LCA News and Discussions

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Singha
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by Singha »

I read somewhere around 80 JSF have already been manufactured?
are they all part of the test program or used in some trails role with armed forces ASTE type units as well?
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by Gurneesh »

@ Karan, while criticizing the program because LSP's are different from one another is total BS, the time that LSP8 is taking to get ready is definitely worrisome.

LSP5 was supposed to be IOC standard and LSP7,8 and subsequently SP1-20 were to be of this standard. So, after LSP5 first flight one thought that LCA's would start coming off the production line at a fair pace. But then LSP7 took more than a year to materialize, which as we later found out was primarily due to the fuel line issue. So, when LSP8 does not fly many months after LSP7 flew, one wonders what new structural issues might be pending.

The need of hour is for HAL to bring out as many SP airframe as it can ASAP so that IAF can fly these and get comfortable.

In case of Arjun, we heard a lot of media reports about performance deficits before induction in strength. But after those trials and proper induction, we don't hear those type of reports anymore. This should apply to LCA also, but more importantly IAF seems to have put most of it's light fighter eggs in LCA basket so if HAL gets it's act together then there is very good future for LCA.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by manum »

Its pretty much evident that all the LSP's are WIP's...There is bound to be difference in them wrt body configuration and growth of additions, tweaking...hopefully they are upgrading all the LSP's as per current resolution in last LSP...

Even when I drastically modified my Enfield...It took me 3 years to bring it to full potential and remove all those nagging problems by identifying them over time...
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by karan_mc »

So what Gurus are saying is that LSP are WIP and somewhat no more than Prototypes ?? That explains why HAL only Delivered 6 aircrafts in 5 years , HAL is simply branding Prototypes has LSP and Pre-Production aircrafts . So if LSP-7 and LSP-8 are supposed to be same to meet IOC standards , why is HAL not put the aircraft in air by now ? or LSP-8 will have more changes compared to LSP-7 ?
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by manum »

LSP's are limited production models...and they are not 100% frozen configuration i.e. you cant simply put them in full scale production. Because it needs certain amount of exactness wrt what the client desires and is under pipeline...

There is also what the scientist and engineers can see achievable in near future but they are deciding as per what is in pipelime, what is going to be in pipeline...and what is the time when all things shall have to be on table.

Given we arrived at LSP-8, there is more focus on percentage of Indigenization because now this program has become vulnerable to external forces trying to arm twist us...one single module can cause further delay...

They might be pushing LSP-8 to the last detail of configuration, so that they don't waste anymore time...
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by vasu raya »

With the SoC on the scene we see it being used on the missiles but not so much on the Tejas yet, is this being pursued as part of greater indigenization? the autopilot bit is really good news though
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by vic »

Are LCA flying nowadays or are grounded?
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by disha »

vic wrote:Are LCA flying nowadays or are grounded?
It appears so, atleast until the desired AoA is not achieved, the LCA is grounded. :P

It is going to be a slog match towards IOC II/FOC for LCA mk1. I am more interested in the news for the new GE 414 IN engines. Have they been delivered? When is the LCA Mk II going to fly?
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by shiv »

No news of flying=news of no flying
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by keshavchandra »

As of reports currently LCA is at IAF base for weapon trials close to pokhran. Blackarcher have posted some snaps of the base on keypublishing tejus thread. May any one text the link here also.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by manum »

keshavchandra wrote:As of reports currently LCA is at IAF base for weapon trials close to pokhran. Blackarcher have posted some snaps of the base on keypublishing tejus thread. May any one text the link here also.
http://gallery.tejas.gov.in/Gallery/Det ... &k=vmZ8s9h
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by vic »

Difficult to believe that all of ten or so LCAs have been grounded.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by Singha »

I havent seen them flying in blr for a long time. its likely 2 are for ground test rigs, 2 are undergoing some rework and rest are with IAF bases doing tests in preparation for final exam in Jan 2013 firepower demo.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by Nick_S »

Why is the news on LCA status so confidential? I dont see what they have to hide. :(
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by vivek_v »

Nick_S wrote:Why is the news on LCA status so confidential? I dont see what they have to hide. :(
It could probably be because there is no reason or benefit for ADA or anyone involved to actually publish all the information except for the benefit of Jingos like us. You would surprised to hear that even with a same defense complex the different teams do not know what the others progress and the work others do unless the teams are working together on the same stuff. It is very similar to say a IT company where most do not bother what the other teams release date is or what bugs they are facing.

It is not that things are very confidential (any sub-contractor working on it would more or less know the whole stuff except on things like encryption stack et al) , it is just that not many are first place interested in these stuff and the people who know the actual progress updates (mostly scientists 'E' and 'F') would not really bother to keep publishing status updates in open domain. For example during a trip to VRDE some years ago one of top scientist was surprised to hear that i knew that T-90 and Arjun tank went head to head for trails. These things do not make front page news in India and most don't bother to read about these things anyways. This is the basic reason.

It is very different to USA where funding has to got from congress, senate, president and everyone involved (plus a private MIC) and hence a running commentary in all the channels which we are used to and we tend to expect the same from Indian MIC (not that anything is wrong in our expectations).
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by SaiK »

so especially for jingoes, LCA has entered a no-fly-zone or gone on stealth mode.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by RKumar »

As per ADA website, currently
- There is no team except a project director (Shri J J Jadhav) working on LCA Mk-1. Most probably he is responsible for ToT from ADA to HAL (No screw drivers this time). It also appears that ADA achieved something important in July, 2012 in relation to LCA-MK1 with 1941 flights.

- There are three different teams including a project director working on
---LCA Navy - 1 + 3 project co-ordinators (2 from Navy and 2 from ADA)
---LCA MK-2 - 1+ 4 project co-ordinators
---AMCA - 1 + 9 project co-ordinators

Added Later : It is my analysis from ADA website regarding ToT. 3rd change -> Added links
Last edited by RKumar on 09 Nov 2012 21:01, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by SKrishna »

^^^^ Which shows LCA Mk. 1 development is finished and winding down to production processes. The development work has shifted to Mk. 2 and Navy versions. On the other hand AMCA is hotting up and that is where most of the action is!!! :D :D :D
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by SaiK »

I was thinking it requires FoC for the HAL prod shift to happen.. but i am happy since, the forces are happy that it has reached the 4th leg stage of the cheetah.

the only thing we have to hear is lca tejas firing at dummy A2A and A2G targets with the allowed and configured missiles.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by nash »

RKumar wrote:As per ADA website, currently
- There is no team except a project director (Shri J J Jadhav) working on LCA Mk-1. Most probably he is responsible for ToT from ADA to HAL (No screw drivers this time). It also appears that ADA achieved something important in July, 2012 in relation to LCA-MK1 with 1941 flights.

- There are three different teams including a project director working on
---LCA Navy - 1 + 3 project co-ordinators (2 from Navy and 2 from ADA)
---LCA MK-2 - 1+ 4 project co-ordinators
---AMCA - 1 + 9 project co-ordinators

Added Later : It is my analysis from ADA website regarding ToT. 3rd change -> Added links
If it is true then that would be high AoA, High G and further opening of flight envelope, so that it can use in A2A role also, apart from current A2G, which already done by Tejas in various test flight.

probably in the next year we shall see Tejas with missile firing in A2A and A2g mode.

Hopefully :)
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by suryag »

they achieved something in July or possibly hit a big airpocket(like the fuel line issue) in July. I would like to have the rajanb-mig21 situation here where no updates means it is getting inducted smoothly but keeping my fingers crossed and looking towards mecca
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by RKumar »

As per my logic if they hit a big airpocket, then they should have a team working on it. On the other hand if there is no work why keep resources assigned to a project. It is better to re-assign them where it is required. There might be minor issues, which will be handled by mk-2 team. Even in case of major issues, IAF will know either limitations of the platform (every system has some weak points) or if possible back port the solution from mk-2 to mk-1.

LCA-mk1 will be A2G or close support platform. MK2 will be multi role platform with better engine and further design improvements.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by shiv »

Chill out folks. No air pockets I am sure. The real hurdle is going to be finding industry partners to supply stuff in bulk on a regular basis for mass production. That will take time.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by venkat_r »

Actually going from proven research and demo models to actual manufacturing is a very big jump even for veterans in the industry and it is i believe called as Valley of death by many 'technical' and manufacturing companies, as lot of products get lost/or get delayed in this valley. Anyone generally associated with such work can probably repond more, but I believe the time generally is given in years like 3 to 7 years depending on the maturity of the entity involved - Expectation on LCA is so high that in every department it is expected to hit a sixer. Hopefully ADA to HAL transition is well underway and happening smoothly with enough time and resources provided - expect some delays and heart burn in Jingos during this phase as in my opinion, HAL is a relative greenhorn in this area.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by member_23657 »

With this planned production rate for LCAs, the first squadron inducted in 2016 with be almost obsolete and IMO the LCA MK1 would be immediately taken for upgrades with technology and systems infusion from MK2..

http://idrw.org/?p=15567

the production rate could have been better though :(
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by sharma.abhinav »

avinashpeter wrote:With this planned production rate for LCAs, the first squadron inducted in 2016 with be almost obsolete and IMO the LCA MK1 would be immediately taken for upgrades with technology and systems infusion from MK2..

http://idrw.org/?p=15567

the production rate could have been better though :(
Can you kindly explain what in Tejas would be obsolete in 2016 or in Tejas MK2 in 2022. For all I know Tejas MK1 barring payload will be as capable as Mirage 2000-5 when it attains FOC. Specially our adversaries in West won't have anything significantly better which MK1 itself cant handle, and for our neighbour on East Mk2 will be good enough.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by krishnan »

F-16 should be absolute by now then
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by SaiK »

if this is all production engineering and manufacturing issue, then i see our infrastructure weak points. this is going to be a big problem suddenly one wants to find genuine all indic small setups to help in advanced engineering at advanced level of support.

i hope they are taking step at a time.. spawning HAL is a good idea, perhaps with big private investments.. and then slowly create a new indic boeing or lm.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by rajanb »

shiv wrote:Chill out folks. No air pockets I am sure. The real hurdle is going to be finding industry partners to supply stuff in bulk on a regular basis for mass production. That will take time.
Correct Shiv.

In fact, tenders for manufacturing of various units were out a few months back.

In my days, the process followed by PSU's (HAL, NAL, ISRO) was to, in the pre tender days call certain vendors, which they had researched, to give presentations. This was their way of accelerating their learning curve. Then the various aspects of their discussions would be incorporated in the tender so to ensure they got the best. No news of the results thus far. But I would think, they would want to play their cards close to the chest.

Are they following the same policy as they seem to have done with the missile regime, in understating range and other capabilities?

I would. To give you a couple of examples:

a) the electronics in the MiG21/23/27.

b) The OSA class boats attacking Karachi.

Not to worry.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by Sancho »

RKumar wrote:As per ADA website, currently
- There is no team except a project director (Shri J J Jadhav) working on LCA Mk-1

- There are three different teams including a project director working on
---LCA Navy - 1 + 3 project co-ordinators (2 from Navy and 2 from ADA)
---LCA MK-2 - 1+ 4 project co-ordinators
---AMCA - 1 + 9 project co-ordinators
Interesting and proves my point that our industry is already distracted by working on other projects, instead of getting at least LCA MK1 ready and inducted into operational service soon.
It's amazing how bad the LCA project is planned and managed, instead of keeping it simple and moving further step by step, they want to do anything at the same time.

Why on earth do they work at AMCA now, when LCA is not even close to be finished? We need fighters to replace Migs as soon as possible and not beyond 2025, so shouldn't the prime focus and any available team work on LCA MK1 and MK2 today?
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by Philip »

The PSU babus have to ensure that there is a continuous supply of funds for the next decade of time-wasting! I absolutely agree that until the LCA MK-2 is perfected and is ins ervice qwhere we can compare it with other contemp. fighters,the AMCA should be left on paper.With the advent of UCAVs and their strikes being the preferred instrument of precision attack,using LCA tech acquired to produce a stealthy UCAV should be the top priority after the FGFA.No country in the world today is developing two stealth fighters as we are doing (other than super rich China and the US who have stopped F-22 production) ,with the FGFA and AMCA!
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by Virupaksha »

Sancho wrote:
RKumar wrote:As per ADA website, currently
- There is no team except a project director (Shri J J Jadhav) working on LCA Mk-1

- There are three different teams including a project director working on
---LCA Navy - 1 + 3 project co-ordinators (2 from Navy and 2 from ADA)
---LCA MK-2 - 1+ 4 project co-ordinators
---AMCA - 1 + 9 project co-ordinators
Interesting and proves my point that our industry is already distracted by working on other projects, instead of getting at least LCA MK1 ready and inducted into operational service soon.
It's amazing how bad the LCA project is planned and managed, instead of keeping it simple and moving further step by step, they want to do anything at the same time.

Why on earth do they work at AMCA now, when LCA is not even close to be finished? We need fighters to replace Migs as soon as possible and not beyond 2025, so shouldn't the prime focus and any available team work on LCA MK1 and MK2 today?
Because if one wants to develop an aircraft in 2030, the requirements gathering should have started yesterday. The requirement gathering for LCA started around 1980 and here we are now 30 years later. Aircraft design and manufacturing is unfortunately not like instant noodles.

For creating an LCA, we needed to develop the carbon-structures, engine hot materials from Midhani and so on. These materials in turn are decided by how much temperature they should be able to sustain and their strenghts. These are inturn decided by how much engine itself has to output and the approximate weight. After one has ALL these basic materials, the actual engine/aircraft design can start. Developing those materials takes time, usually around 5-10 years. We do not have a parallel programs so that those materials already exist in our hand to cut down the over all time. Engine designers can only work with materials they already have in hand.

Any half decent company will always be in two modes. One team always works for leap frogging/next gen while other team will work on the nuts and bolts or current gen. Once the next gen team reaches a particular stage, it hands off or expands to include the current gen inside it. Almost parallelly an effort to seed the next next gen starts. For example in microsoft, by the time windows 8 came out and thus the primary effort starts to slowly move on to windows 9, there will be a seeding team for window 10 already on hand. (I dont know anything about MS.) Another example would be, the hardware team of Surface would have already started working Surface 2 (or whatever that is) by the time the software team reached the device into half usable state.

Example: The guys who have developed carbon-structures for LCA are not going to do anything for LCA from now on, their primary effort will be for AMCA. It is for giving these guys a move on the coordinators are working.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by Sancho »

Philip wrote:The PSU babus have to ensure that there is a continuous supply of funds for the next decade of time-wasting! I absolutely agree that until the LCA MK-2 is perfected and is ins ervice qwhere we can compare it with other contemp. fighters,the AMCA should be left on paper.With the advent of UCAVs and their strikes being the preferred instrument of precision attack,using LCA tech acquired to produce a stealthy UCAV should be the top priority after the FGFA.
Exactly, even when you look at the numbers of fighters that needs to be replaced within the next 10 - 15 years, there is nothing left in IAF, that makes another stealth fighter type necessary, because FGFA will replace Mig 29s, M2Ks or remaining Mig 27s. At the same time it's way more important to add armed drones (Rustom varient) and stealth UCAVs (Aura), which are cheaper to develop, procure and operate than AMCA and more effective to replace the Jaguars in the ground attack roles.
One more reason why there should be a focus on getting LCA done as soon as possible. AMCA has only an importance for IN, since they don't have any 5th gen fighters cleared so far, but then it should be developed according to their requirements and not only as a navalised version of a fighter developed for the air force.
Virupaksha wrote: Because if one wants to develop an aircraft in 2030, the requirements gathering should have started yesterday. The requirement gathering for LCA started around 1980 and here we are now 30 years later. Aircraft design and manufacturing is unfortunately not like instant noodles.
But why took it so long? Because we messed up many things during the development and it would be embarrassing if our next fighter development would take that long as well!
The point however is, that we need a base of know how and experience to develop a fighter or it's techs, that should be the prime lesson that we learned from LCA development and we need the same for AMCA as well. But we will gain these only during the next years, by finishing LCA on the one hand and also participating in FGFA development, or even benefiting from Rafale production and systems. Starting now with the same mindest of, we can do it alone, will lead us only to the next delays and failures.
Virupaksha wrote:Example: The guys who have developed carbon-structures for LCA are not going to do anything for LCA from now on, their primary effort will be for AMCA.
Not really, necause they still have to figure out why LCA turned out to be 1t heavier than expected, or why drag seems to be an issue. They still have to find ways how to reduce the weight of LCA MK2, that actually gains weight with it's strechted size, additional internal fuel, a heavier engine and the other systems that might come. So they still have more than enough to do to finish this development and even then, there are enough other programs where thy knowledge is needed before AMCA. LCH, which is facing weight issues too, FGFA, where we add credible ammount of composites, even the upgrade of MKI should be include them and all these aircrafts will be inducted into operational service way before any AMCA.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by srai »

^^^

Without internal knowledge of how teams have been setup and distributed (and which individuals (and how many) are being reassigned), it's difficult to say what is ideal or not. This line of discussion started from someone finding a list of project managers on a website and then making a "stretched" inference on how the teams have been allocated.

Typically, on large R&D companies you'll find departments with various teams working on different task areas that are already well defined and scoped. Appropriate manpower would have been allocated to get these tasks completed in a given timeframe and in the sequence required. Any additional manpower assigned to these teams would be under-utilised. You'll also find project "sub-teams" in departments lead by very experienced individuals (i.e. technical architects) working on defining/scoping/designing future work areas. A lot of exploratory work needs to be done before actual implementation teams can be fully assigned.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by Philip »

Granted that we must have an AMCA...for academic argument,the same fundamental will plague the AMCA as has plagued the LCA and HF-24,where is the engine for it? it is why we must use the scarce funds available to perfect the LCA MK-2 ( but within a final time frame,no point in perfecting it in 2025 at elastic limit costs when it will be obsolete) and the FGFA.As said before,a naval version of the FGFA should be acquired and there was some hint some time ago that the Russians have a plan to develop a naval version for their future carriers.Using the A&N islands and the unsinkable "INS India" as a carrier where larger aircraft like Flankers and FGFAs can operate from and extend their reach with aerial refuelling,for the current decade MIG-29Ks capable of being upgraded to MIG-35 capability will suffice aboard our medium sized carriers. for future larger carriers of 65,000t size,naval FGFAs and stealth UCAVs should be the right combo.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by NRao »

Sancho wrote:
RKumar wrote:As per ADA website, currently
- There is no team except a project director (Shri J J Jadhav) working on LCA Mk-1

- There are three different teams including a project director working on
---LCA Navy - 1 + 3 project co-ordinators (2 from Navy and 2 from ADA)
---LCA MK-2 - 1+ 4 project co-ordinators
---AMCA - 1 + 9 project co-ordinators
Interesting and proves my point that our industry is already distracted by working on other projects, instead of getting at least LCA MK1 ready and inducted into operational service soon.
It's amazing how bad the LCA project is planned and managed, instead of keeping it simple and moving further step by step, they want to do anything at the same time.

Why on earth do they work at AMCA now, when LCA is not even close to be finished? We need fighters to replace Migs as soon as possible and not beyond 2025, so shouldn't the prime focus and any available team work on LCA MK1 and MK2 today?
What point does it prove?

The AMCA is in the design phase.

The MKII is somewhere between design and build and perhaps testing of some aspects.

MK1 is in the final testing phase.

Do you really expect us to believe that the AMCA design team is starving the MK1 test team of resources? IF we were to take people from the AMCA Design team and task them with testing the MK1 it would solve the MK1 problems?

India was willing to pay consulting fees to the likes of LM, etc for the testing phase. India has no experience in testing an aircraft, one of the major reasons to tag along with the PAK-FA project - supposedly it is expected to benefit the AMCA.

The MK1 is creating hear burns for sure. BUT there is really no way out. Testing - risk free testing that is - will take eons. Those nations that have tested lost a ton of aircrafts and lives. India cannot risk that much, so it will take time. Indians will not be in a position to predict how much time and the rest who have the experience will not help.
or academic argument,the same fundamental will plague the AMCA as has plagued the LCA and HF-24,where is the engine for it?
So?

As long as India has not stolen the engine design India should be OK - within some limits.

India is not going to get an Indian engine for another 15-20 years. Not possible, unless India gets big time assistance from someone - perhaps France. Even then it will be one-of. The next gen engine will pose a set of similar problems. Funds and time will solve the problem, but the AMCA cannot wait for such a development. Better to rely on an outside (reliable - not the Al-55 variety please) engine than to place these projects in a deep freeze.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by symontk »

On saturday saw a low pass flyby of LCA by around 11.00AM around marathahalli side. it had an light grey underbelly
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by suryag »

It is a frustrating wait to see the LCA in AF colours. Until there is an official word it would be like waiting outside an operation theatre for jingos.
Btw MK1 is in maintenance mode(SW dev cycle) and as with any SW dev in that stage it wouldnt have too many dev members associated with it. People would have moved onto MK2 and AMCA. Hope this long wait ends quickly and we get some heartwarming news soon
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by SaiK »

Even if India gets big time assistance in Engine works, it would not be able to make it in another 20 years.. But if whole of India considers Core Engine development is important investment, then it would only take another 2-3 years to get a flying start.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by Sancho »

srai wrote:^^^

Without internal knowledge of how teams have been setup and distributed (and which individuals (and how many) are being reassigned), it's difficult to say what is ideal or not...


Fair enough, but when we look at the LCA development as a whole, a logical project management seems not to be the leading force behind it, rather than pretty wild decision makings. Starting from which Indian companies would be responsible for the engine and radar developments, to the worst decisions of not using proven foreign stopgap parts and linking LCA as a project to Kaveri engine development.
Our companies wants to too much and that even before they have finished at least one project, LCA / AMCA as mentioned, but it's not the only case. HAL is developing LCH and LUH and already plans for a medium class helicopter. DRDO has problems with the UAV developments, Rustom H is still in its initial stages and they want to go for AURA, no MMR for LCA, but DRDO CEO promises indigenous AESA for LCA MK2, the reports about single touchscreen display in LCA and even a stealth LCA, NAL with Saras and RTA, again HAL with IJT problems, but plans for an AJT,...

We have many things under development, but not much that really would be a help for our forces, infact all the delays, problems and failures are making them even weaker and that's the biggest issue when we don't get things done and dream about bigger things in the meantime!
NRao wrote:The MKII is somewhere between design and build and perhaps testing of some aspects.

MK1 is in the final testing phase.

Do you really expect us to believe that the AMCA design team is starving the MK1 test team of resources? IF we were to take people from the AMCA Design team and task them with testing the MK1 it would solve the MK1 problems?
As stated earlier, their work is only done, when the design issues have been solved (MK1 drag, MK2 just entered design stage, with still a lot of work to be done during the prototype stage) and even then, there would be several other projects, where they are needed before starting AMCA.
When you look at Indias military aircraft projects and the reports about them, the issues of design are ore then obvious, be it LCA, LCH, Saras, IJT, all of them are facing weight and/or drag issues and your really think that simply going to the next project without solving the problems is the right way?
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