IAF orders inquiry into incident involving Prez’s copter

Mi-8 in VVIP transport role in India…I didn’t know that. Are there any plans to replace these in near future?

Another LCA-related article.
8 per years sounds ok for the time being since that would deliver the required number 40 of MK-1to IAF by around 2014, and then could shift to MK-2. But I think they would have to increase its production rate to even more than 12 then since NLCA would be in contention too. As for the price, that was the strange thing for me…$32 mil a piece. But then we don’t know 150 crore per piece is for the first 8 pieces, 20 pieces or 40 pieces or the entire package? And what can we say about the dollar exchange ratio.

http://idrw.org/?p=1987
‘India can manufacture only 8 Light Combat Aircraft a year’
BY : IANS

Despite a pending order from the Indian Air Force (IAF) for 20 light combat aircraft (LCA), India can manufacture only eight such aircraft annually, a senior Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) official has said.N. Shyama Rao, project director at the ADA, said Tuesday that while only eight LCA could be manufactured annually, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), a public sector undertaking unit involved in the manufacture of the LCA, would undertake a massive recruitment drive in order to expand the scope of production of the fighter planes.

‘Currently we can manufacture 8 aircraft per annum, which is extendable up to 12,’ Rao said at a press conference at the INS Hansa, a naval base in Goa 30 km from here.

He also said that HAL in the near future could recruit nearly 500 officers to meet the challenge.

While the IAF has already ordered 20 LCA to be delivered by 2013, they are expected to order 20 more of the fighter craft which was christened Tejas by former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The LCA will replace the IAF’s ageing Mig 21-fleet, while the naval version of the LCA will replace the maritime force’s fleet of Sea Harriers.

‘Even the Indian Navy will be ordering the LCA once the ski jump trials are validated,’ Air Vice Marshal Shankar Mani told reporters, adding that the naval version was still in the prototype phase.

The ski jump trials, which are compulsory for the naval version of the LCA, will enable the fighter craft to land and take off from the deck of aircraft carriers. ‘After spending some initial years on shore bases, the LCAs will also be posted onboard the Gorshkov, once it joins the Indian fleet,’ Mani said.

He said addition of the LCA to the IAF fleet would help close the gap between the subsonic Kiran aircraft and the supersonic Mig 21.

Armed with air to air, air to ground missiles and a bomb carrying a 1,000 pound payload, the LCA, which clocked in excess of 1,350 kmph during a trial off Goa Tuesday, is expected to cost Rs.150 crore per aircraft.

P.N. Subramanium, project director at the ADA, said the LCA represented fourth generation technology. ‘The LCA is contemporary in every sense, whether it is in terms of sensors, electronic systems, technology, weaponry, etc,’ he said.

The indigenously made fighter plane which has been flown by more than a dozen test pilots so far will be ready for induction into the IAF by 2010.

I will repeat my question again in the light of this new report. [B]Why has the Russian industry (thus far) failed to meet the needs of Russian armed forces in terms of UAVs? Is it the lack of resources, foresight, or both? Or maybe something else?

http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2009/12/08/Russia-wants-more-Israeli-spy-drones/UPI-67481260290589
Russia wants more Israeli spy drones
Dec. 8, 2009

TEL AVIV, Israel, Dec. 8 (UPI) — Russia is seeking to acquire more Israeli unmanned aerial vehicles under a $100 million deal that has more to do with bribing Moscow not to supply Iran with state-of-the-art air-defense missiles that could skewer any Israeli air assault than it has with dollars and cents.

Russia has not been able to produce an effective UAV, a weakness exposed during its brief 2008 conflict with Georgia, and it has made no secret of the fact that it wants to reverse-engineer the Israeli craft to fast-track production.

Moscow bought 12 Israeli UAVs under a $53 million deal signed in April with state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries, but not disclosed until June. These comprise IAI’s second-tier craft, the Bird-Eye 400 mini-UAV, the I-View MK 150 tactical UAV and the Searcher Mark 2 medium-range UAV.

That was Israel’s first sale of military platforms to Russia. It was also Russia’s first purchase of a foreign weapons system.

Israeli defense sources say that the new deal under negotiation with IAI involved improved surveillance equipment. IAI declined comment, but one Israeli sources noted: “The Russians are going for a triple upgrade of their fleet and its capabilities.”

According to other sources, Russia wants 50 Israeli UAVs, particularly long-endurance craft.

That likely includes IAI’s Heron, the largest Israeli surveillance drone with a 54-foot wingspan. It has the ability to stay aloft for 50 hours at a time at an altitude of 30,000 feet. It can also carry missiles and can be refueled in flight from tanker aircraft.

It was Georgia’s use of long-endurance Hermes 450 tactical spy drones, built by Israel’s Elbit Systems, to provide battlefield reconnaissance in the 2008 fighting that caught Moscow’s interest.

The Russians, who had to rely on the less effective Tu-22 strategic bombers for battlefield intelligence, decided to acquire Israeli craft for the purpose of studying them and reproducing them in Russia.

The Russians have been building unmanned aircraft for several decades, but never achieved the degree of success of U.S. and Israeli companies. Their craft have only a fraction of the flight duration of the Israeli UAVs and have long had reliability problems.

Following the Georgia conflict, the Russian air force launched several UAV projects, with the objective of having operational systems by 2011. But Russian defense contractors, including the state-owned Ikut aircraft manufacturer and the Vega Radio Engineering Corp., were unable to come up with systems that met the air force’s requirements.

According to various estimates, the Russians need at least 100 UAVs and at least 10 guidance systems to provide the battlefield surveillance the military needs.

In the first UAV sale to Russia in June, the Israelis withheld the most advanced UAV variants after several Russian officials publicly stated that the main reason they wanted the UAVs was to purloin their technology.

But the Israelis understood that it was vital to be able to influence Moscow, Iran’s main arms supplier, to block the delivery of S-300PMU air-defense missiles to the Islamic Republic.

It wants the advanced system to protect its nuclear facilities from threatened Israeli airstrikes.

Indeed, in 2008 Gen. Amos Gilad, head of the Israeli Defense Ministry’s Diplomatic Security Bureau, visited Moscow and received assurances that Russia would not provide S-300s to Iran or MiG-31 interceptor jets to Syria.

Iranian leaders have been complaining vociferously about Moscow’s refusal to honor an $800 million contract for five S-300 batteries signed in 2007 as tension between the United States and Iran swelled once more over Tehran’s nuclear program, raising the prospect of unilateral Israeli military action.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu secretly flew to Moscow several weeks ago to press President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin not to send S-300s to Iran and was reportedly given renewed assurances they would not.

“The UAV sale/technology theft was basically a bribe to ensure that the Russians did not equip Iran with better anti-aircraft missiles,” according to one Western analyst.

“Letting Russia steal UAV technology has suddenly become more important than keeping Iran or Syria down.”

it got past all those transonic problems and into true supersonic speed?

Didn’t it start testing the supersonic regime quite a while back?

With the current engine the Tejas have performance issues in coastal areas so its impressive that it achieved 1350kmph @ Goa.

I might be totally wrong here, but weren’t those problems associated with low altitude?

PS. I remember seeing some debate quite a while back talking about the mach number that Tejas has test flown. Anyone got the figure?

Pakistan gets first AWACS aircraft

Of course the scenarios are too many, war is like a chess game. There are 2 players playing, not just you. 😀 Also in war you can’t win without losses too. There is no perfect tactic that will give you 100 to 0 kills , unless the opponent is very weak compared to you.

The fact that you don’t see Amraam IR doesn’t say much. US weaponry is made for US needs and dogma. With their air superiority, “smartass” costly solutions like that, weren’t possibly interesting. Another example is that the Americans don’t have an equivalent of the S400. Is it useless? No, it doesn’t fit the US needs and dogma. The french were the big lovers of the delta wing, the others ignored it, now we have the eurocanards with delta wing. The Russians themselves didn’t take advantage of the IRST, which on their turn the other manufacturers never got interested in. Now all new airplanes are fitted with advanced IRST. The Russians introduced heavy cannon in the BMP series IFVs since the BMP1 (73mm). No western IFV had any such powerful cannon. Was it wrong? It depends on the dogma. Today some western IFV have 90mm cannon, the Russians have gone to 105mm, the Germans are at 40mm in the Puma.

Don’t be too interested on whether something is “fashionable”. Be more interested if it sounds a good idea and whether it suits your own dogma.

Also take the upgraded Mirage for what it is. It’s not a 4th generation aircraft. Use it wisely if you want to use it, within its limits.

Well balanced and well said.
The fact that what you do suits your own requirements, what your opponent does most likely suits his requirements, and that There is no perfect tactic are some of the things many of us often forget.

I m not sure if it’s proper LPI capability. The enemy ESM does pick up your radars sweep and knows you ‘re there. What he can’t know, is whether you are simply tracking him, or whether you have fired and you are guiding an EM missile on him. While the usual non-LPI radars out there, do “betray” them when they are trying to guide a missile on you. Or at least, when they lock on you steadily, you can presume he is firing at you. With the RDY II, you can be tracking 24 (?) targets and each one of them, can’t be sure if you have fired on him already or not. If he has MAWS he will find out later on. If not, he can ASSUME that he has been fired upon and become defensive. This alone is a tactical advantage, because you put on the defensive the entire number of aircrafts that you scan , not just the ones that you keep locked.

Considering that a number of airforces are trying to go the netcentric way, with some having a lead over others, I think this tactical advantage is probably the maximum one could to achieve and not a complete surprise. But what happens if the guy tracking those 24 targates is also being tracked at the same time from another sources? Would he/she also not go defensive and probably stop tracking? To be honest, there are so many different possible scenarios that it gives me a headache even to think about them.

As for the use of Mica IR and Mica EM, I can see the advantages. But if the advanatges were overwhelming, I think we would have seen R-77/AMRAAM etc. also going that way, i.e. IR/EM variants. Russians even had operational R-27 IR. But they don’t appear to have operationalised more advanced variants especially considering that Russian are probably the best when it comes to IRST systems.