Sorry for being late to the party!!!!
First of all congrats to ADE and DRDO for the Nirbhay successful test.
Shows they can recover from a failure very quickly once the higher ups give the pressure.
Flight Test Investigation, Root Cause, switching the engine from Turbo-fan to Turbo jet(involves, structure changes and software changes quite big deal) and building the flight test configuration vehicles and conducting the test before 2017 end is awesome. First class performance.
I will now try to answer some of the questions from my vantage.
First one:
JayS wrote:From here:
http://trishul-trident.blogspot.se/2014 ... tegic.htmlSaturday, October 18, 2014
2nd Test-Flight Of Nirbhay Strategic Cruise Missile A Total Success
The nuclear-capable LACM yesterday had a flight-time lasting 80 minutes and cruised over a distance of 1,157km at a speed of Mach 0.7. Eight more test-flights now remain to be conducted prior to its entry-into-service with India’s Strategic Forces Command in ground-launched, submarine-launched and air-launched versions.
If this is correct info, given that two fully successful tests have happened so far, we should see 7-8 more tests before Entry into Service.
Unfortunately Prasun has misreported as his account does not reconcile with the official account.
Besides a turbo-jet engine is very thirsty and difficult to achieve the range or flight time he reports.
The good news in above report is more tests are planned.
Next:
prasannasimha wrote:Wonder why the sudden change in engine. Was that a probable cause of failure like the stones in the original cryogenic GSLV engine ? which was an omerta to prevent people joining "the club".
Dr. PN, The turbo fans were imported assuming the flight tests would be successful. And they ran out of them with the last one early this year. None of the flight tests were attributed to turbo-fan underperformance. So rest assured on this account. When Manohar Parrikar decide to give them 18 moth time for successful test, and not having any more spare turbofans the only choice was to proof the vehicle with the indigenous turbo-jet. It begs the question why the initial flights were not done using the Turbo-jet and then switch to the Saturn made turbo-fan. However in their defense, the plan was to switch to the Manik once the vehicle was proofed successfully. In hind sight the plan should have been first 4 with turbo-jet, next 4 with turbo-fan and then 4 more with Manik.
Case in reference:
negi wrote:PTAE-7 is iffy imo as it has a very high SFC (1.15 kg./kg.f/hr) as against about <0.7 kg/(kgf∙h) for NPO-Saturn's 36MT so despite thrust figures being close range and loiter time will be have to be compromised ; not that we should let the perfect come in the way of good but then if PTAE-7 indeed works for Nirbhay then I would ask why was 36MT even in the mix .
Plan was to switch the engine to Manik. Then software changes would be minimal as both are turbo-fans. PTAE-7 had to be used to meet the Parrikar deadline.
Next:
shiv wrote:Karthik S wrote:
Shiv ji, you even said 450kg warhead CM will not be of much use as well when talking about targeting strategic points in China. What scenarios you believe CMs will be useful, atleast in our context.
Pinpoint targets. Radar sites. Control & Comm centers, power stations, bridges, ships, ammo dumps
You are forgetting the most important target of all: Nasr powered nukes. All those way points are to hunt the nooks and crannies they Pakis will hide their Nasr and nasl them. The Nirbhay with its 1500 km rang is not a China centric missile. Then what is the point of that rang and all those way points and that super duper guidance system with INS and MINGS? I think the range gives enough loiter capability to go Nasr hunting.
I want singha to write a scenario using the Nirbhay waypoint navigation feature and its ~28 types of warheads as it goes hunting for paki nukes.
Gagan wrote:Why can’t the mijjile do a Brahmos istyle bharata-natyam by phyrring three rockets from the tip to suddenly bring it to a horizontal position?
On a serious note,
Congratulations to DRDO and everyone involved!
That's called front end steering or ahead steering. They probably will have it for the sub-launched version that will have a ballistic cap to punch through the launch closure.
Pratyush wrote:
Why should a cruise missile loiter for whatever amount of time. Isn't the objective hitting a target.
To hunt and kill targets which are mobile.
Most likely I except that Services know general location of these mobile targets and program the likely locations. So Nirbhay goes and looks and if it finds it kills them or moves on. You get the picture.
Shiv, Nuke capable means it has black boxes that pass on the arming signals to the payload. Not all weapons have such gadgets. So from the get go Nirbhay has a nuke role. No ambiguity.
