the radar
India Makes Its First Naval Radar System
By VIVEK RAGHUVANSHI, NEW DELHI
DefenseNews.comPosted – 10/25/04 09:50
India has designed and developed its first airborne multi-mode airborne surveillance radar system for the Navy.
The service has ordered 10 Super-Vision 2000 Radar systems at an estimated cost of $600,000 apiece, for delivery beginning in mid-2005, said a senior executive of Bharat Electronics Ltd. (BEL), Bangalore, which will produce the system.
The state Defence Research and Development Organisation’s Electronics & Radar Development Establishment (LRDE), Bangalore, developed the Super-Vision-2000 Radar system this year.
An LRDE scientist said the Super-Vision 2000 is a lightweight and compact system developed for helicopters such as the indigenous Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) and the Navy’s Russian Kamov helicopters, as well as aircraft like its Dornier maritime surveillance planes.
The LRDE scientist said the system design and development phase cost $2.2 million. The system comprises an antenna, transmitter, receiver, data processor and display, and weighs less than 100 kilograms. The radar can detect sea-surfacing targets like a periscope or vessel as well as sea-skimming missiles and targets in the air. The radar also can be used for navigation, weather mapping and beacon detection.
The Super-Vision 2000 will be installed in the naval version of the ALH being produced by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd., Bangalore.
BEL plans to market the system to other militaries after it fulfills the Indian Navy’s requirements.
JaiNorthrop may sell spy planes to India
JUNE 14 : Northrop Grumman Corp., the No. 3 US military contractor, said it’s in talks to provide surveillance aircraft to Malaysia, Spain, India and other countries to expand sales internationally.
The company is in discussions to sell its Hawkeye 2000 E-2C aircraft to these countries, which also include the United Arab Emirates, said Tom Trudell, manager of International Business Development, at the Paris Air Show yesterday.
The Hawkeye 2000 is the fifth generation of the plane.
Northrop, which has been in talks to provide the Hawkeye 2000 to India, may get an initial order for six of the aircraft valued at $1.3 billion, Trudell said.
“We’re still in preliminary discussions,” he said.
“We’ll meet again in July to discuss their needs.”
Jai:dev2:
JaiHi bring_it_on,
Does anyone have tentative specs on the radar that is being developed for the indigenous AEW for the IAF (interms of no. of elements and rough range etc) and when is this system supposed to IOC. And pics would be welcomed too
Source : Force Magazine – April 2004
India is reviving the development of an indigenous Airborne Early Warning And Control System (AEWACS), which it had abandoned in 1999. “We have submitted a proposal to build an AEWACS with a next-generation active phased-array radar installed on a smaller aircraft, unlike the rotating antenna in the earlier Airborne Surveillance Platform (ASP),” said K.U. Limaye, director, Centre for Air Borne Systems (CABS). Limaye, who is also Director of the Electronics and Radar Development Establishment (LRDE) of the state-owned Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO), added that the airborne radar could be integrated on a Brazilian Embraer 145 aircraft.
The new AEWACS’ mission avionics and sensors will be integrated via a dual MIL-STD 1533 B digital databus, with software programmes providing tactical aids, cues and alerts. The mission system will provide automatic radar control, automatic detection and track initiation, reduced false alarms, improved track continuity, sensor and databus fusion and modern communications management. It will also provide adaptive tracking performance, fast track update rate, reliable local situation display and computer-assisted decisions.
The LRDE-developed roof-mounted radar will be an active phased-array, pulse compression, Doppler radar operating in the S-band. The fixed antenna, with extremely low sidelobe levels, will comprise 200 transmitter/receiver modules mounted on top of the aircraft’s fuselage. The best range performance will be achieved in a 150 degree sector sideways, with the performance reduced in forward and aft directions outside of this sector. The instrumented range will be 243nm and the typical detection range for a combat aircraft-sized contact will be 190nm. The radar’s electronically scanning beam will be controlled by an automatic and intelligent energy management system which will optimise the beam position and compared to conventional, rotodome solutions, will provide quicker detection verification, increased tracking range, and improved tracking performance even for highly manoeuvring targets.
Work on the ASP’s Technology Demonstrator (TD) began in earnest and the first flight of the TD, an Avro HS-748 twin-turboprop aircraft equipped with a rotodome fabricated by BAE Systems, took place in November 1991 at the ASTE’s Bangalore facility. By 1994, the LRDE and state-owned Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) had completed development and fabrication of the ASP’s radar and related electronics and a fresh round of technology evaluation and flight testing got underway, following a funding of Rs 250 million from the DRDO. By mid-1996, work on most aspects of the ASWAC project had been completed, and the LRDE radar demonstrated an effective range of 300km when called upon to detect a low-flying target cruising at Mach 1.5 speed. However, the sole ASP TD perished in a fatal crash at Arrakonam near Chennai in January 1999, killing eight personnel, and the ASWAC project was consequently put on hold.
and,
India’s Big AWACS Plans; Mini-concept provides another chance to use research begun in 1999
AWST – April 2004
Within two months of signing the $1.1-billion Phalcon Airborne Early Warning and Control Systems contract, India is looking to revive its own $400-million AWACS project.
To be called the Mini-AWACS system, the project harkens back to the indigenous airborne surveillance platform (ASP) effort shelved by India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) in 1999 after a modified Avro HS-748 crashed, killing four scientists and four air force officers on board. The accident was blamed on a rotodome that blew off, indicating a failure in the modification process.
However, this time DRDO is expected to mount the Mini-AWACS’ phased-array radar on an in-production executive jet, according to K.U. Limaye, director of the Electronics and Radar Development Establishment and head of CABS. An experimental radar is already in testing, he added.
India has begun talks with Israel about joint production of the Mini-AWACS, according to DRDO chief V.K. Atre. After Russia, Israel is India’s second-largest weapons system supplier and the two countries are looking into jointly funding reasearch and development in electronic warfare systems, as well as in major undertakings to build Searcher II and Heron unmanned aerial vehicles.
Regarding IOC, I have read that the testing of the system should be completed by 2011.
JaiIndia to supply spares to Vietnamese navy
New Delhi, June 7 : India will supply to Vietnam’s navy much-needed spares for its Russian-made warships as part of its efforts to step up maritime cooperation with countries of the Indian Ocean region.
“As part of enhanced maritime cooperation between the two countries, INS Magar, an amphibious ship, will carry a shipment of 900 boxes weighing 150 tonnes of Petya and missile boat spares for the Vietnamese navy,” navy spokesman Lieutenant Commander Balbir Singh said here Tuesday.
The supply of the spares had been agreed to during the visit of Vietnam’s Defence Minister Pham Van Tra to India in March.
Indian Navy officials said Vietnam was an important part of India’s extended maritime neighbourhood and bilateral relations had gone from strength to strength in recent years.
Vice Admiral O.P. Bansal, Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief of India’s Eastern Naval Command, will be present when the spares are handed over to the Vietnamese navy later this week at Ho Chi Minh City.
The Indian Navy is committed to making the Indian Ocean region as well as the Asian maritime region stable and peaceful.
“India is keen that the freedom of the seas and the safety of the sea-lanes of communication are guaranteed for all nations,” said Singh.
JaiRussian President Supports Joint Weapons Projects
Yesterday Vladimir Putin chaired a meeting of the Committee for Military and Technical Cooperation (MTC). The main topic of discussion was the question of joint development of new military equipment with other countries. Expansion of this practice is hampered by current Russian legislation, which the president ordered to be corrected subject to preserving secrecy.
It should be noted that Russia already has experience of joint development of new weaponry and military equipment with foreigners. The Russian–Indian enterprise BrahMos Aerospace Ltd. was formed in 1998 to develop the promising BrahMos anti-ship cruise missile and its full-scale production in Russia and India. Friendly third countries were supposed to be the users of this missile. The missile was built and added to the arsenal of the Russian and Indian navies. But whereas the Indian navy plans to actively deploy the BrahMos on its ships, coastal batteries, and aircraft, the Russian navy simply cannot do this. Under existing legislation, exported units of military equipment must differ from those in the arsenal of the Russian Federation. Therefore, in order to realize joint projects, Russian companies are essentially forced to design two classes of weapons – one for domestic use and the other for its foreign partner. As a result, the cost of developing equipment increases substantially. For example, instead of buying the BrahMos, the Russian navy buys the very slightly different Yakhont missile. For the same reason, development of the joint multipurpose MTA transport plane and a promising fifth-generation fighter is being hindered. In both cases, India was prepared to finance the project on a parity basis.
As a source in the Russian government explained to Kommersant, “getting out of the present situation requires a correction of the law On Military and Technical Cooperation that would make it possible to implement full-cycle projects in the area of military and technical cooperation from joint development to aftersales service.” In the source’s opinion, it is also necessary to severely limit the rights of Rosoboronexport in these projects. “It’s a matter of changing the existing status of the state middleman in the military and technical cooperation sphere,” the source explained. “Experience has shown that Rosoboronexport is only interested in delivery contracts from which it gets a percentage. Joint developments financed by two countries don’t fit into this scheme. They are profitable only for the companies participating in the development. This is why the BrahMos project was implemented so that the engineering association participated directly on the Russian side.”
Putin also called on the committee members to ensure harmonious operation of the mechanisms regulating R & D in the interests of foreign partners in the military and technical sphere, with one fundamental reservation. “We need to discuss questions relating to security, the interests of the state, and meeting the requirements of secrecy when organizing these joint projects.” The committee members now have to think about how to carry out joint development of new weapons with foreign partners without violating strict domestic secrecy conditions.
JaiFour Indian navy ships visit SA as a goodwill gesture
Four ships of the Indian navy’s western fleet have embarked on a visit to South Africa as a gesture of goodwill and affirmation of India’s presence in southern Africa.
Two ships docked in Durban today. Two others will dock in Simonstown later in the week.
One of the hi-tech ships, the INS Trishul, and a replenishment vessel, were the early arrivals.
Sunil Jetty, the captain of INS Aditya, said: “We are here this time to extend our hand of friendship.” He added that the Indian Ocean brings South Africa and India closer together, making a strategic partnership with South Africa possible.
The warships will be open to the public for visits. The two ships are scheduled to leave on Thursday.
JaiIndia Opens Giant Naval Base in Arabian Sea
Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee opened the first phase of India’s giant western naval base in Karwar, Karnataka state, on May 31, saying it would protect the country’s Arabian Sea maritime routes.
The Karwar base is being built in the southern state as part of India’s ambitious 350-billion-rupee ($8.13 billion) “Project Seabird,” which will include the naval base and an air force station when it is completed in the next five years.
It will also have a naval armament depot and missile silos.
The Russian aircraft carrier, Admiral Gorshkov, which will be refurbished and handed over to the Indian Navy by 2008, will berth in Karwar, officials said.
“With the commissioning of this naval base in Karwar, the Indian Navy will fulfill the responsibility of defending the country, its sea lanes and safeguarding the country’s exclusive economic zone,” Mukherjee said in inaugurating the base.
India’s exclusive economic zone consists of all marine, mineral, energy and oil resources that fall within 200 nautical miles of its territorial waters from the coastline.
According to defense experts, the Karwar naval base will play a major role in securing the seas not only for India but for countries like Japan, which rely heavily on shipping for imports and exports through maritime routes in the Arabian Sea.
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