Bharat Rakshak

sheesh!~ everytime i see AI07 info thread increases, I keep coming down here and straining my carpel.. noting nothing happening but AS-whipings..

fk him.. banish him to hell., the more he is referenced, like Singha said in the nukkad thread, like "raktabija for sewag?", the more blogged he becomes.

The short take-off/landing distances are surely the USP of Gripen, but other than that it doesnt seem to offer too much that Tejas cant offer.. It will be inappropriate to compare the two -- Gripen could be better in some aspects & Tejas in some and we dont have exact specs of both to make a fair comparison.. but looking at projected perf data -- Gripen may not have too much to offer over Tejas.

And then again -- any particular feature has to be borne out of a need.. the short take-off/landing distances are the NEED for Swedish airforce.. and that is not one of the ASR for IAF.. we have runways plenty and pretty decent capability to repair any bombed runway within hours..

If you have seen the armament at static display for Gripen -- the weapons that it potent are : AMRAAM, AIM-9, MBDA Meteor.. there in lies the catch-22.. increases our dependancy & strings attached that unkil can play us with.. why would US be so happy to part with those very good missiles when we dont buy a US platform? if we play our cards right (if GoI & IAF display foresight) and bargain hard enough -- there is a possibility of making Meteor a part of M2K upgrade !!!

Without those stuff -- Gripen suddenly doesnt look too enticing.. ofcourse we dont know what kind of ToT they will offer for the engine & radar.. the engine once again is nothing but a license produced GE engine.. so we are not really gaining much interms of technology -- something which we are looking to acquire via MRCA purchase (besides 126 fighting platforms)..

Hello Joey~
I by no means under-estimate the LCA, I am proud of it. Where I was coming from was, the 126 aircraft order that IAF was looking at. I am not sure if IAF is looking at LCA (Although I would prefer they looked at it).
Secondly I am no aviation expert but I would like to believe I am an aviation enthusiast, the little bit that I have learned is from visiting forums like Bharat-rakshak or F16.net, so I do concede, I may be wrong, many a times.

But, I have still not heard from the folks here, wrt their preferences, considering the choice is between:
1> Grippen
2> F-16
3> Mig 29 OVT
4> F-18

Your thoughts highly appreciated.

Thanks
-Vivek-

vivek, if you notice carefully .... all the folks who aren't impressed with the grippen are those who have checked it out at aeroindia '07 .... so i go with rakall, joey, ..... the grippen didn't impress them .... and lets not question their judgement .... both rakall and joey have contributed immensely about the ai'07 which i am enjoying. And no where did anyone glorify the takeoff performance .... its all been about the landing only.

And the LCA will get better and better cause its yet to hit ioc. It will get optimized further. The Grippen is that, a "dark horse" which no one is considering seriously.

We should talk about why the Rafale didn't come. That will be more interesting. The other inetresting thing was how everyone was impressed by the Mig35.... now thats a great plane to buy.

Hello Akramas~
I agree, Grippen would probably not be a good choice, so what would be your choice then and Why?

Thanks
-Vivek-

Mig35 ... see the pictures on br's website. and see rakalls posts regarding the same. they finally got in an aesa too. and its engines have a FADEC ...so yea its big on my list of possible victors.

Rafale also with a chance because it will come with meteor bvraam and a 2nd generation aesa and has good weapon load, fuel capacity. But the problem will be pricing. Rafale will may loose out because of its high price. If they offer all the goodies for less than 60mil then the Rafale moves to top of the list for me. ( Big problem is it seems they didn't show up at the show for assessment )

After reading up on the Mig35 the F16blk70 is out of my list.

Another problem with Rafale could be how much ToT they can offer - esp bcoz their components are pricey.. ofcourse - reg supplies there will never be a problem.. French have been extremely reliable..

My inclination towards Mig35 is bcoz
- performance wise it is top draw.
- most of the drawbacks - cockpit ergo, avoionics, reliability which were the bane of Mig29A have been addressed (ofcourse, they didnt have a choice bcoz they had to compete)
- they are deep ToTing the engines..
- commonality with exisitng Mig fleet for a lot of components & also with IN Mig29K
- most importantly willing to sell "AESA tech" rather than "AESA radar" (if u go by Pit's article).. which will allow us to tinker with it a lot and do our own thing..

I am not sure american stuff will allow us to customize or part with source codes which is required for the operational independance..

But deep inside I am skeptical/afraid there are un-announced deals/riders attched to the Nuke deal and may be GoI will compromise with US for F18.
It is a good plane (its avoinics, situational awareness, AESA radar & armament outweigh the aerodynamic deficiencies), but, i am afraid of the arm-twisting that will take place in future.. you can fire AMRAAM without condi's permission, you cant fire JDAM's without Rummy's approval, you can fire AIM-9x only if Barabara agrees.. if u want to use it against China, the Chelsea should okay.. if u want to use it against Pukis then senate has to vote and sign a 3-4-5 agreement..

But then everybody has his own opinion.. I have mine, CAS has his, PM/RM has his own and most importantly Aroor & Shukla have theirs which has to be the final word by any means.

Guys,
I must say the AI07 was wonderful to watch live! However I found there are certain areas the management need to improve. Such a mega event for already overcrowded city like B'lore, it was amazing that it was to see it was a grand success. But in what terms we count this as success??

Since this was 6th edition of this I expected lot from this event. Especially compared to the 3rd one and the similar shows in overseas.

I must say the Arial displays shown by various aircrafts are breath taking. But the organizing people in Public Diplay area was lame duck and very much desi touch than any thing international. I think the organizer was only focused to handle high profile visitors and VVIP. No empasize given for the general public which were in very large numbers compared to the previous event I attended. May be they only given attention to collect ticket money from the general public which could have covered the AV FUEL cost for the arial display.

My suggestion to the Organizer that they should also do better arrangement for the general public which are in very large numbers especially on weekends. As more and more public in Bangalore can afford Rs300/ticket, they should use this opportunity to arrange better facilities in future not just one gate to handle 25000 crowd while 6 gates for less than 3000.

I dont think there was any big purchase deals anounced as part this AI shows. While the Fanbourgh or Singapore air shows really cash multi billions $ in these kind of Air Shows. In future shows they should invite more and more civilian Aircraft manufacturer which will be helpful for everyone.

As everyone already said the LCA and SK displays were amazing but the MKI air display was breathtaking especially Tail Slide and Double Tango(i forgot exact term it used where they had Cobra+Loop+something else).

cheers

Phazotron book on Radars -- a few essays on ZhukAE & ZhukME for Mig35 & Mig29k.. a lot of tech info on ZhukAE (ATTN Dileep) and also on a few other radars..

I converted the book into a pdf available for download..

http://rapidshare.com/files/16699210/Ph ... l.pdf.html

hi! dont bracket me with others on whose views you have been debating. i am working in the defence R&D for the past 20 years or so. i am involved in one project on which you people so animatedly discuss.its past,present and future course. i am a mute witness to the non cooperation of some of the DRDO guys ,because of which the project is in shambles. i think our national interests comes first and everything next.i do agree all labs are not like that and all ppl are not the same.regarding
dekh te raho........i am not the one who coined it. i heard it from some one whose company makes missiles.

Any how leave it. i do enjoy reading all the postings that appear in BRforums. I must thank all those guys who have put up their photo galleries of AI2007. its a spectaculer show from BR people. congrats.

Rakall, u da maaaannn

rrao, my bad on that. Just wanted to let it be known that human fallacies are universal. Lets just not hold some organisations/people within to a higher standard. No doubt effort should be made in the right direction, but thats another topic.

Apart form obvious advantages of going for mig 35 which what I have seen and told at AERO 07 and most of you also agree (ofcourse after seeing the bird ,before you were all super bug fan ) one think please mark.It may be an US ploy to delay the MRCA procurement further .For cmparison look at the nuclear deal its riders and practically it still has not moved much beyond photo shoots and tv discussions .We still have not been admitted offcially to nuclear club.Not a single piece of restricted dual use items have been procured, the govt still have not made public the controversial issues which bugged the top scientists at the time of signing the deal .

It smells too fishy for comfort .

Do you guys want the MRCA deal to also go the same way like it can carry aim9l but not 9x, can not be used beyond such and such latitude and over such and such altitude,spares at exorbitant cost once the aircraft is in,drifting of our best engineers to land of milk and honey etc etc

Have seen NBC correspondent (investigative) Lisa Myers report on US army refusing to buy Israeli stuff for protection against RPG etc...

ramana is right on dot in this regard.
Besides DRDO gives great leverage on price negotiations.....

(thats how HMT Machine tools division used to in GOI purchases in order to drive private sector supplier prices, even though HMT never made that kind of machines)

The folks who went to AI 07 have all voted the MiG 35. Once again my thanks to all of you who went there and brought back interesting snippets, nuggets of information and the breathtaking photos. I also feel that the MRCA choice should be the MiG 35. Thus, we would end up with SU 30MKI the top dog, next come the MiG 35 followed by the LCA/Tejas. For enemies like the Pukie Farce, a swarm of LCA with Phalcon AWAC support should do the job. SU 30MKI and MiG 35 can be used for sheer menace value and manning the China front just in case.

The other contender F-18 looks like an equally good candidate. Massa needs to provide full ToT, favorable pricing terms and full tinkering rights. This could be an alternate to the MiG 35, though the MiG35 in its own right seems attractive with the existing MiG 29 line up in IAF. The only advantage of Massa land stuff would be that the IAF gets experience with the world's best offerings from Russia, Europe and the USA. That is an awesome combination of experience to have and the IAF can claim uber status amongst other AFs.

Sorry but I don't agree.

All that massa needs to provide is a few scholarships, green cards, and swiss bank accounts spread judiciously, and the MRCA contract is theirs. Couple that with a few threats of travel advisories, and it is an unbeatable offer.

The media cover is already being provided by the Indian (actually American) Express.

Can someone comment on the Saras and where it is in terms of development and its ultimate full deployment. Also why the pointy thing in the front for a commercial craft.

Saras Proto-2 is getting fitted.. a report by one of the newspapers said Proto-2 was going to achive a 500kg weight reduction, but a flight test engineer i talked to said otherwise.. weight reduction only from LSP. Proto-2 is getting a higher power engine..

As of now no orders or deployment plans.. but ultimately a few 'may' be procured for ops/transportation in remote areas - esp NorthEast.

NAL is also planning a 50/70/90 pax RTA which will come in turboprop as well as turbofan versions.

COOL, thats a nice info board..
Any time lines by NAL folks ?? Or is it openended right now ??

Anyone know anything about Al-31 getting shoe-horned into a Mig-27 ?? Is that still on or has it been shelved ??

Saras may well have to "compete" with other alternatives for regional transport. IIRC Saras was not designed specifically for any requirement or pre-existing order. It was a technology and capability development platform for an anticipated requirement of a feederliner. If it is cheap, economical and reliable, it will get chosen.

here is why we shouldnt go for the American stuff.. and get entangled in a web of deciet & lies..

http://www.hindu.com/2007/02/17/stories ... 111400.htm

The American proposal to replace an explicit reference to a nuclear test with language terminating cooperation if an event occurs that "jeopardises supreme U.S. national interests" is being seen by Indian officials as something even more dangerous. "Tomorrow, somebody in Washington may say the arrival in an Indian port of a tanker carrying Iranian LNG jeopardises U.S. national interests," said one official. "That is why none of these references are acceptable to us".

On nuclear fuel assurances, India wants the 123 agreement to explicitly provide a legal guarantee of uninterrupted supplies for up to 40 years, or the operating life of a reactor, rather than one extra "core" that the U.S. side says would be consistent with the Hyde Act.

"We are insisting that the triangular arrangement we reached in March 2006 be respected, in which India agreed to place its reactors under safeguards in perpetuity in exchange for lifetime fuel guarantees," said an official. "In March, they agreed these two assurances were interlocking — that if fuel supplies are denied, we reserve the right to take measures in our national interest. But now they want to walk away."


http://www.hindu.com/2007/02/17/stories ... 260100.htm


Differences remain on testing, fuel guarantees

1. Indian queries on substantive issues have drawn a stony silence
2. "Negotiations are likely to be protracted, difficult and messy"

One official wryly noted that all the U.S. side has been prepared to grant so far is the correction of a typo in the Hyde Act. In the definitions section as passed, a nuclear detonation was defined in terms of the equivalent energy released by "one point of TNT." On India's insistence, this was corrected subsequently to "one pound". But other Indian queries on more substantive issues have drawn a stony silence.

With the Hyde Act full of provisions running counter to the letter and spirit of the July 2005 agreement, the Indian Government sought and obtained a statement by President George W. Bush on December 19 that he would not be bound by some of the law's provisions. Notwithstanding this assurance, U.S. officials are now insisting that the 123 agreement cannot deviate from the language prescribed as far as prohibiting any nuclear detonation by India is concerned. Nor are they prepared to provide India fuel guarantees over and above reactor "operating requirements" as specified by the Obama amendment in the Hyde Act.

Thanks Raks for the additional info

The nuclear deal as it is have already compromised or national security in more ways than one even if not officially implemented.It has told US our critic installations which we dont want to be inspected .Secondly they now know a lot of our best nuclear scientists many of whom have been overtly involved in weapon design do not agree to the terms of the deal and this for them a great opportunity for them to make the breach between the policy makers and scientific community wider indirectly de motivating them and there by slowing down further advances in both civilian and military field.Thirdly the us reactor making groups will now set up indian offices and offer fabulous salary to selected scientists and engineers and induce them to join as resident reps a chance they could never have got with govt monopoly on civilian programme . With them they will take all the shortcommings or our nuclear programme to be commercially exploited by us multi nationals and cap local efforts .

This is the real danger . We would get a very measured quantity of fuel for most likely us built reactors only and the spent fuel if reprocessed will be strictly accounted and the process it self will allow us inspectors almost unrestricted access to the core of our programme and then they will know what will hurt us most .

We donott need the us deal or its uranium . Have to find some other way but till then live the way we are living

The nuke deal is a total sell off -ask any AEC scientist in private and you will get your answer with no ambiguity .

Hope this just becomes a dead deal right now

Lets get some thing straight about diplomacy and international negotiations. The first principle is that the gaining power has to give something to the existing powers. This is called the doctrine of compensation. In this case the gaining power is India and the existing powers have to be appeased. So decide what you want to give for without giving India wont be accommodated.

The MMS govt is trying its best to give the minimum to all the yaachaks. This would not have happened if India were at the high table earlier.

They need Indian participation in a future CO2 emission treaty.
What can India demand in exchange for this?

Looks like GOI is getting wise to the facts and real intention

quote -times of INDIA 18/2/07

"The enthusiasm that accompanied the signing of the deal seems to have evaporated when the negotiatins have entered the crucial last lap.As it is India is supposed to present a non paper on its draft on 123 agreement to the US on thursday ,but special envoy shyam saran sharma was not able to carry a draft when he met his counterpart Nick burns last week."

"while the contours of 123 are known the agreement is not yet done.Untill it is done the safeguards agreement which actually flow down from 123 too does not come into its own untill us congress once again gathers to bless it with up-down vote "

"The sudden slack has not gone un noticed bt both Indian and US officials o bones of the fact that the negotiations must gather some critical mass in the next couple of weeks or the deal is in orbit "


What it means is the nuclear deal is not getting the nessecery support within the govt also -this is a good sign in a number of ways

If the nuke deal falls thru so will invariably the chances of F-18 .

Which in turn means MIg 35 comes in along with the akulas and backfires which may be the new package under offer by the russians after the initial negotiations during Gorshkov purchase broke down on high price issue.

If by some miracle the nuclear deal is thru on our terms then surely we shall be expected to buy the super bugs even though far better and cheaper options are available

Which again means the akulas and backfires are a sure bye bye


May be that is US 's real objective behind the nuke deal and one time exception -to prevent india achieve a maritime strategic reach which can threaten its domination of indian ocean .

To summarise -it will be far safer and practical to stick with old tested friends than to try out an attractive stranger

I really fail to understand what has the Nuclear Deal anything to do with MMRCA or for that matter any defence deal , Is it not the case that the Nuclear deal will help the US nuclear industry and in general even that of France and Russia and we would be importing quite a large number of reactors from these countries paying quite some substantial Billion $$ ove 2 ~ 3 decades.

The defence deal stands on its own merits , for example there is a genuine interest for US weapons system like the Boeing P-8 MPA or C-130 or other military hardware and many dual use technology

I thought the Akulas and Backfires were part of the Gorshkov deal, which we have already signed. So why are the Russians moving goalposts by making them part of the MRCA deal?

I don't think they will end up in India before the ATV comes along.. /IMO.

This is pure BRF speculation.

Look at it in this way. I am a businessman and I need customers and their money.

There are very few customers for my juicy Akulas and I have one right now. Now why should I derail my own deal and say that "I will not sell you shoes unless you buy socks from me as well"?

In a worst case scenario - India says balls to Russian MRCA and balls to Akula and all the business goes to the US. That leaves me, the seller of Akulas really high and dry.

So it does not make any sense at all to club Akulas with MRCA unless the nation wants to commit suicide as a supplier nation.

Lot of details on the Mig27 upgrade, including

- a cockpit picture
- ASTE Mig27 with tri-color scheme
- a component layout schematic showing all the new systems going into the upgrade
- a lot of writeup on all new systems, preceded by a brief background..
- note the details reg DVRS (DigitalVideoRecordingSystem) & MDTU (MissionDataTransferUnit)

http://rapidshare.com/files/17187861/Mi ... e.pdf.html

See the page numbered 40 or the last page in this pdf reg Active SPJ.. DARE/BEL seemed to have achived significant progress in electronic jamming capabilities with this pod.. as you can read from this write-up it is also capable of active deception jamming..

I guess it wouldnt be too farfetched to start thinking on the lines of active cancellation as the next step(s)..

What - no mention of datalink, though it talks about INCOM.
Not sure, if they've incorporated the latest single LRU design (for LCA, IIRC).

Also, this is an old picture which implies an internal SPJ - but people have been speculating an external one!! Harry/JC clarify pls ...

JC clarified this earlier.. they did an internal SPJ for one band only and had to do a lot of re-work for that itself.. not easy job was that.. For another band it had to be external.. not sure if they stuck to one internal & one external solution or settled for complete external..

Per Dr.Natarajan's speech & what BEL guy told me the SPJ that BEL is making is "external" and considerably advanced..

hi rakall !

i read ur posting rather late. i got the entire phazotron cat on AESA and other radars from phaz scanned. it has taken some 48 pages.conceptually the russian,american and european AESA antenna block designs, especially the radiating elements seems to be different. Whats eye catching is the israeilis with their 2052 which is rectangular inshape, they made AESA look so simple outwardly. one of my colleagues did take some excellent photos of 2052 close ups which i didnt find elseware. i dont know the operational status of this radar.

Visitors got to see some great aircratf in model form at some chalets.What impressed me very much was the Sukhoi Superjet 100,of which a aprt mockup of the cabin was on display.A brand new passenger aircraft which has western engines and avionics.The latest Flight Intl. issue has a full detailed analysis of the aircraft calling it the best in its class.Interstingly,the entire Russian /Israeli pavilion/hangar was designed and put together by an ASEAN outfit,the displays were the best of the lot.

The Beriev amphibs were another very interesting series of aircraft,which we should examine both for the miliatry and civvie market.

Rakall, the issue is what's being considered for internal SPJ ... for a Bison, say, it's sufficient to have I band (8-12Ghz) fore and aft coverage - because that's the frequency most offensive airborne radars will operate. And then there's this question of, at what range do you want the jamming to be effective - more the range you want more high-powered transmitter would be required with the attended problem of heat dissipation and power requirement. So something like an AN/ALQ-165 type system would be sufficient.

However, for a ground-attack aircraft like the 27s you'd ask for a far larger bandwidth coverage - like low (E/F) to mid (G/H) to high (I/J) bands (i.e. 2 to 20Ghz range) - something that'd cover most of the bandwidths used by the SAM as well the airborne radars. This complicates the whole system and would thus require higher number of LRUs consisting of multiple emitters (for diff band) - something like an AN/ALQ-137 system. Added to this is the requirement to execute stand-off jamming that requires higher power transmitters.

So I'd hazard a guess, that the 27's will have an internal SPJ (Tempest?) to cater to airborne radars while a capability to carry external SPJs to cover the SAM threat.

Of course, with so little information available on SPJs etc, take it FWIW onlee ...

But soon IAF will have to face S-Band AWACS. So there is need to increase the air to air jammer spectrum to cover from L Band to X Band.

And you will need very high power to counter AWACs radar. Simple SPJ may not have the ERPs adequate to screen the platform they are onbaord especially if the AWACS resort to burn through mode of transmission.

Here is a good article on jamming.
http://www.mputtre.com/id16.html

Harry more info please, if possible. Also can you explain why is it that the dme pdf says the test of the KMGT is a refit issue?
thanks in advance

http://www.exhibitions.sibat.mod.gov.il ... od_iai.pdf
or was this already posted?

Could someone please positively identify for me the three aircraft (in three pictures) in this album? TIA

http://s8.photobucket.com/albums/a11/cybersurg/wotsit/

IJT update


Serious investigations going on in HAL - some stiff measures likely (as in transfers, demotions )..


on the positive side --

The prototype is a write-off or not a write-off depending on the way you look at it -- the airframe is gone.. wont fly again.. but a lot of components, LRU's can be re-used..
HAL has already taken up a mandate to manufacture a prototype within 6months.. Every effort will be made to ensure that the certification will be achieved by end-2008.

All infrastructure is being laidout already (in progress) for the manufacture of LSP aircraft.