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MukulMohanty wrote:k, almost about to figure this out.. Does anyone know the serial numbers of the planes leaving for Alaska, I have SB115 knocked out.. I think the final number is 65 MKI's that we have...
SB001 to SB018 are 'K's and have been withdrawn from service.
rachel wrote:
IN SUMMARY, Igorr, I dont like (a) France selling to Pakistan OR (b) Russia selling to China. In an ideal world neither would happen!
But given the choices, I prefer (a) to (b).
You still dont answer what if Islamabad will transfer french weapon secrets to Beijin after buying them from France? BTW, what about other big French systems like subs that is to be prepeared for selling or already sold for Pakistan? Are they safe enough in the hands of Mushi, or he could be ready to give China look on them?
Igorr, to clarify, there are no good options. All are terrible, BUT
If China does manage to get sophisticated mil tech, I prefer they get it circuitously thru Pakistan, whether French equipment or other, versus directly thru Russia.
This is for many reasons. Pakistan finds it harder to master the tech and manufacture of very sophisticated stuff, so rather than handing China the details, they'll probably give over a whole system for the Chinos to figure out and reverse engineer... which'll take longer.Having meager resources, Pakistan will also be likely to be able to afford very few, if any, of really expensive stuff.
China OTOH, can afford huge numbers and also has the tech skills to make TOT feasible. They can thus pose a bigger threat themselves, as well as possibly sell many copies to PakRats.
There is also arguably more graft in Russia than France. If India buys Rafales, they may just be able to convince French not to sell that system to Pukis(maybe). India buys something from Russia, Russian govt nods and agrees not to sell to Pukes or China.. but then China bribes a corrupt official, and some Russian dept sneaks/smuggles to China.
Yes, I know u'll argue that corruption happens everywhere, but which nation honestly do u think is more likely? France or Russia?
Stop with your rants already...India can convince France? Were they able to prevent France from offering Marlin or scorpene to Pakis? Can they prevent France from selling stuff to the saudis or UAE who wouldn't mind training pakis and telling them the weaknesses?
I would rather china be forced to buy dumbed down russian goods than french items. The Chinese HQ-7 SAMs are basically old crotales and this has been passed back to pakis. Russia has always sold India stuff of higher quality than china which gets the base level. Poor taiwanese found that after buying lafayette they were basically stuck with a lemon....
rachel wrote:
Yes, I know u'll argue that corruption happens everywhere, but which nation honestly do u think is more likely? France or Russia?
If judjing according to involvement in Indian corruption scandals, SA corruption case with EF selling etc, the western countries are much more corrupted. I dont know even a case of high rank international corruption with Russian involvement. GB, Israel, Germany, US etc countries are who involved.
((For Russia and Algeria. Existing contracts with India, Malaysia and Algeria total 40 Su-30MK. Additional contracts call for the delivery to India of 40 more Su-30MKI plus 18 Su-30MKI in exchange for Su-30 now in India. ))
Right, if we have replaced the 18 as per the previous post, then we should be 124 considering the last SB noted was 124....
Hence, we are at 124 which is a considerable strength considering that our neighbour is still struggling to reinforce its numbers... Plus, the MiG-29 upgrade and the Mirage upgrade. And we all have a tendency to forget about the Bison. Bison does have the ability to overwhelm with numbers..
If we are 124, leaves us with 106 more by 2014 which is 106/6 viz is approximately 17 per year. Which makes bloody good sense...
WRT the posts earlier:
Specifically what techs are we seeking to be denied to china? The last I heard the Israelis were giving / had given them just about everything. The french traded with us despite us being outcasts after the nuclear tests. Same with the whole lot of ouiropean nationlets.
In the world today only one rule applies: Have money will sell.
MukulMohanty wrote:Right, if we have replaced the 18 as per the previous post, then we should be 124 considering the last SB noted was 124....
Hence, we are at 124 which is a considerable strength considering that our neighbour is still struggling to reinforce its numbers... Plus, the MiG-29 upgrade and the Mirage upgrade. And we all have a tendency to forget about the Bison. Bison does have the ability to overwhelm with numbers..
If we are 124, leaves us with 106 more by 2014 which is 106/6 viz is approximately 17 per year. Which makes bloody good sense...
AFAIK, there are currently 4 IAF squadrons - No. 8 Eight Pursoots, No. 20 Lightning, No. 24 Hawks, No. 30 Rhinos - equipped with the Su-30MKI. That totals to no more than 80 if we put it @20 per squadron (but it's probably more likely 12-18 figure per sqdn which would mean a minimum of 48 aircrafts in inventory). So I would say between 48 to 80 MKIs are in IAF inventory currently.
Dmurphy wrote:@ srai
What does having aircrafts in the inventory but not operational mean? WHt purpose does it serve?
war and attrition reserve. in many pressed for cash air forces, only a few air frames are flogged to death while the others are kept aside for a rainy day.
MukulMohanty wrote:Right, if we have replaced the 18 as per the previous post, then we should be 124 considering the last SB noted was 124....
Hence, we are at 124 which is a considerable strength considering that our neighbour is still struggling to reinforce its numbers... Plus, the MiG-29 upgrade and the Mirage upgrade. And we all have a tendency to forget about the Bison. Bison does have the ability to overwhelm with numbers..
If we are 124, leaves us with 106 more by 2014 which is 106/6 viz is approximately 17 per year. Which makes bloody good sense...
There are no aircraft numbered 51 to 100. The numbers jump to 101 after SB050.
Dmurphy wrote:Ok sir, i can understand having about 15-20 in reserves...
48 of them???
especially when we are yet to produce about half of them?
Can you clarify what you mean? Please re-read my post.
As of today, IAF has 4 MKI squadrons. So if you do a simple calculation of xx number of planes per squadron, you can roughly figure out how many MKIs IAF has currently. Minimum is around 12 aircrafts and maximum is around 20 aircrafts per combat squadron. If you tally minimum 12 per squadron, that comes to 48 total aircrafts, or if you tally the maximum 20 per squadron then that comes to around 80 aircrafts.
Jagan has verified the actual numbers as of today: (SB01-SB050) + (SB101-SB124) = ~74 MKIs which is around 18 a/cs per squadrons
Oops...sorry. i totally misunderstood your earlier pos. i was under the impression that we have produced 124 MKIs with 48 of them limited to the hangars. lol.
Dmurphy,
it is not limited to the lavis. The israelis collaborated with the chinese on a host of systems, not limited to various missile systems, (the infamous anti radiation missiles, that the US was afraid the chinese could use to penetrate / target the AEGIS destroyers). Hell they were about to get the Phalcon before massa nixed it. Nevertheless it now seems that the chinese got a good dekko into the phalcons systems because they've now deployed similar systems (albeit a lot inferior) with the PLAAF.
So we dont seem to have come to a conclusion as to how many Rambhas have already been produced till date. The web sites like Wikipedia and RIAnovosti suggest more than 100 whereas physically only 19-50 and 101 -124 have been verified.
For far too long (I think 2 years now), we have been living with a number like 48. In the last two years of production, we should have 30 @ 15 p.a. + 40 that needed to have been delivered straight from Russia + the first 36... We surely have to above a hundred otherwise we have 5 years for a 190 more which is 38 a year which is largely impossible unless we usurp Russian capacity too.
3 formed sqdns hawks, lightnings and rhinos. 8 pursoots to be the next. there are news floating around of another being formed. that makes it ~ 64-80 birds confirmed @ 16 a sqdn, in line with the prev calculations if you consider that the newer ones haven't been sighted.
first HAL built bird came out in 2004-05 IIRC, at the revised rate of production of 14/annum (decided 2002), there should be around 40 desi mkis, bringing the total to 40 (?) + 32 to 72.
now form your own opinion !
Rahul M wrote:3 formed sqdns hawks, lightnings and rhinos. 8 pursoots to be the next. there are news floating around of another being formed. that makes it ~ 64-80 birds @ 16 a sqdn, in line with the prev calculations if you consider that the newer ones haven't been sighted.
first HAL built bird came out in 2004-05 IIRC, at the revised rate of production of 14/annum (decided 2002), there should be around 40 desi mkis, bringing the total to 40 (?) + 32 to 72.
now form your own opinion !
HAL built.. dunno.. HAL assembled.. yes. (i.e. for 2004-05). Not sure when the 1st fully fabricated ones came out.
MukulMohanty wrote:For far too long (I think 2 years now), we have been living with a number like 48. In the last two years of production, we should have 30 @ 15 p.a. + 40 that needed to have been delivered straight from Russia + the first 36... We surely have to above a hundred otherwise we have 5 years for a 190 more which is 38 a year which is largely impossible unless we usurp Russian capacity too.
We need a more definitive answer on this one..
the plan is 140 HAL mkis and 90 (18 K's + 32 + 40) russian ones. HAL intends to complete run by 2013, 2014 if you are conservative ==> 15/year (as you did).
by 2015,
HAL --> 6 X 15 = 90
russians replace the K's --> 18.
Russians send another lot --> 40 mkis
Rahul M wrote:3 formed sqdns hawks, lightnings and rhinos. 8 pursoots to be the next. there are news floating around of another being formed. that makes it ~ 64-80 birds @ 16 a sqdn, in line with the prev calculations if you consider that the newer ones haven't been sighted.
first HAL built bird came out in 2004-05 IIRC, at the revised rate of production of 14/annum (decided 2002), there should be around 40 desi mkis, bringing the total to 40 (?) + 32 to 72.
now form your own opinion !
HAL built.. dunno.. HAL assembled.. yes. (i.e. for 2004-05). Not sure when the 1st fully fabricated ones came out.
not differentiating b/w the two for this calculation.
that was 2006 IIRC. (where is JC when you need him !)
Not to digress, and before a forum moderator shoots me down, this is compared to 17-20 workable F-16's Pakistan has. I think we are very clearly very ahead! Which is a good thing as it keeps the peace...
When they realise they can't mess with us, they don't.
p_saggu wrote:Dmurphy,
it is not limited to the lavis. The israelis collaborated with the chinese on a host of systems, not limited to various missile systems, (the infamous anti radiation missiles, that the US was afraid the chinese could use to penetrate / target the AEGIS destroyers). Hell they were about to get the Phalcon before massa nixed it. Nevertheless it now seems that the chinese got a good dekko into the phalcons systems because they've now deployed similar systems (albeit a lot inferior) with the PLAAF.
Unfortunately this will come back to bite us.
Our costs will now go up much further to counter all this.
Newer systems will be sold to us, also by the Israelis.
Can we convert/manufacture 1-2 squadrons of mki for dedicated EW purpose with AAMs for their safety as US is doing with F18-growler.
do we have already started or we are waiting for Israelis to come out with something?
with present infrastructure and Mki's large airframe i think we could convert it into a pretty out of the box kind stuff that will pose an entirely different dimensions to conflict/conflict type situations? at present if we could develop such kinds in 2-3 years then our neighbors will have only Awacs to tackle it or it could happen vice-verca if we strike first.
would like to know opinions or should we start a new thread on this?
Sorry if it is a stupid question, but what is this flap like thing in this pic, between refuelling probe and the two pitot tubes (at the bottom), just north west of leading edge root? Is it the angle of attack sensor?
And why are there so many pitot tubes(one at the radome, two at either sides of canopy hinge, one between the two yellow stairs and two ahead of leading edge root)(shown in below pic)?
Vivek K wrote:NRao, I was just reading the hard-copy of the article. Does HAL plan to use composites for the locally produced MKIs? If we draw upon expertise developed from the LCA program we could perhaps do this? The article also mentions that the 117s comes with a Fadec. Do the AL31FMs on the MKI also have a Fadec?
Hi Vivek,
From some of the reports which I have come across, the percentage of composites within the MKI is supposed to increase with time.
Su-30MKI's do not have the AL-31FM engine, they have the AL-31FP and yes the FP comes equipped with a FADEC.
neerajbhandari wrote:Sorry if it is a stupid question, but what is this flap like thing in this pic, between refuelling probe and the two pitot tubes (at the bottom), just north west of leading edge root? Is it the angle of attack sensor?
Can we convert/manufacture 1-2 squadrons of mki for dedicated EW purpose with AAMs for their safety as US is doing with F18-growler. did we already started??
neerajbhandari wrote:Sorry if it is a stupid question, but what is this flap like thing in this pic, between refuelling probe and the two pitot tubes (at the bottom), just north west of leading edge root? Is it the angle of attack sensor?
Cheers....
I think that is an AoA sensor
Yes indeed that is angle of attack sensor. This link contains lots of information on air data probes.
PUNE: The multi-role strike fighter squadrons of Sukhoi 30MKI, which had moved out of Lohegaon Air Force station have now returned in style — after a successful Red Flag excercise in the US. In the next few months, the fleet will be enforced with a third squadron, making it one of the strongest airbases in the western region.