Bharat Rakshak

Khan will never ever give you a p8ib bomber, no matter how much you pay/plead or gubo. It is a no no toy for anyone else.

We will need to design MTA-B. The under carriage area can be redesigned to simplify things. A large part of the plane could be common, but for AEW/Refuelers/Sigint/Bomber role, we don't need the under carriage the way it is for transport. It needs to be long range with enough fuel and payload to make a difference.

perhaps the same fuselage albeit somewhat slimmed down in ruggedness, but a low wing design, with longer wings , more powerful engines, more conventional undercarriage, a bigger front section behind cockpit for food/restroom/extra crew seating/mission module, with the rest devoted to aux fuel tanks and a single bomb bay. plus wing pylons for 6 harpoon size ASMs.

imo we already have such a readymade template to work from. its called the Embraer 195
http://www.embraercommercialjets.com/#/ ... s_detail/4
http://www.embraercommercialjets.com/im ... ad/135.pdf

while purists and war mongers may sniff at this vs the massive strike power of a B1/Blackjack, I point to certain advantages

- high COTS content - less modification cost/risk
- Embraer is non-Khan and a global major now, brazil economy is surging - so they will be around
- we are already working with embraer
- high uptime and ease of upkeep as a commercial jet, few if any special parts needed
- relatively small and cheap so we can afford a lot of them for various missions vs a few specialized backfire types. those pylons can be mounted but kept empty. the bomb bay could use modular racks of SIGINT eqpt in that role.
- we can skip the rotary bomb bay occupying the entire fuselage to a simpler arrangement of upto 4 large missiles inside and 6 small ones outside with cabin above left empty or some part having aux fuel tanks.

hence a single one could deliver the missile strike of 4 MKIs + 3 rafales together.

with missile ranges increasing, for land strike it would hardly need to leave the safety of our airspace...just a mobile TEL to reposition and fire quickly vs land TELs.

Those things don't have any range with payload. You want a generic solution more like the 757/767-LR. That will serve almost all your needs for a long time.

If you wanted an AEW version out of this and wanted it on station for 8-10 hours, you couldn't do it. The AEW platform IAF/DRDO chose is all right as supplemental, but cannot be your primary workhorse.

Fuelers ? This won't cut it either.

ASW -?

4 MKI + 3 Rafales = 62,000 KGs. This puppy is close to 12000 kgs at 2500 kms.

a huge payload is not needed as where would you use the massive payload of blackjack or B1 in terms of missiles unless its to fight Khan.
a plane that can deliver 2 full bore brahmos + 6 harpoons together is plenty powerful for the rest.

for khan we will need better stuff like pakda down the line if push came to shove.

we can have aux fuel tanks in old passenger compartment or even a couple of fixed wing tanks like the C130J has.

not perfect, but we are not trying for a high endurance airborne command post/AWACS type platform here which presumably the IL476 will take on once production resumes.

electronics is getting lighter and powerful in generations.

the only other party who might agree to play ball is Airbus with a mix of A321 and A330 conversions...but will surely cost 10X more than this embraer project. we'd have to own some stake in airbus to get what we wanted from that deal.

using a LDP under the chin, it could drop say 32 x 500lb munitions in bomb truck role in protected airspace like in border war scenarios. scare the living crap out of faithfuls hiding stone shelters.

Singha,

That is true, but we are looking to build a platform that will perhaps serve other needs as well. We do not have huge budgets like Khan, so we will have to do something like this.

If all you want to do is deliver -2-4 brahmos, then why not hang em where the external Aux tanks will go on the MTA. Pretty much like a fighter 2 on each wing. Stick the inside with as much fuel as it could take off with. Why do we need a new platform ?

However standoffish weaponry it has, any craft doing offensive bombing of an enemy with fighters/SAM need crazy dash speeds and violent maneuvering capabilities. Even paki type enemies will earn to reposition their defense after a few slaps, so "standoffish" might not always remain that way for revisits of targets etc.

This is distinct from time-pass loiter over ToraBora for history channel footage or Gatling up a faithfool's madarassa for Youtube purposes. Because we see khan using slow moving crafts like AC-130, B52 etc, we feel we too can adopt these easily. Khan does this the way a cheetah plays with a mouse. Like a cheetah, he uses his speed (B1B) or camo-spots (B2) for any bigger prey than mice.

If we are moving up the ladder into industrial scale bombing, the craft has to be designed from scratch for speed, agility and next level of ECM. Right now such a craft has one purpose - chaddi-uthar roles in Beijing. Like bombing their CMC meeting room etc. Because we sort of have decided on minimum-detergent and fat-ladies for the phyjjiks package delivery role.

Now, I would love to have a rotary air-launcher for AAM or PDV, quickly deployed and air-borne around the country in times of tension

^ touche

well the low level supersonic deep penetration role is out of league for any MTA/commercial conversion. so lets not even discuss that. MKI/Rafale will do it for us. rafale trains for it already with ASMP.

we were talking of 'long range missile delivery vans'.

the terrain say in NE is tough. instead of having to field 10 GLCM units on land whether they are subject to vagaries of monsoon, bad roads, enemy attacks on chokepoints, a squadron of these Fedex type vans could fly from someplace safe like Kalaikunda and launch weapons from the same places or slightly further out than these GLCM TELARs. quicker, cheaper, faster on-time project delivery using centralized cloud computing concept. with a payload of 3 fighters, opex will be lower also.

they can also do khan style industrial scale bombing in sanitized areas like a kargilish intrusion zone, from high level out of manpads reach. cheaper and more made-for-TV than sending in the odd Mig27 or MKI to drop 6 bombs at a time. drop 32 and see what happens. even if half explode on target, will be instant youtube sensation. part of short kargilish wars where the end goal is not ripping the enemy a new one, media psyops is important and B52/AC130/AH64 scores well there, even if the real hard work is done silently at night by F-15E or B1s flying in and out from long range

over the sea, they would need some air cover to survive, so not sure how well it fits.

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Sukhoi Su-27 'Flanker' series aircraft - Timeline & Family Tree [Infograhpic] - UPDATED: 2012.04.13
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the newer illustration

Not sure if its been posted before. I dont normally read Russian reports but this one was interesting:

Sukhoi Su-30SM: An Indian Gift to Russia’s Air Force

Talks about the MKI's open architecture designed by us & how nifty it is.

Also read the lone comment at the end of the article. Everyone has their share of lovely neighbors

Oh, so, the J-15 is a derivative of the Su? WOW. News to me.

(BTW, that graphic is from a Polish guy.)

^^
yes, the original source had been attributed in the blog post

A nice Flanker video by KNAAPO

Su-27 FAMILY SUKHOI-KNAAPO FIGHTERS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmYHZ7UtU5E

Unfortunate, but all over the Pune news today:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/pune/Sukhoi-snag-hits-flight-operations-in-Pune/articleshow/12740069.cms

The picture in the Express today seemed to show the Nose Radome dismantled.. but the pic resolution was pretty bad so couldnt really tell.

BTW, not sure if its already discussed here. Visited Pune over the weekend and saw that the Sukhois now have covered parking. Some fancy looking hangars, though not enough for all aircarfts since some were still parked outside

IIRC Pune (Lohegaon) used to have two runways (and still does I believe). These two runways form a cross shape. Unless the Rambha collapsed near the centre of the runway (where it crosses), I don't see any reason why commercial flights couldn't have been shifted to the secondary runway. If the reason was they couldnt taxi to the passenger terminal, they could have easily used buses to drive the passengers to the terminal.

Or Am i missing something here. Jingos Gurus...HELP!

I am guessing here. Weather and wind direction matters, so if the optimum runway was blocked the other runway would have been useless. Secondly if any of the civilian airliners itself had an emergency it would need a free runway to turn around and land. The idea may be to have one free runway always for emergencies in peacetime.

Yes, aircraft take off and land "into the wind", ie the direction of the wind. Wind directions change over the day because of the heating of the landmass at day and cooling at night, as well as local geo and met conditions. That is the reason why the cross runway would have been unusable. And that is why Met Office is an important arm of IAF & AAI.

Curious as to why the radome and antenna have been removed. Were these damaged? The forward fuselage shows no damage.

I think IAF needs some Fighter based offensive EW platforms in the lines of Growler.
IAF Su-30s are going to be ideal for this role, even better then the GF18s as far as the flying machine goes in terms of range, payload and endurance.
Related

a better bet is some of the Rafale up to a Rafale-G standard for this role. its already has highly integrated EW, we could add the offensive and snooping components .... and it has the range for long missions.

france will be more amenable to giving us some good kit vs Khan who does not share the growler with close allies even.

Rafale will still have to adjust with the smaller Radome and less Electric output issues. I was more into developing/integrating some good Electronic assault systems with Elbit and Tikhomirov NIIP.

French, however good their platforms are cannot be solely relied upon(So are the rest of nations lest Russ). The way they helped UK gain advantage on Argentine Mirages in Falklands etc.
Aussies got Growler. If we went for SH we would have surely had the chance to get our hands on some Growlers. I still think we can provided we bend enough for them.

Hi Nair
There are two distinct requirements here. First is air superiority in the target area. Without that, basic air survivability is an issue. Second is the issue of maneuvarability. With true air superiority, you can relax the maneuvaribility requirement. For a bomber to go into a hot zone with SAMs, the only options are ECM, the ubiquitous chaff and flares, both of which have limited value and certain suicide. Even American bomb trucks such as the B 52 are only used after the air space has been sanitized. Designing bombers for agility in today's world of fast reaction SAM and MANPADS threats is relatively useless, since to put it mildly, bomber agility is of limited value, and it comes at the cost of payload. A more useful doctrine is to achieve air superiority and then use high payload dedicated bombers. There is a reason why the venerable Bear is still a threat. Range and payload are still the gold metrics of bomber design.

Cheers
Aharam

Like other have stated, wind direction and if no one has stated, the length of the runway and to a lesser extent approach (do not know if India has restrictions on noise levels, etc over civilian areas).

On Growler capabilities, MKI or Rafale will need an AESA .............. first. Mature one ............ if possible. And, that famous stuff called "network capability".

How mature is India with sensors? Any idea? IF there are enough desi sensors, then one can/should expect a mature platform. Else ...................

We used to have a technical thread for the MMRCA. What ever happened to it? That thread had some great refs. (A major part of the reason it was great was that no one was allowed to discuss in that thread. Total and complete bliss.)

Lohegaon has only one usable runway. The second cross runway has been in disuse for years - remember the parked Su-30Ks that were there for half a dozen years. they were all at one end of the disused runway


http://g.co/maps/f2teq

Aus got the growler-Lite. in small nos it doesnt make sense to get growler ... would have made sense if we got F-18 for IN or MMRCA deals. growler-lite would have benefit of being a soln that works from day1 and even khan's trailing edge is very competitive vs best of rest in the EW arena.

Rafale/MKI is it as the basic platform.

IMO, if the IAF were to get a "Growler" type of EW aircraft, it would need around 16 units (+ 4 reserves). Flights of 4 would be assigned to the SWC, WC, CC and EC each. This way each of the commands will have an ability to assemble 4 x "Growler" EW a/c lead air strike packages into heavily defended targets that are deep inside enemy territory. Alternatively, these EW a/c can provide small corridors along the border for strike aircrafts to break through to enemy airspace.

Not true, yet.

http://australianaviation.com.au/2012/03/go-for-raaf-growlers/

Here is one author who thinks that Canada could be better off with a combination F/A-18E and EA-18G Growler working as a team than just having the F-35.

http://www.casr.ca/mp-northern-growler-daly.htm

^^^

AN/ALQ-99 are out of production and seem to have multiple issues. The Next Generation Jammer is years away from induction and most likely will be export-restricted. So if the IAF were to go for EA-18G, it would only hope to get "Growler-lite"--for electronic awareness rather than electronic attack (without the jamming pods).

^Are there any Russian or Israeli alternatives to the Growler Jammers?

I agree with the idea expressed by this author. Canada faces no real threat worth speaking of, just as Australia has no real enemies and no dangerous threats. I understand their desire to maintain a decent sized fighter force to tackle possible contingencies that today may not have been factored in, but they should evaluate the costs for such options thoroughly and only then commit to it. To me it seems that one of the driving factors behind these F-35 programs are that both nations wish to project a certain capability that backs their economic might, rather than having any major use for such capability.

For Canada, Russia presents a possible threat, but mostly through long range bombers penetrating their airspace. Most of Canada’s population and industrial centers are really far from Russia’s easternmost bases and would present a big challenge for Russia to support a large fighter force attacking them with tanker support being absolutely necessary.

Russian long range bombers can be easily tackled by Super Hornets as well as F-35s, though ideally they’d want a fighter with longer range, endurance and good dash capability. The RuAF is very unlikely to launch a large scale invasion of Canada which requires stealth aircraft to fight off other stealth optimized aircraft (a threat that won’t emerge till 2020 at the very earliest, since PAK-FA won’t enter service before that). As far as expeditionary capability is concerned, the F-35 is definitely a more attractive option than the Super Hornet, but are Super Hornets useless in an expeditionary role? I don’t really think so, otherwise most of NATO will need to re-equip.

I agree with the author- they should look to hold off their F-35 purchase till such a time as when they can evaluate other options that may be available by say 2025. A thorough cost versus gain analysis is needed for Canada to be absolutely sure that it should continue with its F-35 procurement, especially considering how much more costlier and riskier it is compared to the Super Hornet program. the Super Hornet’s twin engines presents an added safety feature for the RCAF especially considering how vast their land mass is and how remote most of it is. A pilot’s chance of recovering safely are definitely improved on a twin engined aircraft with reliable F-414s.

>> Flights of 4 would be assigned to the SWC, WC, CC and EC each.

thats too less imo. each air command would need minimum 1 squadron (16 ac) to be capable of presenting 10 airworthy a/c (66% uptime) on any given day...enough to support lets say 20 strike packages over a days work. so minimum 48 airframes across 4 commands - SWAC, WC, NC and EC...CC getting a few extras from the other 4 as needed. IN will need additional.

I have kept uptime as 66% due to additional complexity of the EW mission suite and payloads which adds its own servicing time.

for comparison at present USA which plans for 1 high intensity war at a time (needing such assets) has a total order of 114 airframes with some half delivered. they will surely buy some more.

with so many airframes needed, I think basing mission payload around the Tejas, MKI and Rafale is the best bet as we can always produce more...and they will be all over the place in each command eventually. they can co-locate with a regular squadron or unit of same type under that commands area for ground crew commonality.

Canada is having a problem where major mart of their EEZ is under permanent ice. No one lives there and almost no one ventures there. But now it is becoming clear that these remote areas have tremendous potential for natural resources. Unfortunately for them, the Russians and Americans have taken their nuclear subs and planted flags at the bottom of Arctic at many places. As Canada had not maintained regular surveillance of these remote areas for a long time, their claims are being questioned. Recently, the Canadian govt. has started investing in hardware that could deter future challenges to their claim.

I'd think, given their vast area, they should invest in quantity and in hardware that has long legs. That said, until the resources start getting exploited, I don't think they can afford too much hardware. So perhaps they're being selective and choosing what they expect to have longer shelf life.

A newspaper (either ToI or The Telegraph) had an article on one of the Cope India exercises where they mentioned that American pilots use adult diapers for long distance missions and the Indians were following suit. Sounds hard to reconcile with macho fighter pilot image, but probably a much more practical solution than holding cans.

Canada needs a fleet of long range LRMP/CG type planes, UAVs of the global hawk mould, long range OTH radar for sea watchkeeping, good ice breaker and coast guard vessels capable of operating long distances and heavy seas, a chain of supporting bases, some nuclear submarines, a few ASW carriers in LPH format , a couple of marine brigades equipped to fight in the arctic conditions and finally a medium complement of F-15SK type to provide the long range strike power.

F18/JSF is not very relevant. for all the above they need to spend big or someone else will eat the meal. khan will not be helpful. perhaps they should hook in with France who doesnt have a dog in the arctic fight.

the days of riding on khan's budget are over. they need to up spending.

I saw this photo on Flickr with the remarks, "SU30 - RIAT 2007" and asked the photographer if he was sure about this being RIAT & not Waddington (where VayuSena Su30s had gone to for exercise Indra Dhanush)
He confirmed it being RIAT by stating, "They were there...on arrival one of the jets did some unplanned go arounds and pulled some G so those who were at RIAT for arrivals had a real treat, during the actual show the 30's were on static."
Seconded by another shooter: "Yep, this was from the arrivals day was great to see this one do a few burn arounds the circuit."

Cool! Never knew that ^

Canada like Australia (althogh they are worse off) jusyt does not have the population or resources to defend such vast territory

If the free meals from khan are gone they are in trouble

Great! So the one thing that we all thought was going well for the IAF...isn't. That explains why there has been no news about any other squadron getting re-equipped with the MKI after the 102.

That article states 150 MKI's.

How is HAL going to manage two variant of LCA and MMRCA, and later PAKFA? I already see good timing for private enterprises start pitching in their share of keeping up with subcomponent level deliveries.. and then again, it could be integration issues, etc.. as HAL is already neck deep into total controls of everything on our land for the forces.

tough times ahead.. i am sure, some shakeups will be there.

Its not prudent to put all our eggs in the same basket. About the right time to restructure/reorganize HAL to meet the demand and dynamism that the future holds