Rustom Rises
Rustom-II (Tapas), the medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) from Aeronautical Development Establishment flew in the Satellite Communication (SATCOM) mode for the first time.
rustom-rises
Sources at DRDO headquarters confirm that the UAV also flew with the long range electro optical payload. They claim that these two capabilities are not available on the Heron and Searcher UAVs being operated by the tri-Services now.
The future of this UAV programme is still unclear, with the Services yet to give any firm commitment. Sources say the Tapas team is determined to prove several new capabilities during the next set of trials.
he future of this UAV programme is still unclear, with the Services yet to give any firm commitment. Sources say the Tapas team is determined to prove several new capabilities during the next set of trials.]
I have highlighted the bold part again to emphasize the context within which the homegrown UAVs exist while we hear about armed drones being imported by all three services.Rustom-II (Tapas), the medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) from Aeronautical Development Establishment flew in the Satellite Communication (SATCOM) mode for the first time.
Sources at DRDO headquarters confirm that the UAV also flew with the long range electro optical payload. They claim that these two capabilities are not available on the Heron and Searcher UAVs being operated by the tri-Services now.
The future of this UAV programme is still unclear, with the Services yet to give any firm commitment. Sources say the Tapas team is determined to prove several new capabilities during the next set of trials.
Israel has shared its Heron UAV and Aerostar drone technology with Turkey to manufacture Bayraktar drones, successful in the Syrian and Libyan operations, Russia’s Federal Information Company (FAN) reported on June 12.
The report said that the Tactical and technical traits of Turkish Bayraktar TB1 and Bayraktar TB2 stand between these of Israeli Aerostar and IAI Heron drones. Besides sharing a similar look, the drones have a single turboprop engine with matching Payload and autonomous operation capabilities.
Imagine how valuable these would be at the LAC today?vivek_ahuja wrote:Quote from the above link
I have highlighted the bold part again to emphasize the context within which the homegrown UAVs exist while we hear about armed drones being imported by all three services.
Same story, different thread.
I am a firm believer in the phrase: "if you hear hoof-beats, think horse, not zebra".Karan M wrote:I was taken aback at the above points too. The Heron guys would routinely drum up SATCOM capability in every presentation, the world leading EO tech they had etc. And all this while we were apparently operating w/o them and likely using the dedicated LOS datalinks? Or autonomous mode. Just makes one think. The Heron has a provision for a SATCOM antenna too. Wonder what it is being used for.
The future of this UAV programme is still unclear, with the Services yet to give any firm commitment.
pankajs wrote:https://www.indiatoday.in/india-today-i ... 2020-09-23
Eye on China: A $3 billion US drone acquisition heads for MoD approval | India Today InsightThe Ministry of Defence (MoD) is preparing to acquire 30 General Atomics MQ-9B Guardian drones from the United States, in a deal valued at approximately $3 billion (Rs 22,000 crore). A recent series of meetings within the MoD have cleared the way for the procurement of an initial lot of six Reaper Medium Altitude Long Endurance drones. These six drones—two each for the army, navy and air force—are to be procured immediately from the US, indicating the urgency of the acquisition.The MQ-9 can carry electro-optical / infra-red multi-mode radar and multi-mode maritime surveillance radar, laser designators, electronic support measures and various weapons packages.The MQ-9 is satellite-steered, can float above the target at 45,000 feet and stay on task for 35 hours, using radar and electronic support measures to locate the enemy—it could be anywhere, the Gulf of Aden or the Malacca Straits or in Eastern Ladakh,” a senior defence official says.
The $3B would include logistics, support, armament etc. It would not be 100M per drone.$100 million per drone. That is why India should develop its own drones.
Vivek, there is a difference between design specifications, development specifications and certified specification.vivek_ahuja wrote:Quote from the above link
I have highlighted the bold part again to emphasize the context within which the homegrown UAVs exist while we hear about armed drones being imported by all three services.Rustom-II (Tapas), the medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) from Aeronautical Development Establishment flew in the Satellite Communication (SATCOM) mode for the first time.
Sources at DRDO headquarters confirm that the UAV also flew with the long range electro optical payload. They claim that these two capabilities are not available on the Heron and Searcher UAVs being operated by the tri-Services now.
It is not yet doing things. It is trying and learning to do things.vivek_ahuja wrote:The real question is: if the Rustom-II is doing things the imported UAVs are not able to, why is the program not being pushed along by visible and public IAF support? Surely open support from the IAF would really add wind to the sails of the engineers working on the program?
80 is more than total number of Herons in all three services.Similarly, there has not been keen interest by the army on a proposal to acquire 10 of the armed drones as it is committed to an indigenous project by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). The army has pledged to procure over 80 of the Rustom 2 drones that are under development and are being weaponised by the DRDO.
Karan M wrote:I was taken aback at the above points too. The Heron guys would routinely drum up SATCOM capability in every presentation, the world leading EO tech they had etc. And all this while we were apparently operating w/o them and likely using the dedicated LOS datalinks? Or autonomous mode. Just makes one think. The Heron has a provision for a SATCOM antenna too. Wonder what it is being used for.
As the Predator/Reaper program prepares to sunset, GA-ASI is laying off hundreds of people so there is a possibility to negotiate aggressively if this is a DCS.Srutayus wrote:The $3B would include logistics, support, armament etc. It would not be 100M per drone.$100 million per drone. That is why India should develop its own drones.
The "loosening" of export restrictions has been a long standing policy position of the current political part in power at the WH and the Senate, long before any decision was taken on the MQ-Next program. The entire Obama era approach of treating UAV's and UCAV's was widely unsuccessful and served no real benefit other than to let cheap Chinese knockoffs from establishing a hold in traditional US markets. Those folks waited in line for the FMS restrictions to be listed for the products they always wanted..but they gave up and bought Chinese instead.abhik wrote:It's just hafta payment, the production line has run out of US orders (they are looking to move to a more survivable platform) - so they have loosened the export restrictions and are pushing it to as many
<SIGH> This has always been the case no? The pocket book opens wider for the brand name imported stuff. At one point we were seriously thinking of $27B for MMRCA's 126 phoren fighters. This is peanuts in comparision.nachiket wrote:Let me get this straight, we have $3B available to spend on these while the LCH and Tejas contracts are still in limbo?
nachiket wrote:Let me get this straight, we have $3B available to spend on these while the LCH and Tejas contracts are still in limbo?
The sooner people realise this the better. Until we get a PM who disconnects foreign policy from military industrialization, this will continue. There were high expectations from BJP/NDA in 2014 but those expectations were not yet been met. Having said that I am still hopeful given how Article 370 was repealed in 2019, the segregation of military industrialization from foreign policy may happen by 2024abhik wrote:^^^It's just hafta payment
I posted the news link a few posts above yours.abhik wrote:IIRC it was posted here some time back the that the airforce (or was it IA) was not really interested since it woul not bring much to the table in our context.
Without doubt. Maybe they still have a use in maritime domain as a complementary tool to p-8s. But that is about it. This is too steep a price to pay for UAV surveillance capability. If we put our mind to it, we could easily deploy a rustom/tapas based uav by 2021 year end. Maybe it would be just 80% of the American solution, but it would be our own and hence easily scalable as well as maintainable. But then I am not surprised. We buy a tank mine plough which costs more than a Mercedes sedan as per the signed deal. So anything is possible as far as MOD procurement is concerned.abhik wrote:^^^
It's just hafta payment, the production line has run out of US orders (they are looking to move to a more survivable platform) - so they have loosened the export restrictions and are pushing it to as many "allies" as possible to keek the line humming for some more time. IIRC it was posted here some time back the that the airforce (or was it IA) was not really interested since it woul not bring much to the table in our context.
Building autonomous and teleoperated fight control. Its much more complex than the flight control of a Tejas.darshhan wrote:Can anyone explain why a UAV like Tapas has to be put through such a long testing regimen?
You can't skimp out on rigorous testing and certification. While you certainly can, and operators often do, relax safety and crash-worthiness requirements from these aircraft, and reduce some redundancy needs, you still need the mission system and integrated systems to function as desired. UAV's serve a requirement and fill a mission need. If they are unreliable, or can't do it properly then that need goes unmet. Overall, the system needs to work and be reliable in a myriad of situations that the operator intends on putting these systems through. That takes extensive testing and certification especially for long endurance systems. For reference, look at the extended operational-testing period the US Navy is putting the MQ-45 Triton through. 3 phase operational testing (dubbed the "crawl, walk run phases) that will take about 3.5 years to complete. This follows years years of development and developmental testing. And for a platfrom that is based on a proven and operational design (Global hawk). Why such a long OT period? This aircraft is expected to operate for extended periods when no other naval-aviation asset will be available. It completely takes over an ISR mission need that was going unmet (persistent broad area maritime surveillance). If it doesn't perform as desired, there is no other asset that can come in and take over. Same can also be said for land based ISR systems in the MALE category. If the operator (IAF and IN in this case) is going to offload missions to them, then they better make sure that they will be capable of performing those missions when called upon. UAV's of this class also have a unique O&S structure. They don't fly training sorties or flex when it comes to ops tempo. They fly when needed. So they must be capable of very very high readiness rates and pull sorties that measure in the double digit hours and then quickly turn around and fly again. This brings its own system testing and certification challenges unique to these types.darshhan wrote:Can anyone explain why a UAV like Tapas has to be put through such a long testing regimen?
I am able to understand that a manned fighter like tejas was required to undergo testing period that was longer than a decade.
