………..Boeing is not being sought for weapons integration. That is the job of another team at NFTC and HAL + ADA. ADE is integrated w/them for flight testing, but the assistance there will be from Elta. And several of the LCAs avionics and systems are already flying as part of the MKI/ MiG/Jag upgrades. So the onboard avionics are not as much of an issue, as is meeting the flight testing requirements in time given AND completing weaponisation with available stores …………

Boeing is sought for its vast experience on a “certain aspect” of the flight regime that India has no experience with. While it might be perfectly acceptable for other nations to loose a few of their putative test pilots (how would you ever know they control the flow of all information) this would be a disaster for the LCA program.

On the surface its ridiculous to have Boeing charge you an arm and a leg for something which sounds pretty trivial but ADA/HAL do NOT want to take any chances. This aspect of the flight regime is the experience that cannot be “bought off the shelf” or “co developed” or worse “calculated/simulated”. You need to base it off the experience of someone else who has been there and done that and you tell them what you got and they tell you what they think might happen if you do what you plan to do or what you didn’t think about based on their experience.

Also the beauty of the LCA avionics program is not the LRU themselves its the “development process”. The LRU are merely the outcome. While your average jingo might oogle at the individual black box what is never seen is the infrastructure where these babies are developed/tested. The avionics aspect of weapons release is really no big deal for the LCA. Even before the LSP flies with its 2032 they would have tested it to death thanks to all the some very capable on ground testing rigs.

Even with the 2032 and IN20 there is soooooooooooooo much work to be done its not even funny.

George, author does not (???) appear to have spoken to anyone from No.20/30. But that does not decrease the validity of his article a bit………………Finally,the author talks about a simulation programme where MKI in the hand of a competent pilot who was well aware of Eagle’s intrinsic shortcomings defeated the latter in every engagement. Thus the debate continues…

Thank you Vikas you really have allowed this discussion to progress :diablo:

I strongly subscribe to the school of thought that for there to be more than one schools of thought you need empirical validation of the theory from each school.

For the past 5.5 years the No.20 (with legacy No.24 pilots) and now No.30 have been actually using a TVC aircraft and *gasp* developing and refining tactics for “all sorts of engagement”. I only quoted the R73-Sura-TVC because its not very often that folks who use these things for a living actually indulge in hyperbole.

You cannot speculate or simulate something with the same accuracy as an actual brick & mortar TVC user can inform you. You have to factor in which a/c its on, what asset it has to deploy and what their operational philosophy of the user. And you have 5.5 years of hard core empirical data about this.

So while putative pundits can talk about how it can be used and cannot be used, it really is no substitute to talking to an actual user. If this was a peer reviewed article the author would almost certainly have been dinged for not explaining WHY he did not get actual user inputs. Either he did not do his due-diligence (which really calls into question the editorial motive of this piece) or the user simply refused to talk to him (which should not happen if the right questions are posed, but if it did happen the author is justified in stating that the user refused to talk to him)

So while this might provide 8 euros of entertainment based on your very nice summary I really cannot subscribe to this being anything more than a collection of dated information and idle speculation from arm-chair theorist. Which is why folks on the Oracle forum love it so much.

If the Oracles of TVC want to take this as the definitive proof that TVC is useless/not worth the effort we have another scintillating scat for AFM thread.

Like I stated before you can use Buran as an example of why Space Shuttle are not viable for space transport but make for excellent amusement parks….if you did not get any inputs from NASA. Its a simplistic analogy but should amplify due diligence.

Bottomline: There are folks here who think that without talking to No.20/30 drivers this article stand alone as a good example of utility to TVC while I think ignoring the users with the most experience with this TVC tech is simply not an oversight its an example of biased journalism which finds an equally biased audience on forums like this one.

Robert:
Excellent point…I thought about the Harrier only after I posted. Touche`. But the americans are again not the only Harrier users. The IN also has used them for a very long time and according to the IAF jocks who routinely train against them….they can be pretty tough cookies to beat. I think they are just whining.

Theres half a page on the Su-30MKI in the article…

See there ya go…I was wrong the author did do his due diligence…who did he speak to from No.20/30? What did they have to say? Was this the CO or at least legacy No.24 guys (Su-30K).

I would urge anyone who has not already done so to read this article (Air Forces Monthly, March 2008). It’s one of those rare additions to the aviation literature that will likely be referred back to time and again…………..In sum, this issue of Air Forces Monthly probably offers the most complete review of this technology that we have yet seen. Well worth the read.

I would love to get my hands on this issue but since this thread has some sane post from the saner elements of the Oracle forum I am assuming this thread has the potential (however infinitesimally small) of actually being worth a read.

If the said article does not have inputs from the IAF No.20/30 sqd (the MKI sqds) its not worth the paper its printed on. Based on my casual conversations with “folks who actually use TVC for a living” they actually find it useful in all regimens of their “job”. But if AFM says its useless I am sure the No.30 jocks donno what they are talking about and we should shove this AFM article on their faces and tell them they donno what they are talking about.

I have stated this before and let me re-iterate it and you Oracles of TVC are free to interpret is as you feel like.

With the TVC-R73 combo (on the MKI) is pretty much as good as it gets to WVR engagements…..

The problem with TVC is the human element. Teaching old dogs new tricks.

Off course its his word vs. AFM. But we know for a fact from the latest AFM drivel (sorry…thoughtfully researched article) that TVC sux…so obviously this gentleman really does not know what he is talking about. Off course this is the Oracle forum so its great at producing Oracles on any topic (Twu BVR). So I guess there is a new breed of Oracles of TVC being produced right now as we speak. Them injuns are crazy to get 140++ MKI, all their adversaries have to do is stick the AFM article to their canopy and the MKI will drop like flies.

Jeez guys you still haven’t learned anything after all these years:

1) JF-17 (I have seen definitive YouTube videos that prove that it can shoot down an MKI. 1 JF-17=3 MKI + 1 Mig-29)

I tell you guys…..you really need to do your homework. Here is a link (if its not already posted). How can you even ask for more proof?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03gD1gDfqL4

2) Habib Sitara- (yes there is a flying version and yes its better than the F-22)

I donno if you are still looking for advice on books. The S5XXX series is pretty good when it comes to learning manual controls before stepping into D-SLR photography.

1) You should check out “Understand Exposure” by Bryan Paterson its a great book on SLR photography but you can use a lot of stuff on a S5600.

2) I think Fujifilm does support RAW and if you have Photoshop CS2/CS3 you should check out “Adobe Photoshop CS2 for Digital Photographers” by Scott Kelby. This is a simple how-to book for many features of PS but you might need to convert the FujiRAW to PSD or TIFF before processing ( I am not sure if Camera RAW supports Fuji…or you could try Irfan View and convert it to TIFF and process further in CS2/3)

Please keep all India discussion out of the PAK-FA topic, thanks.

Errr….pray tell me HOW is that possible? India committed to joint development of the FGA (see previous page). So PAK-FA project is pretty much in the purview of an Indian discussion and all that it entails. That’s like saying you want to discuss Star War without Darth Vader.

If the Chinese had signed on to the FGA then the Shanghai Statisticians would have loved to talk about their existing projects like J-XX or whatever the latest photochop is out there, and how that gets affected by their involvement with the PAK-FA.

You gotta be the next village idiot to even assume that you can talk about the PAK-FA/FGA now without talking about the MCA/LCA and other Indo-Russian Projects like the MKI. If its a joint development you’ll just have to live with the fact that them Indians will claims the FGA/PAK-FA to be as much their own as the Russian do. Oh wait ….you don’t have to be a village idiot….just an Oracle.

Really people, AFM Forum seems to excel in producing such Oracles.

What manc said is spot on. I was assuming you are going to fill the frame with your object.

If you are only getting that close at 300mm then you need to try the evaluative meter. Don’t worry about the FOVC, in fact if you shot this at ISO 200 you might have still gotten away with 1/500 @ f/8 but even then since you are not filling the frame you are better off with evaluative.

This is not important at this stage, but later on you need to know that your consumer grade 70-300mm Sigma/tamron/Canon whatever will be soft at 300mm but in this context that does not apply.

Do you have other pics? Or you are only interested in this specific pic?
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Toyota C transmission history
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ROOR BONG