Are don’t you asking a bit too much?, are don’t you overating the Indian importance in the aerospace market and technology?

The russian attitude is balance, is their program, many of you probably are still thinking the russians are broken and are willing to sell all their industrial knowledge, infrastructure and programs to India.

Nothing has been signed yet, india is not putting money in the pakfa, russians are worried to design a plane not only to sell to India, but for the worlds market

Not overrating russians, not diminishing indians, but seriously there is a bit of inflated nationalist self importance in this thread

I dont know what you are complaining about.Are you very sure about the “money” thing?

This is from a recent interview by HAL chairman Ashok Nayak

Certain modifications according to the technical requirements will be incorporated in the Indian version and these have already been discussed in detail between HAL and IAF. This then, is the starting point. As you know, it takes a few years between the prototype flight and the acceptance of an aircraft, this time will be utilised between Russia and India to work closely on the Indian version. I can say that metaphorically speaking, India has taken its first step for the fifth generation aircraft. I would also like to dispel a prevalent notion that while India will pay 50 per cent of the money, it may just get about 10 per cent of the work-share. This will not happen. India will be an equal partner in all aspects in the FGFA.

Its clear that India is paying 50% of the money atleast for the Indian version and also will get some of the workshare which is most probably productionizing some components for the Russian and Indian version and also more advanced work on the Indian version.About the Russian only version ..as I said there is very little India can contribute if at all.

Although Im not aware of this single/twin seater issue, I find it a little strange to find myself standing on the same side of the fence as you on this issue. 🙂

According to the ToI article posted by Austin, India and Russia, after protracted negotiations and some glitches, are now going full steam ahead to finalise the joint project for the stealth fifth-generation fighter aircraft (FGFA). Since FGFA is a Russian concept and the joint project is yet to be finalised, isn’t it logical to assume that ADA/HAL etc. could not have had any INPUT (be it design or development) into this project so far?

The article also states that IAF, in fact, recently finalised the technical requirements for its FGFA, which will have long-range strike and high-endurance air defence capabilities, and submitted them to Russia. So the requirements have been submitted. Russia would review them, negotiate them with India, and so on. Now for the sake of argument, lets assume that the actual contrat for this joint venture would be signed sometime next year.

Finally, Antony, on his part, has already declared India wants the FGFA’s development to be completed by 2016 to ensure IAF can begin inducting it by 2017. Now I dont know if this is also a part of ASR or not, but what sort of contribution would Indian aviation industry be able to make to this 5th generation 50:50 project in 6-7 years times, be it the development of Radar, Engines, Stealth, Avionics etc.?

The PAKFA is a pure Russian bird and it does not meet Indian ASRs for FGFA atleast in some respects.All the agreement/contract/co-development bit is regarding the development of the India specific variant.And that agreement is yet to be finalised.Contribution of India in development of the PAKFA is very less if not altogether nil.Maybe some finances and production of some components in India(for both the Russian and Indian versions).Remember that the PAKFA has not flown yet and it will need lot more cash regarding clearing IOC,FOC and productionizing.These are the only places that India can chip in w.r.t the original PAKFA.
Now regarding the Indian FGFA , Indian contribution there could be quite a bit..ala MKI even more than that.Contributions can come in terms of avionics,use of composites (stealth?) ,productionizing many components in India ,integration of third party hardware.contributions regarding radar – not likely ,engines- zilch..other than locally producing them.From the reports it seems that the agreement to be finalised most probably also concerns modifying the original bird sufficiently to increase endurance (more fuel capacity) ,double seating and other things to meet Indian ASRs(which makes it different from just MKIzing) and that may require changing some basic design parameters which is not possible without Russian help.Hence negotiations.

Just came upon this…HTT-35 turboprop trainer..had never heard of it before!Anybody have anymore info..?

pix of mockup..

The first photo is that of the long-forgotten HTT-35 advanced turboprop trainer, in particular its full-scale mock-up, which was designed and fabricated in-house by HAL in the late 1980s and rolled out in the early 1990s—all in all a four-year effort. The objective at that time was to team up with a global avionics supplier (most probably THALES) and co-design the semi-glass tandem cockpits and offer the aircraft for evaluation by the IAF by 1998. However, after 1994 the HTT-35 disappeared, literally!

more here

http://trishulgroup.blogspot.com/2009/10/bottoms-up-not-top-down.html

Eventually they will come to a negiotiated price , these are common tactics adopted by OEM to get more money and end user to reduce the cost.

The upgraded Mirages will be here for the next 25 years or atleast untill 2035 , same for upgraded Mig-29.

At ~ $2 Billion the cost of upgraded 51 M2K is more than double the cost of IAF upgraded ~ 65 Mig-29 which costs ~ $ 950 million , additionally the airsuperiority Mig-29 after upgrade will get full multirole capability and a new RD-33 series 3 engine.

So it would be interesting to see what goes inside the M2K upgrade to cost $ 1 billion more for 15 less aircraft to upgrade.

Well..I am not so sure this is going to work out.Going by the recent trends in weapons purchases i think Dassault already knows that Rafale is not going to be selected for mMRCA.And the upgrade would/could not have any such stuff so as to have such a high cost.

In anycase I dont know why the IAF is ruling out an Israeli upgrade.I would have thought that would have been the better option even if the French upgrade didnt cost so much..and if you really wanted the French weapons..Mica that could be easily done with the Israeli upgrade I think.

Santhanam is the one who proved the PRC-Pak nuke nexus while working as part of RAW, served over a decade in the DRDO shepherding our nuclear plans, has BARC has his parent organization, and people on the net, with not even a fraction of his accomplishments are to judge him.

To be a whistleblower in India, requires solid guts and big brass goolies, and one has to be so well accomplished that even the establishment is afraid to take you on. Santhanam fits all these criteria.

Good to get your views on this and agreed.

‘sometimes the naive will do more harm than the evil’

Ya are proving that right….

We do not sanction anyone because we are not in a position toientists like RC etc sanction anyone. If one day God willing we are in the position America is now you will see how hypocritical we are. In these things timing is key we must do right things at the right time and the current policy goes well with the need of the hour.

So you agree that the US is a hypocrite, and you support that and agree that it is the right way to go even if all the US has done by its hypocrisy is to hurt Indian interests?Doesnt it bother you that after all the revelations by AQ khan the US does nothing?…and I guess those who are advocating India does not need to test want India to be closer to the “west” and would not bother if India gets hurt in the process..as long as we remain close to the “West”.Kinda reminds me of this

And what “right timing” are you talking about??Did anyone (in the establishment) say such a thing as there’s gonna be a “right time” when we will test?last time I checked the government , scientists like RC etc were saying that hey we dont need to test anymore!!

What makes you so sure that testing a TN device (while it is still doubted whether the first test is successful or not) is in the interest of the countries billion people. Many have rightfully pointed out that the current deterrent level is enough.

And similarly others have said that the current level isnt enough..
If testing a TN (or indeed building a TN weapon) isnt in the interest of the billion Indian people then why did we have to do it the first time?Why did we have to do PoK II?What was it..just a million $$ showoff?

What credentials do Santhanam or all these rouge scientists have to talk about Minimum deterrence,

The same credentials that RC or AK has…..since its they who were actually concerned with carrying out teh tests ,since its they who were aware of what happened ands since its also their country after all.
NSA..puhleez that fellow only parrots whats been told to him..its not as if he has some special knowledge about nuclear science.

I would rather believe the scholarly circles who have studied the matter in much greater detail and who are level headed.

:D:D…
what matter?you mean the nuclear bomb?And your scholarly circles have studied them in greater detail than scientists like KS or other scientists who have mad their life out of working with such technology?

The reason why I doubt its a move to destabilize India’s relations with the west is that they have remained silent till now (rather than some rogue noises after the test) and decided to come out in public during this time which is signified by closer co-operation with the west, signing of the nuclear deal and IAEA waivers. It is easy to see these guys have other agendas. I won’t even be surprised if some of them are on Chinese payroll, after all DRDO and BARC only pays so less. Seeing how China Opposed the IAEA waiver given to us.

……And I thank God that those scientists had the courage to bring all of this into limelight before the final works were done..and has done a great service to this country by pre-emtively blocking (at least to some extent)the possiblilty that Mr . Mumble mumble does something under the table..

Its easy to see those “guvmint” guys have other agendas..I suspect they are on US payroll..

See your game can be played bothways..

Nevertheless do you believe when the current government and the two main political parties who may head future governments say that they are convinced the test is successful that there will be a change in that view which will necessitate further tests ? Do you recall that the Vajpeyee government was very close to signing the C.T.B.T.

And in the case of a third front alternative the disregard the CPM and its allies have toward nuclear tests are well documented. So who do you think is going to test. Santaclaus this coming Christmas ?

Whatever the government or the political parties do are in their interests..not necessarily in the interests of the country.Remember when congress did such dirty politics during Kargil Divas commemoration..?what utter disrespect to the soldiers who gave their lives for the country…is that the same political parties you are talking about?

Its a different matter whether there will be anymore tests or not but it is very clear that those tests need to be carried out…

Just live with the truth my friend that there will be no nuclear tests no matter what Santhanam or whoever says. 😉

“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.”
—–Albert Einstein

It is scietnfically proven that you only need to have a certian sized willy to get the job done

And now its been revealed that we havent reached that certain size yet..

It is because with what we have we can kill millions of people and thats unacceptable damage worthy of detterence.

So I guess you’d say that a single 15 KT mounted on a single Agni I/II is sufficient aint it..because it could kill lots of people..and that would certainly qualify as “minimum”..