ramana,ramana wrote:* Pragnya, You said a2A refueling is delayed. Did IAF accept that?
no word from them on that particularly other than the retired/'unnamed' top officials generally criticising the programme. besides since the suppliers being 'foreign', does your question has any grounds?
IFR is more of a drop fit as the plumbing is taken care of and won't affect the timelines in any significant way. Radome too - this may improve the range but is not an obstacle for FOC as the 'functional' aspects of the radar have been proven to the IAF as per dr. Tamilmani, which i posted a few weeks back in another thread.
Saurav jha had a good details in his piece.
http://www.indiandefensenews.in/2014/12 ... spect.htmlHowever FOC for the Tejas Mk-I is now expected to be achieved only by late 2015. This, according to Dr K. Tamilmani, Director General (Aero),DRDO, is chiefly on account of delays in receiving two significant parts from an overseas vendor that will need to be certified for FOC acceptance. These are of course a bolt on inflight refuelling (IFR) probe and a new quartz nose cone radome, both of which are being procured from different divisions of UK's Cobham. While the Tejas program was earlier expecting to receive the IFR probe by September 2014 and the quartz nose cone by November 2014, it seems that the probe will only reach Indian shores by the end of January 2015 and the first of a total three units of the new nose cone will arrive a month or so later. It is understood that IAF teams have been making visits to Cobham to lean on them to deliver these items faster.
'If Cobham had kept its delivery timelines, the idea was to wrap up ground check outs for the IFR probe in October-November and then commence flight trials says. Some 20-25 day/night flights at different altitudes and speeds would be needed to clear the IFR system and had the probe been delivered in September, it would have easily been cleared before mid-2015', says Dr Tamilmani . He also says that adding the probe itself and flying it is not an issue since it has already been integrated on the hi-fidelity Tejas simulator developed by DRDO's Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) and has even been flown by test-pilots on it.
Now the new quartz nose cone supplied by Cobham replaces an indigenous one and is expected to help the Mk-I's multi-mode radar (MMR) (which has an indigenous antenna and scanner but an Elta EL/M-2032 processing back end) achieve 60 per cent more range than with the latter. The indigenous nose cone has of course already been fully qualified for all modes of the MMR but the current loss through this composite part limits the MMR's detection range to around 50 kms for a fighter sized target and this is expected to increase to more than 80 kms with the new quartz nose cone.
According to Dr Tamilmani, the first nose cone that Cobham made 'had problems' with appreciable losses which led them to making a second cone that is still undergoing structural load tests in the UK. This second nose cone will be supplied to India only in February 2015 and besides spot checks some 50 sorties will have to be flown to qualify this new nose cone. Though three Tejas flight vehicles outfitted with the MMR are ready to receive the new quartz nose cones, the delivery schedule is staggered with the remaining two being delivered at an interval of a month each after the first one. So as per Dr Tamilmani, there are no technological issues deferring FOC but merely process related ones subject to the vagaries of the foreign supplier for the two aforesaid parts.
Now while the Tejas Mk-I does boast many frontline technologies, its aerodynamic performance unfortunately cannot meet the 1995 ASR in its entirety. Truth be told the ASR agreed upon by ADA at the time would in any event have been difficult for the Mk-I to achieve in its current state with or without canards. This is perhaps a reason why only forty units of the Tejas Mk-I fighter version have been ordered till date by the IAF. An order for 16 units of the type trainer developed for the Mk-I are also expected from the IAF, with the definitive configuration for it taking to the air last month in the form of PV-6. The IAF has also had concerns about the Mk-I's turn-around time and wanted certain modifications not all of which could be executed on the Mk-I design which has obviously been frozen ages ago. Over the years there were also additional requirements raised by the IAF to keep the aircraft contemporary which included things like the integration of a supersonic drop tank and these were met according to Dr Tamilmani. Anyway concerns about maintenance apart, the Mk-I has shown its reliability by flying up to three sorties on a single day during trials in both Leh and Jaisalmer on several occasions.
More Mk-I orders are therefore not ruled out since at the end of the day the Tejas Mk-I is superior to Mig-21s of any vintage flying with the IAF today, some of which are expected to serve into the early 2020s. Moreover the Tejas Mk-I acquitted itself exceedingly well during Iron Fist (IF) 2013 with its deployed weapons being bang on target during that demonstration, a fact that is often missed by commentators in India. In a single sortie during IF-2013, the Mk-I demonstrated air-to-air capability by firing a R-73E missile and air-to-ground capability by dropping laser guided bombs (LGBs) directed by a LITENING pod carried on one of its pylons.
so, IMO, from the things from your list -
1) functionally proven with the existing radar. new Radome from Cobham (still in testing?) will take care of the range aspect.ramana wrote:Was IOC-II achieved?
Progress on six criteria?
1) Derby & Python integration
2) GHh-23 gun
3) Air 2 Air refuelling
4) braking system
5) radome
6) new radar
I guess 1, 5, & 6 are linked.
what else?
2) gun - no info on this.
3) drop fit. not an obstacle.
4) this is licked at IOC 2.
5) awaited. in testing.
6) Uttam for LCA 2.
HAL is proposing an interim with an israeli AESA radar - http://www.indiastrategic.in/topstories ... _Radar.htm