Bharat Rakshak

F-16 should be absolute by now then

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.

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.

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?

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!

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.

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.



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.



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.

^^^

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.

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.

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.



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.

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

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

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.

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!



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?

Wow, I have to question your expertise here, because you are belching absolute nonsense without half decent info.

Possibly you could answer about why does the material guy in Midhani today has to worry about MK1 drag?

I don't understand ... why we are so low on self esteem? How you can learn from single iteration of LCA project to reduce drag and weight issues? There are too many sub-systems which are used first time. First and most important is make a system working and then do the fine tuning and performance analysis.

As far as LCA-MK2, is concerned it has more powerful engine which should compensate for weight and drag. And in the mean time if everything is working OK in real conditions, then they can think of further improvements in a couple of sub-system at a time. So chill and enjoy that LCA MK1 development is closing, although it might be having some minor or few major issues. Which will be handled with LCA-MK2.

Trust IAF has enough experience in maturing a newly system e.g. like they did with Su-30 MKI.

That itself provides a good insight.

Not too sure where to start. Let us try ................



Yes weight issues, which translates into drag at some point in time. However, these weight issues are NOT design related. They are material related problems. They used to be distribution related problem - as in proper management of real estate within the LCA - which got resolved (by rearranging the innards).

You see India is not a leader in material sciences (MS) (and will not be for some decades). IF India had access to really good R&D in MS she would have had a decent chance to resolve such issue.

The second issue is related to testing - as stated above. One may have great designs, materials, sensors, etc, but if you do not have good test data you are starting from square one. You see there are no shortcuts here and dhekha jayega. IF you do not know the risk is huge - and one India is not willing to take - rightfully so. India cannot take. She would rather wait till the tests are right than to take a risk.

As far as I have heard the LCA is a near perfect aircraft - so the design has to be OK. My impression was that the MK2 was taking care of the weight related issues. No?

BTW, if the design is an issue, what do you expect a design team to do at this stage of the game? Redesign the MK1? Just curious.



Like which ones?

Also BTW, how much do you know about the AMCA?

__________________________________________

A few years ago I had suggested that the LCA be shelved after calling it a tech demo and take on the MCA (as it was called that then) seriously. I still think for a "LCA" (yes, the real one) to take shape it will take at least 2-3 iterations AFTER the MK2. I feel that the LCA is one of the best things to have happened in India. But, I also feel that with undue pressure it will never reach it full potential in EVERY respect. India I feel is mature in many respects - design being one - but has a way to go in many areas.

India needs an aircraft that is free of everything - politics, IAF pressure, etc. LCA should be that one. Make it, break it, learn from it, rebuild it, ........... only way out. Failures are a necessary part of this development cycle.

all said and done, if a/cs don't enter services, then we have no feedback for development.

Then we will have no positive feed back from IAF which is like IA only interested to forin mal with % for all and sundry. We need to force things on the people who are not keen on having "Indian" products. Otherwise I fear LCA is already becoming like an other Arjun.

RFP out for parts of LCA MkII ... Due date is Dec 11 2012.
RFQ out for parts of LCA MKII ... Due date is Jan 22 2013.

They are planning to build the plane in 2013/14 (nothing new, just news about things proceeding according to timeline as of now)

Where is it IRji?

btw why do we have specification for design and dev of Radome now?

http://www.ada.gov.in/EOI.htm

No 'ji' please.

http://www.hal-india.com/tender_ARDC_tab_New.asp

RFP: D/IMM/COM3/LCA(MK2)/5461/03/13951/2012
RFQ: D/IMM/5461/7R/1069/2012


On page 4, "ADA is looking for design and development of alternative radome for Light Combat Aircraft as part of their product improvement activity.

They don't want any geometry changes, only improved EM performance. If possible better lightning protection and better smoothness.

Info nugget: IFF dipoles are integrated into the MMR antenna. I used to think that they were the two silvery things above the nose, in front of the cockpit. (like in the F16).

P.S. Corrected formatting

Nice!! i missed that "alternative" thing. Lots of tenders for HTT-40 too on that page interesting times

With a 11:1 thrust/weight ratio what is the probability of the LCA Mk 2 achieving super-cruise capability at altitude ?

we made a big mistake not choosing to partner with EJ200 rather Snecma... ideally, it would have been better if had GE 414 techs for colloboration.. but, we still have no idea what are the exact details of snecma deal, as the last interview with dr. saraswat only talked about deriving at what thrust requirements are needed based on the platforms they are trying to use.

standardarizing on F-414 platform would have solved many problems.. but we have no idea as to what was unkill politics.. and what is surprising is there was a screw driver tech transfer for 414 as well for mk-2. so, ideally, it would have been better with either GE or EJ200 which have already proven for near 100kN or greater than that thrusts.

snecma has long way to go to even near 90kN wet.

the thing that i feared the most

flight test update

FRom
LCA-Tejas has completed 1941 Test Flights Successfully. (12-July-2012).
(TD1-233,TD2-305,PV1-242,PV2-222,PV3-348,LSP1-74,LSP2-237,PV5-36,LSP3-75,LSP4-56,LSP5-105,LSP7-4,NP1-4)

to

LCA-Tejas has completed 1944 Test Flights Successfully. (22-Nov-2012).
(TD1-233,TD2-305,PV1-242,PV2-222,PV3-348,LSP1-74,LSP2-238,PV5-36,LSP3-75,LSP4-56,LSP5-106,LSP7-5,NP1-4)

Dude, clearly you are confused about how product design & development works. At any given time, you don't just work on todays tech, you also work on tomorrows and the requirement gathering for even a generation after that. It doesn't matter if today's program is in progress and is facing challenges, if you don't start working on tomorrow's program now, you will lose the time advantage of starting the program earlier.
Different groups of people are often allocated to these programs, and detailed design and development is not required at the same level for the in development one, and the in planning one either.
That's how it happens.
So while the LCA certification and product improvement process is "ON", simultaneously, parallel teams have to work on the AMCA as well, finetuning it in the process. Otherwise by the time the LCA is done, to start the AMCA will take up several years of requirements gathering, definition, back & forth specification decisions, budgetary allocation fixing etc worth of effort. The whole supply chain extending back to development partners need to begin this process as well, not just the folks at ADA.

Right now is the perfect time to get this exercise done So that by the time the LCA MK2 is developed and production ready, the base groundwork for the AMCA is laid out, basics are in place and the manpower can then shift to the detailed D&D phase for at least the TD/Prototypes, with the FSED to follow.

I think biggest benefit of Mk2 will be 1m longer fuselage giving it the right tapering shape to reduce drag and the EPE engine. might also increase the volume of any fuel tanks near wing root or inside the wing.

Singha-> quite frankly when will get the 414 epe engine, when will the LCA MK-II protytpes fly and God only knows when it will induscted in IAF. I feel the problems with LCA are not purely techical , but the arms agent lobby in Delhi which does not want this as a threat to its income. People like SUresh Kalmadi have passed resolution's in parliment to kill the project.

At the time that we were searching for partners only Snecma and Saturn were ready to give us what we wanted. P&W wanted the IPR. Dont think the EJ200 was on offer at that time. Ofcourse no deal has been signed yet but I think the Snecma deal is tied up but the Frenchies are holding it to ransom linked to the Rafale deal.

Depends on which of the aircrafts we are talking, take LCH for example, the first design turned out to be too heavy and draggy as well, pylons, tail and air intakes needed to be re-designed.
Wrt LCA, overweight is an issue according to initial plans, but compared to other fighters in it's class, even LCA MK1 is pretty light and offers a good TWR too. So when it still has performance issues, what else than the design is the reason?



I hope so, but they are actually increasing the weight by far, because of the changes that we know so far (streched fuselage, new internal fuel tanks, new engines and other systems), but it will be interessting to see what else will be changed.



As stated, find out the problems and fix it for MK2, instead of simply going over to the next project. My problem is, that we have very poor planning and that we don't really finish our projects, before we already start to dream about others. We celebrate any baby step like the roll out of another prototype, while not a single fighter is in operational service yet, or would be useful to serve our forces and the security needs of India.



As mentioned in my earlier post, LCA MK2, FGFA, armed Rustom, AURA UCAV, because all these aircrafts are meant to be in service earlier than AMCA and because they add more advantages to IAF too. The only field where AMCA really would be needed is, as a carrier fighter, because IN don't have a 5th. gen option, other than F35 so far. But then we have to develop it for the navy in first place and not only navalise a fighter developed for IAF.



I feel the same, that's why I want our officials to keep focusing on it and not beeing distracted from newer and shinier projects, without really finishing LCA. We need a reliable, cost-effective low end fighter that soon can be inducted to IAF, not dreams about a stealthy LCA MK3 or AMCA in 10 to 15 years.
On the other side, we don't need a "modest" (like IN itself describes N-LCA) carrier fighter in the short term, because we will have more capable Migs anyway. A naval AMCA in the long term would be more important and why anything beyond a N-LCA tech demonstrator currently is a waste of resources.

Depends if there was ever an offer to partner with us on Kaveri, becaus so far that was reported only by the French and Russians.



Please read the post above, because I don't have an issue with working on NG developments in general, but that we don't finish our projects and that more important projects than AMCA should be done earlier!
AMCA now comes only because the delays and failures during the LCA development and not LCA was successfully inducted and is soon to be completed.



Where?

- do we have knowledge in stealth design?
- do we have developed at least any multi mode fighter radar yet?
- do we have a working engine that could be used for AMCA, or at least a prototype?
- NG avionics, weapon systems?

Not really and that's why our contribution to FGFA is very limited as well. We still don't know which radar LCA MK1 will use, let alone MK2, the Kaveri co-development is still not fixed and the first use was meant to be an upgrade to LCA MK1. So when there is still so much to do to get a real base in our industry and with improving, why bother with AMCA at this point?

Good news from livefist
Tejas Mk.2 Build Begins

yes definitely resources need to be devoted to give the Mk1 full spectrum A2G and A2A capability and its radar & avionics brought upto the mark. these things if left hanging now "dekh lenge yaar" will bite our ass again in the mk2.

astra mk1 is another black hole project, our hopes and queries go in and nothing comes out as news its a vital gap in our portfolio as also a IIR AAM which isnt even in the plans. sudarshan is supposed to be ready yet there is no news of confirmed orders.

and surely the kaveri snecma unless its a super secret ATV type help obtained from Rus is dead in the water, with 3 yrs gone and no official contract even signed, let alone any work done. we better get in line for the 414 EPE and hope Indo-US relations are sustainably good.

if the mk.2 frame is larger, they could consider retractable refueling pods.

my understanding is the following from MK.2 perspective



I have serious doubt with the radar part [AESA i mean] at least not before > 2018 since i don;t see a prototype or some test bed for its testing.
Thus a missing critical technology


we have options for AAM from French / Israel/Russia , so if any delay then at least it does not block the progress


Honestly i don;t see a top of the line reliable engine[single crystal etc] for Indian fighters at least in the next 10 years , and in worst case for ever

Don;t get me wrong or too pessimistic it is just based on the open source information of the last 15 years and more. So one of the
option is to get all the critical tech as part of Rafale and Pak Fa deal . These deals should only be seen from the perspective of the kind of tech. they provide, nothing more nothing less

LCA reminds me of the judgement - Sau kilo Pyaaj ya sau kode.

One of the difficulties with trying to play off one player against the other is that a third player can you by the balls.

Oh I see somebody is just as pessimistic about LCA as I am. Welcome bro to my miserable hovel.

the pgm has definitely lost momentum and perhaps managerial interest in the last 1 yr.

Link

Both articles point towards 2014 , Hope they show some urgency