Bharat Rakshak

http://in.rediff.com/news/2004/may/29saras.htm

http://www.ddinews.com/Homepage/Homepage+-+Top+Story/saras+flight.htm

Congrats to the whole team!

Congrats to the Saras team!! Great work! Hope someone posts a video snippet.

So it is 900kgs overweight . The report said that it has only 5 seats right now. Is the weight over limit with 5 seats or with all 14 seats installed?

When will the second prototype work start? Is it already in assembly stage? Couldn't find much info on NAL site.

Good job!

The development cycles are becoming faster and faster with each new project.

900kgs overweight is rather large but nothing insurmountable. The American JSF is 1500kg overweight right now.

The early flight proved that the concept works and now they have time to work on reducing weight.

This is very good news. Like the Sitara, the Saras team looks like they have good realistic goals pursued under firm deadlines. This is what the business world calls "development under and for market conditions."

Academics (and government funded bureaus) often try to design to the theoritical limits. But in the business world creating the world's best product that is years overdue because of complexity is worthless.

Creating something that can hit the market in reasonable time can mean health (and even survival) of the company. Therefore, practicality and speed are built into the system.

The Saras might not be as sexy as a military jet but it could put us on the map as an aviation producer instead of just a buyer.

Watch out, Embraer!

Good one. Nice pics also as someone posted before.

Great job by the Saras team. Congrats

I have five videos of today's SARAS flight, showing cockpit, roll-out, take-off, mid-flight, and landing, all taken from different news channels, but :o will only be able to share the videos with you in a month's time due to certain classified :o reasons. The bird was flown by Squadron Leader Venugopalan.

Saras aircraft test-flown successfully in Bangalore

Saras aircraft test-flown successfully

I say, Jolly good chaps :cool:

How come they could be shown on the news stations and the videos can't be shown for a month?

Is it possible that you show screen captures instead of the whole videos?

chola, my last post gave a wrong impression. I meant that I would be unable to share the videos within the next few days because of my own reasons, not because of any official 'classification' program.

Jai,

If you need hosting, I can arrange for it.. Lemme know if you need any space...

This is the decade of first flights for India.

When is the next aircraft expected?
Can anybody tell me how is HAL managing so many projects at Bangalore.
The LCA, HJT & now the SARAS. Other upgradations are already underway in its plant. The ALH must also be under production.
Does HAL have this much capacity or then some of these 4 projects are going to lag behind?
Do we need a new HAL Plant?
Ojhar for Sukhoi, bangalore for LCA,
new plant1 for HJT & upgradations
new plant2 for SARAS & ALH & others.
??

Yippeee

India's aeropace industry is coming of age.

The number of countries who have 4 major indigenous aircraft programs simultaneously can be counted on one's fingers.

ALH, LCA, IJT, Saras - not to mention the Hansa.

the list is much bigger watch out for this space!!

Wokay Wokay, I will just negotiate a biased compromise, only pics this time no videos. Videos for a later time. cy_baru, I know that and would already have informed you.

Pic #1

Pic #2

Pic #3

Pic #4

Pic #5

Pic #6

Pic #7

Pic #8

Pic #9

Pic #10

Pic #11

Pic #12

Pic #13

Pic #14

Pic #15

Good show from NAL.

Excellent photograph from HT
Underbelly

My only :whine: :whine: :whine: :whine: is about the colour - or the lack of it.

Sweet, good job

Saras is a very cute looking aircraft, looks like a friendlt kind of chap, you know that guy who was nice to everybody.

Questions out of :o )

4. Interesting weight breakdown. 14-seater - plus 4 crew (at least..) So, lets see: 18x100kg = 1800kg payload.

Payload fraction of - lets say, 15% --- so, Gross Take-Off Mass (TOM) of 12000 kg.

And they managed to be 900 kg overmass on that? IOW, weight overrun = 50% of payload...

Must have forgotten the 180kg of RedTape and dusty Files accompanying each Babu...

(JUST KIDDING!!)

5. Also, it should be interesting to land that on short, unprepared fields - the prop clearance at 15 degrees angle of attack is... ??

Congratulations to the pilot. An act of courage indeed to fly that off the ground, and to the designers and project managers for allowing that test flight. Many happy landings, and no Unhappy ones!

Of course, my Classified Observation is that this is clearly intended to carry 5 Special Forces men plus equipment, and fly under the radar to conduct a coup in Islamabad at 30 minutes' notice. The props are for show - I mean, LOOK at those scramjet engines on the back!! And the obvious answer to Qn 1 is: "think specific gravity - of uranium"

Best piece of news for May-2004. India is Advancing, smile is back

Well, things bode well for the aerospace Industry in India. Looks like we will be a major aircraft manufacturing nation! Great job. Let's see what else do we want - the LCA/TEJAS PV-2 to fly and then fire AAMs/A2G munitions say next month?

Great job done by the whole SARAS team! Five stars!

ALH, LCA, IJT and now SARAS

Way to go Team India.

Congratualtions to the NAL team and everyone else who played a role for this historic occasion to materialize. I do have a gripe though. I wish they had given SARAS a paint job similar to the LCA's instead of the garish yellow it has now. It would have been a psy-ops force multiplier.

Krishna

The plane has neonatal jaundice. It will pass.

Thank you very much for the reassuring words Dr Shiv. In Tamil there is a proverb that very roughly translates to "However unsightly it may be, it is still my baby". In spite of my initial gripe I am very proud of this achievenment.

Krishna

A picture from Xinhua: click

Was Sanjay Simha there with his camera and tripod? If so, when do we get to see his pictures?

Why are the props behind the engines? I think the Piaggio's have the same concept. Is there an inherent advantage to this framework?

There is a discussion on this in the General Aerospace thread.

Well now the second prototype should be funded immediately.

Work needs to start on a 50-60 seater turbo prop immediately.

This will also give us lot of confidence in working on MTA. Full speed ahead on all this option must be undertaken all of these should fly within 5 years.

Without which India's presence in Civil sector will be limited. I am sure options of ATR and embraer will be anydays costly and sanction prone.

yeah Nandai, the Saras is a very cute looking aircraft. actually I kinda like the yellow primer paint instead of that pedestrian white color on the Tejas. by the way, has the IAF or Coast Guard shown any interest in the Saras or not ? other than light transport duties, is there any other duty that it could perform ? maybe an AEW or ELINT aircraft, or Maritime surveillance ?

Not only is the effort admirable but one has to also admire Raj Mahindra who worked on some of this post retirement if I am not mistaken. It is sad that he did not live to see this day. He was truly the guiding spirit for Project SARAS.

IIRC, he was also the designer of the LCA.

Another photo from Xinhua
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-05/29/xinsrc_080501292128300175727.jpg

Boy, that plane looks good in flight. Wonder what happened to the Indian flag painted on the tail?

As I mentioned in the Aerospace thread, the prop driven SARAS has only a slight pitch up(nose up attitude)due to its straight wings (that are designed for slow speed), as aginst high pitch up required for swept back wings. Thus there is no danger of tail or prop touching ground during landing or even take off.

Also, it is obvious from the Xinhua photo that even if at extremely high angles of attack, the dorsal fins will strike the ground before the props will. Note that the props are completely inside the profile silhouette, which is itself inside the convex hull of the profile. Thus, assuming wings level, there is no position at which the props will hit the ground before some other part of the airplane.

Few that I can count:
1. A clean wing (least drag) that gives best range.
2. The properller sees a clean airflow ahead and aft of it. (i.e. better efficiency & greater range).
3. Lesser cabin noise.
4. Pusher props (almost) always means a low set main wing plane (thus lower fuselage access, for easy maintenece & smaller ladder). Low wing plane means shorter landing gear. Means less landing gear weight as well as requiring lesser volume wasted to stow it after takeoff. Means that volume is available for fuel. All means more range.
5. Lower wing plane means easy fuelling and visual inspection. is Easy to service.
6. High mounted pusher confign also means lesser risk of FOD (Foriegn object Damage) damage to prop or fuselage.

The downside is that parachuting mission is ruled out.

Did not understand this point, or rather cannot figure out why the FOD risk is reduced.

Someone please correct me if i'm wrong, but a few posts have mentioned Saras as a "jet engine"...as far as I know, this has twin turbo engines, non-native (US). ya?

Sridhar, I think foreign objects (pebbles, pieces of concrete, tar etc) are usually dislodged from the ground and flung upwards and backwards by the propwash. If the props are in the back, these dislodged objects will not touch the plane itself.