Industrial development & the evolution of military aviation

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SaiK
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviat

Post by SaiK »

http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/NEWS/news ... wsid=18599
scroll down to @anon IAF pilot's post. I doubt a genuine 3000 sortie done pilot would feel that building LCA from scratch is that easy.. as many as pointed out, what has gone inside LCA, no one cares.. that is surprising from such an experience pilot.
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviat

Post by shiv »

SaiK wrote:http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/NEWS/news ... wsid=18599
scroll down to @anon IAF pilot's post. I doubt a genuine 3000 sortie done pilot would feel that building LCA from scratch is that easy.. as many as pointed out, what has gone inside LCA, no one cares.. that is surprising from such an experience pilot.
That pilot has a viewpoint and it is partly based on having flown the MiG series and lost a lot of good friends. Can't blame him for having a viewpoint, but it is not necessarily the only one or the only correct viewpoint. Why did we ever acquire the MiG series? That might be the original error. In 1961 the HF 24 was ready. But by then Pakis had the F-104 courtesy America and the only country that could supply us with an affordable plane to counter the F-104 was Russia. The fact is that the IAF has soldiered on heroically with the MiG because they got nothing better, They got nothing better because national technology was so backward, National tech was not backward because the scientists and engineers were morons and the pilots clever. That is the mistake that is made too often. India was and remains "backward" in many ways. Only the armed forces were given the best tech that could be bought (given geopolitical constraints). This is like one set of people being allowed to use Mercs and BMWs because that was essential for national defence while the rest of the country went about in bullock carts and bicycles. This is literally true. In 1971 India was flying fast jets while 80% of transport tonnage in India was by bullock cart at least on one leg of the journey. Now how many Indians realize that? Everyone in the nation - the civilians and the armed forces have a duty to understand this rather than whine and complain about the other Indian for being a stupid liar like this pilot does. He was given the best the country could afford and as long as you look at India as being populated by stupids among whom you are one of the heroes this is the attitude you are going to have. But this is the wrong thread for talking about that.

Among educated Indians I believe there is ignorance of Indian history as well as a sense of Indian inadequacy that shows up in many ways and this pilots views are a classic example. If history has screwed you personally you cannot be blamed for cursing - but look at the pilots of WW 1 and early WW2 going in to battle on unproven aircraft and finding out that something was wrong. Ultimately technology is not about asking why some technologist lied - which is emotional nonsense, but how the country can get its act together so that the technologists understand the pilots needs and the pilots understand the technologists constraints.

The unfortunate fact for India is that Indian defence has been maintained with foreign tech so the Indian armed forces have become accustomed to a higher level of tech than available within the country from even before independence. i don't think they realise it and I don't think half the people in the armed forces even understand that "national strength" is a combination of national technology feeding the national armed forces. However without those foreign arms we would have had no defence at all. China went the nuclear way because they decided "balls to foreign arms". They too are not yet there - but for an insight into why that is so, that you need to have some inkling about technology. Flying a plane gives you little insight into designing and building the plane I guess.

The nation is grateful to our men and women in uniform for using imported arms well and giving the nation military capability higher than is possible with Indian technology, but sooner or later even the Indian Armed Forces will have to be brought up to speed and make to wake up and smell the coffee about the harsh reality of national power as national technology integrated into the armed forces. If you live in a country flying the Mirage 2000 while the only available car is the Premier Padmini you may not figure out the difference in technology that made the Mirage 2000 in France and the Premier Padmini in India. This is true of India in 1985 when this pilot went on his trip.

Clearly this pilot, who is a patriot in every other sense of the term doesn't get it. Yet.
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviat

Post by SaiK »

If you live in a country flying the Mirage 2000 while the only available car is the Premier Padmini you may not figure out the difference in technology that made the Mirage 2000 in France and the Premier Padmini in India.
that is a gem liner! saar.

Few thoughts further..Flying planes may not give idea about designing planes.. but definitely can add valuable inputs from usability angle.. This is where, we had seen many other pilots providing inputs in various programs. Be it inexperienced or experienced, some level of driving padmni or piloting mig21s, would give some feedback once given an oppty with at least specs of what LCA would be like, etc. I am sure the pilot would not have graduated to mig21s without some basic trainer experiences.

Also, i am sure he would have had chance to have a look and feel of other IAF aircrafts, withouteven flying it.

The point I am making is, all drivers can provide feedback knowingly or unknowingly. Some feedbacks come by visual and some by expression of words, and some by showing faces.

It is important oppty for our forces, to enjoy the new oppty here.. where they can provide valuable inputs, to our OWN a/c. Afterall, what F22 has become is only based on USAF pilots and test pilots feedback.. especially the features that gives the force multiplier factor with net centric warfare.
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviat

Post by shiv »

SaiK wrote: The point I am making is, all drivers can provide feedback knowingly or unknowingly. Some feedbacks come by visual and some by expression of words, and some by showing faces.
SaiK no. Pisk wise I believe you are displaying cognitive bias. just because YOU possibly have that ability because of your personal knowledge and insight, the assumption that others too are likely to have that insight is incorrect. Too many people look at their personal circumstances and think everyone else is just like them. We find people saying "If the private sector can make cars, why can't public sector make aircraft?" They can as long as you accept HT 2 and HJT 16 as all you need. If Private sector designs and makes Prius, Lamborghini and Merc, then we can ask why Public sector is not making at least Gripen level tech.
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviat

Post by Pranav »

Another sector one should look at is the semiconductor fabrication industry.

Although competition in this space is intense, this is a strategic sector. One has to worry about Trojans in imported hardware.

The GoI has been talking about promoting this industry for well over a decade, but with little forward movement.

As a result, we are unable to make even calculators and wrist watches indigenously, let alone advanced processors.

The investment required is not that great, maybe about 10% of what the Mainos earned in the 2G scam.
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviat

Post by shiv »

There is a difficult to define entity called "National Technical Capability" which can be applied to various fields be it mining, deep sea exploration, aviation, electronic or genetic engineering.

The armed forces of the US, Britain, Germany and Japan before World war 2 reflected very high national technical capability in that era. The war that followed is an example of what happens when you have a war between nations of very high national technical capability.

India is a country which started off in 1947 with very low national technical capability. If the Indian armed forces in 1947 were based on Indian national technical capability, they would have been defeated in every campaign. Indian defence in 1947 was net from the national technical capability of Britain and the USA. In 2012 Indian defence needs are largely met by the national technical capability of Russia, UK, France, USA and India to an extent

Because national defence has such a high priority, we cannot demand that the armed forces depend entirely on Indian national technical capability. We therefore feed the armed forces with imports reflecting the national technical capability of the best in the world. But this reflects on the nation in many ways. It is the country that bears the brunt in ways that we do not allow the armed forces to feel, out of genuine concern for our armed forces. I can give hundreds of examples, but let me give a simple one from 1998 - post Pokhran, the US applied sanctions and stopped supplying radiation dosimeters - little badges worn by X ray technician to indicate the amount of radiation that the person is exposed to while she spends day after day after day taking X Rays of sick people. The need to import this item is an indicator of our national technical capability and the way the US could make unrelated Indians suffer just because we tested nukes - basically for national defence, is an indicator of how the rest of the world is guaranteed to bugger us unless we patiently improve our national technical capability.

It seems to me that the armed forces who get mix of items of advanced western National tech capability and medium to low tech Indian variety are contemptuous of the latter. They too need to be educated on how the nation suffers and how they will eventually have to learn to understand the meaning of national technical capability and how they can contribute. This cannot come from thinking that you are competent, your foreign suppliers are competent but the other Indian is a bum.
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviat

Post by SaiK »

shiv saar. agree. I was not thinking on probability.. perhaps if the number of people who are like minded can be a majority, then I could say it without bias.

furthermore, national security alone can't be the deciding factor sometimes [some areas].. weapons that can be rigged or sold under lower specifications for higher cost also cause security loopholes. if we had not developed LCA program, and MKI components from home, we would be still not offered AESA for MMRCA or better platforms for ToT. As we advance, the seller nations tries to opportunity based on our capabilities. If we blindly buy weapons like UAE for ransom, then we will be using the best systems, at highest cost, but no socio-econmic backup to sustain that model. We just don't have oil money like them.

The point is we are poised by our plans for indigenous approach, beit all homegrown or part by part. Our DPP reflects this well. These are struggle phases of our industries, that we have to bite the bullet, and face the tough correction path coming from the users. These are good aspects in development, considering constructive outputs coming out of each deficiency.

As long as our approach and policies are rectified, and we have clearly laid out objectives, then we see success in sometime soon or little later, depending on how well we have charted it.
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviat

Post by venkat_r »

This is leading me to a question on how the Indian defense forces plan for future and even for day today operations - They come up with a new doctrine, 'Cold Start' - do not doubt the IAs ability, but how do they plan, what things are taken for granted and what new weapon systems are required? For shock and awe what systems are required. Unless they are proactively thinking of systems they need for the new doctrine or battle field, it would be just an old wine in new bottle.

For example - Do we need an excalibur type of weapon to be mounted on a heli? It would be interesting to know the level of co-operation between forces and DRDO on such things. The level of co-operation depends on the level of understanding of technology and ones own capability.
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviat

Post by Samurai »

How USSR transformed from aircraft importing country in 1910 to aircraft exporting country by the end of WWII? A series of videos..

Wings of Russia: Fighters - First Victories
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCUd7Wca ... plpp_video
Wings of Russia: Fighters - Stormy Years
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1tFuLcq ... plpp_video
Wings of Russia: Fighters - Jet Era
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI2g3iQv ... plpp_video
Wings of Russia: Fighters - Struggle for Superiority
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8fNjfAI ... plpp_video
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviat

Post by shiv »

cross post

Please pardon me for bringing in what might be considered unsavory topics here but I think if we are going to have an honest appraisal of India we need to be willing to set aside discomfort and cognitive dissonance and ask exactly what ails Indians in general.

A friend of mine - a knowledgeable stock market player once pointed out to me that trading communities of Marwaris would not invest in companies that made alcohol/spirits for consumption. Fabric/yarn/synthetics, whatever. You name it you find the wealthy business community dealing in them. But not booze. There have been cultural barriers in India that have stopped investment in morally unacceptable industries. Upto about 1900 or so weapons were all made by metal workers in workshops - a low grade low paying profession. Ancillaries for soldiers like leather saddles were done mainly by Muslims. The handling of dead animals was never encouraged by any of India's wealthy or educated communities. It would, in my view, be an insult to Lockheed Marin and other military greats to compare them with India.

Add to this the fact that the British kept the manufacture of explosives firmly under government control and I have posted a paper that showed how barely 10 % of India's explosives requirements were being met by Indian industry by 1947.

India has an incompetent dysfunctional arms manufacture history and it is still clearly visible. Neither the government, nor the private sector have capability. But only the government has bothered to sink in money. The private sector has put no money in the business and has never set targets and has therefore neither succeeded nor failed to reach targets. No point imagining non existent things about the Indian private sector. The Indian private sector is nowhere near greats like Lockheed Martin
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviat

Post by member_20292 »

what happened to this thread? its was great going ...
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviat

Post by khukri »

Not sure where this interesting tidbit belongs, please move if necessary - from Gizmag

To see diagrams see link:

http://m.gizmag.com/article/23959/?utm_ ... dium=email


View Gallery
The Forest Products Laboratory of the US Forest Service has opened a US$1.7 million pilot plant for the production of cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) from wood by-products materials such as wood chips and sawdust. Prepared properly, CNCs are stronger and stiffer than Kevlar or carbon fibers, so that putting CNC into composite materials results in high strength, low weight products. In addition, the cost of CNCs is less than ten percent of the cost of Kevlar fiber or carbon fiber. These qualities have attracted the interest of the military for use in lightweight armor and ballistic glass (CNCs are transparent), as well as companies in the automotive, aerospace, electronics, consumer products, and medical industries.

Cellulose is the most abundant biological polymer on the planet and it is found in the cell walls of plant and bacterial cells. Composed of long chains of glucose molecules, cellulose fibers are arranged in an intricate web that provides both structure and support for plant cells. The primary commercial source for cellulose is wood, which is essentially a network of cellulose fibers held together by a matrix of lignin, another natural polymer which is easily degraded and removed.


Cellulose structures in trees from logs to molecules

Wood pulp is produced in a variety of processes, all of which break down and wash away the lignin, leaving behind a suspension of cellulose fibers in water. A typical cellulose wood fiber is only tens of microns wide and about a millimeter long.


Micrographs of cellulose fibers from wood pulp

The cellulose in wood pulp, when dry, has the consistency of fluff or lint - a layer of wood pulp cellulose has mechanical properties reminiscent of a wet paper towel. Not what you might expect to be the source of one of the strongest materials known to Man. After all, paper is made from the cellulose in wood pulp, and doesn't show extraordinary strength or stiffness.


Cellulose fibers and the smaller structures within them - a) fiber from wood pulp; b) microcrystalline cellulose; c) microfibrils of cellulose; d) nanofibrils of cellulose; e) cellulose nanocrystals from wood pulp; f) CNCs from sea squirts (the only animal source of cellulose microfibrils); and g,h) cellulose nanofibrils from other sources

Further processing breaks the cellulose fibers down into nanofibrils, which are about a thousand times smaller than the fibers. In the nanofibrils, cellulose takes the form of three-dimensional stacks of unbranched, long strands of glucose molecules, which are held together by hydrogen bonding. While not being "real" chemical bonds, hydrogen bonds between cellulose molecules are rather strong, adding to the strength and stiffness of cellulose nanocrystals.


The upper figure shows the structure of the cellulose polymer; the middle figure shows a nanofibril containing both crystalline and amorphous cellulose; the lower figure shows the cellulose nanocrystals after the amorphous cellulose is removed by acid hydrolysis

Within these nanofibrils are regions which are very well ordered, in which cellulose chains are closely packed in parallel with one another. Typically, several of these crystalline regions appear along a single nanofibril, and are separated by amorphous regions which do not exhibit a large degree of order. Individual cellulose nanocrystals are then produced by dissolving the amorphous regions using a strong acid.

At present the yield for separating CNCs from wood pulp is about 30 percent. There are prospects for minor improvements, but the limiting factor is the ratio of crystalline to amorphous cellulose in the source material. A near-term goal for the cost of CNCs is $10 per kilogram, but large-scale production should reduce that figure to one or two dollars a kilo.


Cross-sectional structure of various types of cellulose nanocrystals showing various crystalline arrangements of the individual cellulose polymer molecules (the rectangular boxes)

CNCs separated from wood pulp are typically a fraction of a micron long and have a square cross-section a few nanometers on a side. Their bulk density is low at 1.6 g/cc, but they exhibit incredible strength. An elastic modulus of nearly 150 GPa, and a tensile strength of nearly 10 GPa. Here's how its strength to compares to some better-known materials:

Material...........................Elastic Modulus................Tensile Strength
CNC......................................150 GPa.............................7.5 GPa
Kevlar 49..............................125 GPa.............................3.5 GPa
Carbon fiber.........................150 GPa.............................3.5 GPa
Carbon nanotubes..............300 GPa............................20 GPa
Stainless steel.....................200 GPa............................0.5 GPa
Oak..........................................10 GPa.............................0.1 GPa
The only reinforcing material that is stronger than cellulose nanocrystals is a carbon nanotube, which costs about 100 times as much. Stainless steel is included solely as a comparison to conventional materials. The relatively very low strength and modulus of oak points out how much the structure of a composite material can degrade the mechanical properties of reinforcing materials.

As with most things, cellulose nanocrystals are not a perfect material. Their greatest nemesis is water. Cellulose is not soluble in water, nor does it depolymerize. The ether bonds between the glucose units of the cellulose molecule are not easily broken apart, requiring strong acids to enable cleavage reactions.

The hydrogen bonds between the cellulose molecules are also too strong in aggregate to be broken by encroaching water molecules. Indeed, crystalline cellulose requires treatment by water at 320° C and 250 atmospheres of pressure before enough water intercalates between the cellulose molecules to cause them to become amorphous in structure. The cellulose is still not soluble, just disordered from their near-perfect stacking in the crystalline structure.

But cellulose contains hydroxyl (OH) groups which protrude laterally along the cellulose molecule. These can form hydrogen bonds with water molecules, resulting in cellulose being hydrophilic (a drop of water will tend to spread across the cellulose surface). Given enough water, cellulose will become engorged with water, swelling to nearly double its dry volume.

Swelling introduces a large number of nano-defects in the cellulose structure. Although there is little swelling of a single CNC, water can penetrate into amorphous cellulose with ease, pushing apart the individual cellulose molecules in those regions. In addition, the bonds and interfaces between neighboring CNC will be disrupted, thereby significantly reducing the strength of any material reinforced with CNCs. To make matters worse, water can move easily over the surface/interfaces of the CNCs, thereby allowing water to penetrate far into a composite containing CNCs.

There are several approaches to make CNC composite materials viable choices for real world applications. The simplest, but most limited, is to choose applications in which the composite will not be exposed to water. Another is to alter the surface chemistry of the cellulose so that it becomes hydrophobic, or water-repelling. This is easy enough to do, but will likely substantially degrade the mechanical properties of the altered CNCs. A third approach is to choose a matrix material which is hydrophobic, and preferably that forms a hydrophobic interface with CNCs. While not particularly difficult from a purely chemical viewpoint, there is the practical difficulty that interfaces between hydrophobic and hydrophilic materials are usually severely lacking in strength.

Perhaps the most practical approach will simply be to paint or otherwise coat CNC composite materials in some material that keeps water away. For such a prize - inexpensive strong and rigid materials - we can be sure that innovations will follow to make the theoretical practical.

Source: US Forest Service
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviat

Post by shiv »

Don't want to lose the following link
http://faculty.weatherhead.case.edu/cli ... 4nov07.pdf
Deindustrialization in 18th and 19th Century India: Mughal Decline, Climate Shocks and British Industrial Ascent*
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviat

Post by shiv »

There is an article by fmr CAS OP Mehra (1973-5 IIRC) in the latest Vayu. He reminisces of a visit to Kurt Tank and saw that every room had a fully equipped drafting table. He asked Tank why there were no IAF/HAL engineers in his sign team and Tank replied that it was related to India's caste system. On asking what this had to do with the caste system, Kurt Tank is said to have replied, "Don't you know that engineers in India discard their drafting tables as soon as they qualify because there are daughtsmen to do the job?"

Funnily enough this gels in with something I had read years ago about trainee engineers and engineering courses not taking welding and lathe work skills seriously because there would be welders and other men to do the job. The engineers considered themselves the "brains".

Hopefully this is changing. At least design is all computers now do no drafting board. Another welcome step IMO is the "lateral entry" to engineering college for young men who have undergone 2 or 3 years technical training courses.
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviat

Post by member_23677 »

This is for you Shivji... : http://2ndlook.wordpress.com/2010/06/18 ... d-empires/ (Indian Gunpowder – the Force Behind Empires)

Here's a nice comment from the author:
The Indian military market was completely dominated by the private sector. Elements of the Indian military mix – soldiers, elephants, horse traders and trainers, saltpetre production, shipping, wootz steel production, was supplied to the various kingdoms. Operating on a commercial basis, across borders, these production and recruitment systems were technology leaders with high production capacity. In such a military system, standing armies were rare. Production capacities catered to the entire Indic area – and limited export markets.

As the linkage between Indian intellectual centres (Takshashila against Alexander; Nalanda and saltpetre) was broken, after Indian polity fell under the spell of ‘Desert Bloc ideology, from 1200 (Qutubuddin Aibak onwards) till date, Indian military production also lost discretion and propriety. From being market-oriented, and end-use sensitive, India’s military production became mercenary. And the Islamic and British rulers outbid Indian rulers. Based on their ill-gotten gains, from slavery, piracy, crime, loot, et al. The first time in Indian history when defence production became public sector monopoly was under Nehru’s ‘commanding heights’ and ‘temples of modern India’ socialistic policy.
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviat

Post by shiv »

P.Bhagat wrote:This is for you Shivji... : http://2ndlook.wordpress.com/2010/06/18 ... d-empires/ (Indian Gunpowder – the Force Behind Empires)

Here's a nice comment from the author:
The Indian military market was completely dominated by the private sector. Elements of the Indian military mix – soldiers, elephants, horse traders and trainers, saltpetre production, shipping, wootz steel production, was supplied to the various kingdoms. Operating on a commercial basis, across borders, these production and recruitment systems were technology leaders with high production capacity. In such a military system, standing armies were rare. Production capacities catered to the entire Indic area – and limited export markets.

As the linkage between Indian intellectual centres (Takshashila against Alexander; Nalanda and saltpetre) was broken, after Indian polity fell under the spell of ‘Desert Bloc ideology, from 1200 (Qutubuddin Aibak onwards) till date, Indian military production also lost discretion and propriety. From being market-oriented, and end-use sensitive, India’s military production became mercenary. And the Islamic and British rulers outbid Indian rulers. Based on their ill-gotten gains, from slavery, piracy, crime, loot, et al. The first time in Indian history when defence production became public sector monopoly was under Nehru’s ‘commanding heights’ and ‘temples of modern India’ socialistic policy.
Great resource thanks.

Could someone please get this free ebook and upload it where I can get it. It is not available for India
http://books.google.co.in/books?id=T1Lw ... edir_esc=y

No need got it
Last edited by shiv on 28 Oct 2012 21:54, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviat

Post by manum »

It is available, I just downloaded it...scroll over "EBOOK-FREE" do not click it and you'll see option of "DOWNLOAD EPUB, PDF"


I just downloaded it...
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviat

Post by shiv »

^^
Thanks got it
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviat

Post by member_23677 »

shiv wrote:^^
Thanks got it
I would recommend reading the entire blog if possible, take your own sweet time and understand the blog. It gives a very great insight into India's ship building, about the so-called "mutinity" of 1857, other major wars that were just not recorded in history, Out of India theory etc.

You should be able to find relevant posts by searching in the upper right corner
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviat

Post by shiv »

For a MilAvia jingo like me who grew up in the 60s and 70s scouring newspapers and magazines for news about planes and bombs and rockets and war, I now find myself reading things that would have bored me to death as a young man. But there is a lesson here and such news was never there when I was young.

The relevance to this thread is that making aircraft is about building machines that make machines that help build the aircraft. There are two or three or four levels of machinery involved. The lowest level builds something that is required to build a higher level machine to build yet another machine to build the aircraft. I am sure any engineer should know this, but I am not an engineer

I was remained of this by the following link about a jig needed to make the LUH.
A Sharma wrote:HAL Connect
The structural coupling jig of LUH was
commissioned on November 24, 2012. The
jig has been designed by HAL using 3D
CAD data and fabricated by TATA
Automation Ltd., Pune. The coupling jig has
been built and validated using state of the
art CAMS -Computer Aided Measurement
System (Laser Tracker) to establish high
accuracy and stability reducing the time
required for jig setting.
The LUH structural assembly is being
realised with modular concept. All the sub-
assemblies are being assembled
separately which are then assembled
together on the coupling jig to realize the
LUH structure. This concept has reduced
the cycle time for structural build up
considerably.
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviat

Post by shiv »

Hiten wrote:
maintenance & upkeep problems IAF faces with indigenous system
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih8uxdSqADI

Scathing. Brutal. Mostly directed towards DPSUs, their workmanship. Being somewhat facetious about the LCA, though. Rohini Radars can't be moved around easily
When I look at the Air force side of the debate and the HAL/DRDO side it seems to me that our DPSUs can probably meet Air Force requirements if we setlled for a 10 squadron Air Force of 1960s level technology.

I saw the video posted in the Aero India thread by the Air Force officer speaking of how DPSUs fail the air force, and while he is correct on facts he goes on the defensive to say that "technology keeps changing so tthe Air Force cannot wait forevere and should not be blamed for changing the requirements"

The point is that technology is a moving target only because the benchmark that we (and the IAF) set for technology is being set in the USA and Europe. They set the goals, They are already ahead, and the IAF needs their tech. DPSUs cannot deliver because the minute they import Eurpe and USA move on and change the technology goalpost and IAF is left cursing a HAL that cannot catch up.

It is OK to buy the Rafale. It is OK to buy the PAKFA. But in the long term the IAF is cgoing to have to move on to the 1950s Soviet modeleand the 1960s and 70s Chinese model of lower tech and larger numbers. If the IAF does not do that they will be cursing forever. The goals for how wars are to be fought are set by USA and Europe. But the IAF is in a fix because our politicians do not have the brains to understand that China and the USSR settled for lower tech and cheaper hardware in largernumbers because they were ready to use nukes at short notice.

Indian planners at the political level might actually be blinkered. We want to follow a US/Europe modl of warfighting. But for that we need their tech. we buy and we can' catch up and the IAF whines. We need to setttle for lower techLower specs And a shorter fuse for using nukes if people bugger with us.

Otherwise this idiotic IAF-HAL argumet will go on forever.

Lets face it. That IAF officer is now talking about "modern wars" using smaller numbers and precision weapons. He is not wrong. But guess when it started? Mid 1990s with the Kosovo war. that ws the first war that US and Europe started to practise the art of using PGMs. They perfected that and using steallth in Iraq. Now they are perfecting UAVs and UCAVs. I think the IAF also has to understand the technological history of India - that IAF officer is wrong. It is not just about smartness and brains. It is about trying and failing until you succeed. It shows thatthe IAF knows how to use technology and knows who has that technology but knows little about how that technology came about and how backward India really is. To an extent the IAF has become a Marie Atoinette force who think that cake will be available when bread is not there. They have been given cake by imports while our tech levls have never reached there. The IAF will unfortunately need to be brought down to an Indian level of tech. That willmake them weaker nd less effective - but that will have to be compensated by changes in doctrine like greater numbers, lower tech and a change in nuclear doctrine. But the IAF can't do the latter. The politicians too have to understand the problem the country has.

Unfortnately IAF now has Rafale and PAKFA which will keep them hooked to foreign tech and keep them blind to how low down the the technological pecking order india is.
shiv
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviat

Post by shiv »

Cross posting for the record
http://www.ipfonline.com/IPFCONTENT/art ... ndia-1.php
40 Years of "Innovation" in India
By Harshwardhan Gupta

Innovation is The Next Big Boom on India Inc.'s Horizon! declares a Management Guru. "Innovation Drives Us!" says a commercial from a truck-tyre manufacturer. "Innovation Amidst Tranquillity" blazons a full-page ad for overpriced bungalows in fake Spanish style oddly mixed with Gothic. "Innovation will drive India's inexorable march towards becoming a Global Design Hub!" opines a Design Celeb... Of late, "Innovation" has become a much hyped and misused word in our country, and a lot more people are preaching about innovation than innovating!

What's the reality on the ground? Let's first look at a historical perspective over the last 40 years from my vantage point of being a consulting engineer-designer-innovator for the last 31 years.

I am a practising engineer, not a writer, journalist, academician or philosopher. As a practising engineer, I have it in my nature and training to see and understand things quantitatively and objectively. Therefore, I have tried to make sure that the various observations I make here are quantitatively correct and statistically significant. Before I go further, I wish to clarify that technological innovation and engineering design go hand-in-hand. The former cannot take place without the latter.

Ever since I graduated from the hallowed portals of IIT Bombay in 1976, I have been designing all sorts of mechanical machines. I designed my first real-life machine for the industry in 1975 when I was still a student (and saw my first IPF in 1978). After IIT, I decided to stay back in India and go on designing machines, as the challenges and opportunities to do original work here were much greater than those the developed world offered.

With stars in my eyes, I sincerely believed that as time passed, we would become a more mature nation, technologically more self-reliant, and achieve the efficiencies and quality of life approaching that of the developed world, which we all could enviously see even in 1976.

Effects of Liberalisation

In the 70s and 80s and early 90s, as our 'Licence-Permit Raj' Bharat lived behind closed doors, a large amount of real engineering design and innovation went on everywhere, especially in smaller companies; and usually they grew much faster than the then-prevalent so-called 'Hindu' rate of growth. This might be difficult for the younger generation to believe, but it is true!


Admittedly, much of it was copying - mostly from catalogs and machine manuals - but since we could not import or manufacture many crucial components of what we were copying, we had to perforce redesign and innovate. We routinely saw these innovations in various trade fairs like IMTEX, and here in IPF. I myself designed many dozens of high-end machines from first principles in many different fields in that pre-liberalisation period. Every machine-building industry had decent machine-designers and draftsmen who worked on paper on manual drafting machines and slowly but surely created many good albeit old-fashioned and over-designed machines.

Then the much-dreamed-about, much vaunted Liberalisation (and coincidentally the advent of CAD) came about, and VERY quietly, the bottom fell out of indigenous design and innovation. All these small companies and entrepreneurs rushed to get a foreign name on their letterheads, and on their machines. At the same time, anyone who was not CAD savvy began to be looked down upon as Old School.

So within a span of a few short years, because of these two factors, a large number of our coveted design engineers and design draftsmen went out of real work, and many out of real jobs. Many took retirement; many more could not adjust to the advent of CAD, and failed to pass on their machine-design skills to the CAD-dependent Gen-Next.

The Gen-Next merrily took off on mastering CAD skills, believing that CAD skills equalled machine-design skills. This false notion has persisted till today, and real machine-design skills are becoming extremely scarce in India instead of becoming plentiful. This is quietly but steadily corroding our industry AND economy from the inside.

Let's See This in a Global Perspective

In the period after WW2, many countries of the world embarked upon a race to become a developed nation from almost the same starting line as us. These were Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia... Many others started much later than we did - Brazil, China, South Africa, Thailand... As of now, all of them have almost achieved their goal of becoming a developed nation. At the same time, thoroughly devastated European nations like Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Italy... persevered and ran the fastest, and more than recovered their lost grounds.

In India, we always try to interpret the rapid and fast-maturing industrialisation of these countries in monetary and political terms, being the money- and politics-obsessed (and technologically ineffectual) people we are. This is a very naïve viewpoint, which makes us miss their real secret to success.

After WW2, without much fanfare, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea (and later China and others) started their race to prosperity with buying and then copying machines from Europe and US and developing their indigenous industry. Simultaneously, they quickly (and 'quickly' is the key word here) learned the underlying engineering and design philosophies behind these sophisticated machines. And herein lies their secret to success: they then started improving upon the originals by leaps and bounds, and rapidly started mass manufacturing a vast array of products in very modern factories. Their low cost was an added catalyst to this effervescent chain-reaction. Within a couple of decades, many of the Eastern technologies came abreast of the Western innovation engine, and soon overtook them.

As India struggled and limped with her own feeble 'socialist model' of industrialisation, South Korea became the world's largest and best shipbuilder, forcing many renowned Western shipyards to close down. Japan first overtook and then took over the entire world's electronic industry. Communist Russia went into space before the US; tiny Taiwan became the entire world's machine-tool builder and globally threatened the machine-tool industry (and certainly overran ours). Thailand and Malaysia account for almost all of the world's microchip production.

Now China is steamrolling the entire world's mould and die-making industry (which is the very heart of industrialisation), among many other spectacular wins. China has also emerged as the world's largest single producer of consumer electronics and home appliances. Brazil has mastered the bio-fuel race and Spain is far ahead in solar energy technologies. Israel, despite its troubled existence, has given many unique innovations to the world.


Even today, we are nowhere near winning even one of these races; however much we may try to console ourselves with hollow patriotic boasts. We may pride ourselves in our software and IT talents, but the facts remain that not even one of the many massive leaps in software, communication and IT has originated on Indian soil. Quantitatively, our software and BPO industry grew mainly out of clerical labour arbitrage, and that arbitrage is slowly disappearing now.

The myriad tranquillising signs of industrial progress you see today are utterly and completely dependent on foreign companies, their technologies, machines and designs. Virtually nothing of their technologies, machines and their engineering designs are percolating fast enough into our own indigenous domain, excepting a few cheapo copies in a few areas. We simply haven't evolved mechanisms to do so.

Let's return to discussing India's innovation and industrialisation; the two go hand in hand - you cannot have one without the other! One point always missed here by ALL commentators is the fact that in order to manufacture something completely new (like a CFL lamp, or a new kind of mobile phone, or an LCD screen, or a new-generation container ship, or a new kind of weapon system, or a new kind of process like laser cutting) you need dozens upon dozens of completely new kinds of physical machines. Obviously, these machines too need to be invented and detail-designed by engineering designers, prototypes built, tried out and perfected in a short time. This enormous task goes on in all industry round the world - mostly cooperatively, and sometimes competitively.

All the newly emerged economies, except us, have quietly developed engineering design capabilities on a vast scale in a short time. Indian industry, however, has continuously failed to participate in this ongoing global engineering development process in any significant way.

We too started our race with copying machines and technologies, but we could not shed our heavy cultural and habitual baggage, which weighed us down in this race. Of course, our Government and its officials have incessantly hindered us rather than helped (and it is fashionable to blame them), but they are only a minor reason for our technological backwardness.

So Why Have We Remained So Technologically Backward?

What are the invisible baggages we still carry? Spurred on by our increasingly immature media, we have surrounded ourselves with many myths. Let's list some major ones:

1. Myth: India is fast catching up with the world technologically.


Fact: We are only using (or furiously installing in alien-owned factories) newer and newer technologies and machines, not generating or designing even a minuscule portion of those - as now we can import anything we want. Many countries are racing ahead with developing newer technologies and machines at a faster and faster pace, and we are falling behind farther and faster. We are becoming increasingly dependent on imported technology and machinery, losing entire vital indigenous industries (machine-tool building, plastic moulding, die making...) in the process. Our ever-increasing dependence on other nations for new technology and new kinds of machinery is making us a slave nation all over again, and is creating a deep cancer within our industry.

2. Myth: India has given many inventions to the world, latest being jugaad.

Fact: We have invented absolutely nothing worth the name after we (allegedly) invented the zero. Look around - the pressure cooker, the auto-rickshaw, the diesel locomotive, the CFL lamp, the sports shoes, the mobile phone, the thermometer, the refrigerator... and the machines which make these and so many other things, and the machines which make the raw materials for these... we have invented absolutely none of them. We have clumsily copied many things but not learnt how to develop newer technologies and design completely new kinds of machines.

We have deluded ourselves to believe that jugaad is same as innovation. It is NOT! Jugaadbaazi has not brought us the LCD TV, the smart phones, the washing machine, the luxury bus, the aircrafts, the x-ray machine, or processed food (including dana-dana ek samaan Basmati rice). In fact, jugaadbaazi has given our society and nation absolutely nothing, except misplaced vanity. It is a matter of national shame that books extolling jugaad have become bestsellers in India.

3. Myth: Automation is a capitalist evil in our overpopulated socialist country.

Fact:

1.2+ billion Indians cannot sustain, flourish, or be nourished without a high degree of automation - which has lifted so many people of so many (even communist) nations out of drudgery and poverty - and significantly reduced wastage of resources. A few examples: Almost 1/3rd of India's vegetable and farm produce is wasted. Much of it simply rots, as we do not have machines to dress, wash and pack vegetables right in the fields to give them longer shelf life and retain their nutrition. Our roads are still cleaned (rather not cleaned) manually. Urban sanitation machinery (therefore urban sanitation) does not exist anywhere in our hyper-filthy cities... just to name a few. Less than half of our people have access to a basic toilet. Majority of our factories are labour-intensive repositories of filth and junkyard machines.

Secondly, innovative mechanisation and automation across the country will need millions of skilled people in many fields. As a seasoned engineer, I can vouch that this machine-dependent industrialisation I am talking about will generate widespread, better paying, cleaner, more fulfilling employment of a higher social level than the kind provided by the wretched NREGA.

4. Myth: Since IP rights in India are not well protected, inventors are discouraged.

Fact: I can tell you as a professional inventor-designer that this belief is just a cover-up for the sheer lack of engineering inventiveness among us.

5. Myth: It is expensive to do R&D, that's why people copy.

Fact: As I explained earlier, copying is not the problem. Our problem lies in NOT learning anything from that copying process; since our copycats' one and only focus is to cut cost anywhere, anyhow and at any cost to oneself and to others. The whole nation is paying dearly for our dear "reduce cost at any cost" mentality.

6. Myth: India has the largest pool of young capable engineers.

Fact: May be numerically true, but ask any placement consultant how completely difficult it is to find even entry-level people with specific domain knowledge. Qualitatively AND quantitatively, our engineering work force is very poorly trained, capable or even motivated to develop new technologies and machines. Majority fresh engineering graduates immediately abandon their profession and join a bank, a BPO, or a marketing setup (or take up non-core jobs in core industries) not merely because these offer a higher starting salary, but also because they are afraid of physical machinery, and averse to working with their hands.

7. Myth: India has a very large pool of cheap manual labour so we need not mechanise. Fact: False, because:

a. Indian labour is not at all cheap in terms of cost per unit productivity.
b. A very large proportion of our labour is untrained or improperly trained (and many are untrainable) for all kinds of badly needed skills.
c. Suitable labour is often not able to relocate to where the jobs are, and vice versa.
d. Many vital skills, like precision machine assembly and operation, die making, etc., are becoming increasingly scarce, with no mechanism in place to train and motivate young workers. Socially we still look down upon a highly skilled engineering worker and look up at a graduate engineer working as a virtual clerk in a bank. The skilled worker doesn't know the theory; the engineer has no connexion with the machines - this forecloses new development.
40years_pic10.jpge. India's ability to quickly develop efficient automation solutions in every field is VERY severely limited, and is not keeping pace with whatever demand exists.
f. Most importantly: today, a vast and increasing number of things simply cannot be manufactured manually, or cannot be made manually at the scale the market is already demanding. Therefore, we are already furiously importing entire shiploads of these things (or the machines to make them), or just ruing our misfortune if we cannot afford these sophisticated machines.
So much for our cheap labour!

8. Myth: Our young engineers are good at CAD and so will soon become capable of designing innovative machines.

Fact: CAD is only a tool. It's a tool that fragments the profession of machine designers as it makes it difficult for them to change their CAD platform, and hinders them from finding a job best suited to their skills.

9. Myth: The world is now a Global Village, so we can import whatever we need.

Fact: This is a VERY myopic and damaging viewpoint! A moment of pondering will show up its fallacy: If this is true, then why are all other countries investing so heavily in developing indigenous machines and machine-building skills? We simply cannot become a great nation by continually exporting rice and iron ore, and importing machines and technologies!

10. Myth: India is on the way to become a superpower.


Fact: Every superpower has reached that crest by creating a vast and modern technology-generation and machine building (and by corollary machine-design) infrastructure. We do not have such vibrant and deeply interconnected engineering infrastructure that makes a nation a true superpower.

11. Myth: China will soon falter and start having problems, leaving the field open to us.


Fact: 'Sour grapes!' There are no signs of China faltering on any indices in any significant way. When it comes to innovation and engineering development, the entire Chinese nation works like an army phalanx to a whole raft of detailed interconnected long-term plans. In India, we keep arguing, working at cross-purposes, obstructing development, praising ourselves, and celebrating our super-chaotic, lethargic democracy.

12. Myth: India is too big for anyone to bring about any significant change rapidly.

Fact: To see the fallacy in this thinking, we only have to look at the fast-paced development and quality of life in China, the US and the EU.

So Why Have We Remained So Technologically Backward?

After exploding some popular myths, let me list some little-known or ignored facts:
Most serious fact of all is the steady, widespread and invisible de-skilling of our work force. Today the industry cannot find trained industrial workers, as most educated young people are not willing to work with machines. Simultaneously, the not-so-educated ones are also not willing to do the work of machines any more - like sweeping roads or washing utensils or recycling garbage or filling products off a running conveyor belt into shipping boxes. When people are made to do a menial task that is better done by a machine, they are obviously far less efficient than a machine, and by corollary de-motivated too.
Across the board, we stubbornly refuse to look at innovative automation until our house is on fire - I have the front-row seat on these scenes of despair! On one hand, capable engineering designers are far too few in India; and on the other hand, those who really need their contribution either really can't afford the costs of development any more, or (the majority) are way too cagey to risk their money (which they otherwise routinely pour into advertising and self-aggrandisement). Most don't have the stomach to persevere through the normal failure-punctuated development cycle. It's an appalling situation, my individual success notwithstanding. In the words of the great Dr Raghunath Mashelkar (Former DG, CSIR), "The 'I' in India does not stand for Innovation; it stands for Inhibition and Imitation!" How very true!
Thousands upon thousands of ordinary items, which we were (or still are) manufacturing in inefficient manual ways with increasingly lower quality, obsolete technology and designs (because of our obsession with cheapness), are now importing them by container-loads from China and other eastern countries. Examples: Diwali Diyas, Rakhi components, bathroom tiles and fittings, sewing needles, small air compressors, all sorts of fasteners, small and large machine tools, telecom switches, household appliances, CFL light-bulbs, door latches, even paper-clips! The scale and extent of such imports is draining the remaining life out of indigenous manufacturers. The widespread knee-jerk Indian response is to cut costs (and quality) even more brutally, akin to a losing athlete starving himself in hope of quickly shedding weight to be able to run faster.
40years_pic13.jpgCompared to other industrialised and industrialising nations, we remain extremely inefficient in terms of per-capita productivity. Our relative efficiency averages between 1/3rd to 1/5th of the developed world's average, and this is not improving. China exceeds the developed world's average productivity - and this has been achieved by rapidly mechanising and automating thousands of manual tasks and skills. Many multinational brands, which have edged out Indian brands in various sectors, now get their manufacturing done wholly or partly in China. Many Indian brands are also getting lot of their manufacturing done in China. China is low-cost because it is efficient!
We still primarily export raw materials and raw agro-produce, and regularly import high technology and machinery by millions of containers a year. This scenario has hardly changed in the last 65 years. Our Asian neighbours like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, Malaysia, etc., have managed to reverse this scenario completely!
The policy stagnation and a born-again licence-permit Raj through callously increasing layers of permissions and procedures are again hindering all attempts at rapid technological advances via the private sector. Power, defence, transport, agriculture, infrastructure are all major sufferers. Since our Governments cannot enforce laws effectively, they habitually counter this by creating more and more laws and rules. This is severely hindering any rapid technological development and making the entire industrial machinery even more inefficient.
In the developed world (including China), if an engineer needs to design and build a new kind of machine he can design most of it with all sorts of bought-outs, go to a big departmental hardware store, fill his cart (or order stuff online and get it in 2-3 days), farm out the manufactured parts, get well-made parts in a few weeks without banging his head, put the machine together in a short time, and start testing and debugging his new design!

In India, every such exercise everywhere in the country is an increasingly slower and uphill battle, to put it mildly. However innovative the designer is, he is hindered, delayed and short-changed at every step of this development cycle.

Two decades ago, you could buy good and increasingly better quality of all sorts of engineering bought-outs. Today you simply cannot find simple decent quality Made-in-India engineering items like plated fasteners, hand tools, hacksaw blades, circlips.

This list is vast and growing. The foreign-brand invasion notwithstanding - we are actually becoming more and more backward industrially, transmogrifying from an independent to a dependant nation.

And lastly: Our frenzied media and obstructing politicians still have NO clue to how China has brought about its present-day Great Leap Forward so quickly!

Very unobtrusively, China has consistently sucked in thousands upon thousands of experts from all over the world (retired or otherwise) in each and every conceivable field right from microbiology to tyre design to rolling mill erection to glassblowing to rail track laying to servomotor design... to train its own highly motivated professionals despite their severe language barrier!

Specifically, on one hand, China has zeroed in on retired/jobless experts in the declining industrialised countries of Europe and the Americas, and offered these experts very lucrative contracts with a pot of gold at the end of their tenure.

Many Indians experts too are in China on similar assignments. On the other hand, China has sent its students out by the million to every possible center of technical learning in the west, academic or otherwise. These students invariably go back to China and join the Dragon march.

Japan, Korea and Taiwan did much the same thing earlier at a much smaller scale, and came out winners. We have already frittered away our chance of massively gaining technological prowess from the decline of the industrial nations.

Now, I proudly say here that a great many Indians count among world's most innovative doctors, surgeons, lawyers, businessmen, actors, artisans, soldiers, etc., etc. However, the moment it comes to technological and machine-related innovation, we somehow drop to the bottom rung - so gross is our national disconnect with machinery and technology. We merely use the latest of global technologies and machines everywhere, but at 1/6th of world population, we cannot create even a few of them.

40years_pic14.jpg

I also proudly say that innovative changes for the better do happen everywhere in India in many spheres including technological. However, their scale always remains minuscule. Our REAL problem is that as a nation we are collectively incapable of scaling up these betterments. If one municipality, school, industry, institution or an individual does something innovative, we repeatedly prove ourselves incapable of reproducing or scaling up that innovation. Betterment of any kind is now becoming slower and slower in India as the world around us progresses faster and faster.

Worse, we slowly let our gains go to seed. If something good of a large size makes its appearance on the Indian scene, it only takes a few short years before it all starts coming apart at the seams instead of getting even better with time. Look at the IRCTC, the private courier services, mass housing, urban infrastructure, BRTS, the Golden Quadrilateral, various Private-Public-Partnership projects...

Nevertheless, we do scale up bad things extremely fast and efficiently: corruption, female foeticide, misuse of public utilities, stealing electricity, illegal mining, adulteration, dynasty politics...

It is sad that the vast majority of us, the People of India, remain perennially immersed in arguments, entertainment, ornamentation, media hype, self-aggrandisement, and remain completely immune to the vast amounts of filth, chaos, mediocrity and inefficiency. As one foreigner put it so graphically, "India is like an aircraft which is ready to take off, but never ever takes off."

All of the above is already resulting in increasingly slower growth, and we are slowly becoming irrelevant in the world order. The editorial of The Economist of March 24th 2012 succinctly concludes, "A slower growing India will be more financially vulnerable, poorer, full of frustrated young people and taken less seriously by the rest of the world."

What Needs to be Done?

It is customary to end such a 'negative' article with suggestions for change. So here are my suggestions for bringing about innovative, widespread and quick changes, knowing fully well that innovative change in our country will always remain a case of way too little and way too late:
Learning to scale up good change quickly, by not procrastinating, not obstructing change for personal gains, ego or self-aggrandisement. Today, scaling up the change is actually even more imperative than change itself.
Learning how to do something better and faster rather than cheaper and more mediocre.
Working on Education to make it shed irrelevant baggage and include various modern skills and civic sense (like garbage segregation, traffic civility, unambiguous communication)... This lays the foundation of innovative minds flourishing in a healthy, clean, peaceful society.
Motivating AND facilitating young people to learn about machinery and industrialisation, acquire skills to use, design and build advanced machines of all sorts.
Getting out of the jugaad mentality, as any jugaad solution can neither be scaled up, nor work reliably in the long run, nor make the practitioner (nor the society) any richer. For this, the entire nation's social mindset has to change.
Reducing our addiction to entertainment in various forms - Bollywood, TV, music, sports, social networking, as these have become habitual anaesthetics for our various pains.
Fixing our national habit of offering an instant argumentative explanation for every shortcoming or a problem (big or small) as a necessary AND sufficient response. Such defensive argumentativeness routinely pre-empts real solutions.
Stopping the coining of and playing with new words and phrases; and doing something real.
Bringing the Media around to shift its interminable focus from politics, crime, sports and numbing entertainment... to skills, training, cleanliness, civic sense and promotion of technology of the non-entertainment kind.
Having a re-look at our contagious optimism: This may sound cynical, but in reality, this has become poignantly true: From Satyamev Jayate (Truth always Prevails), our de-facto national motto has become Sab theek ho jayega - everything will be alright... implying somehow and by itself. Unless we get seriously alarmed about our future being bleak, we will not change.
Lastly, learning to accept and comprehend criticism, and to quickly work on fixing the problem instead of instantly attacking the critic. In the land of Kabir, the latter has become our most predictable, all-pervasive national nature!

I rest my case.
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviat

Post by Misraji »

^^^. Thanks for posting that article, Shiv Saar.
Fact: I can tell you as a professional inventor-designer that this belief is just a cover-up for the sheer lack of engineering inventiveness among us.
--Ashish
shiv
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviat

Post by shiv »

Cross post
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 864009.cms
Noting that a mere two percent of Indian population had vocational skills as against the ratio of 75 percent in Germany, 96 percent in Korea, 80 percent in Japan and 68 percent in Britain, Tyagi said coordination, direction and role definition were some of the human resource challenges HAL had faced during the LCA's development.
shiv
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviat

Post by shiv »

I am just bringing this thread "up" because of the discussion about cancelled and failed aircraft programs in India. Not trying to shift blame but by 1947 India was a decrepit state with just a few electrical, mechanical chemical and civil engineers. I put in some effort to research this thread - maybe there is some useful info.

Start with the first 2 posts of this thread
http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 9#p1282319
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviat

Post by VinodTK »

Mr. Ajai Shukla: Aerospace companies back new skilling agency
To certify 5,20,000 trainees and 6,000 qualified instructors over the next 10 years

So dire is the shortfall of skilled workers in the aerospace and aviation sector that the country's only major aerospace manufacturer, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), trains a thousand of its own apprentices each year.

Yet, this does nothing to meet the burgeoning requirement for trained workers in a range of other aerospace and aviation entities - including private airlines, maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) providers, commercial service providers and small and medium aerospace manufacturers in the public and private sectors.

That is why a host of leading aerospace companies and establishments have joined the Aerospace and Aviation Sector Skill Council (AASSC), which unveiled a plan in Bengaluru on Tuesday, to certify 5,20,000 trainees and 6,000 qualified instructors over the next ten years.

Amongst those who have thrown their weight behind the AASSC are Jet Airways (India) Ltd, Tata Advanced Systems Ltd, Max Aerospace and Aviation Pvt Ltd, Dynamatic Technologies Ltd, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), National Aeronautical Laboratory (NAL), Federation of Indian Airlines and Airports Authority of India (AAI).

HAL chief, T Suvarna Raju, who chairs the AASSC, says they will draw up a standardised curriculum for training workers in some 70-odd trades. The aim is to create assured professional skills in fields ranging from Levels 1&2 (low skill) workers like baggage handlers and airport drivers, to Level 4 (highly skilled) workers like engineers, scientists and technicians.

Over the next three years, AASSC plans to introduce 30 courses, which will benefit the "aerospace sector battling for talent in various disciplines", says HAL.

"The curriculum will be defined and set out in writing. Any institution that has the facility to impart this training will be invited to take it up", says Raju.

At the apex level, the nodal agency for such trade training is the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE), which coordinates skilling activities through the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), a not-for-profit, public-private partnership (PPP) established under Section 25 of the Companies Act.

To establish a skills council for the aviation sector, the NSDC roped in three sectoral agencies - HAL, the Bangalore Chamber of Industry and Commerce (BCIC), and the Society of Indian Aerospace Technologies and Industries (SIATI). Working together, they established the AASSC last year, as a Section 8 Company (non-profit organisation) under the Companies Act, 2013.

Of the AASSC's capital of Rs 25 lakh, HAL has contributed half, while BCIC and SIATI have shared the balance.

AASSC is drawing up the training guidelines, parameters and standards for the aviation sector under the oversight of a management board that represents all major facets of civil and military aviation.

"Initially, there will be 18 board members, including from commercial airlines, and service and manufacturing sectors. However, we can expand the board to 26 members, if we determine the need for additional representation", says Raju.

While not yet announced, it is learned that Wing Commander (Retired) D Peter Immanuel has been chosen as the first chief executive of the AASSC.

The NSDC's website says "It aims to promote skill development by catalysing creation of large, quality, for-profit vocational institutions." It aims to achieve 30 per cent of the government's target of "skilling/up-skilling 500 million people in India by 2022".

The NSDC claims to have 211 training partners and 3,026 training centres, which have trained 51,63,546 people, of whom 21,14,816 have already been placed in jobs.

In January 2014, the defence ministry had set up its own coordination body, the National Aeronautics Coordination Group (NACG), with the charter: "To recommend national policy on aerospace and a comprehensive plan of action for suitable augmentation of indigenous capability in the field of aeronautics by (March 31, 2014)." Skills development would have been an important component of this charter, but the NACG has achieved nothing so far.

RESKILLING THE AEROSPACE: WHAT THE SKILL COUNCIL PLANS

To certify 5,20,000 trainees and 6,000 qualified instructors over the next 10 years

To create assured professional skills in fields, ranging from Levels 1&2 (low skill) workers like baggage handlers and airport drivers, to Level 4 (highly skilled) workers like engineers, scientists and technicians

To introduce 30 courses over the next three years to benefit the aerospace sector

To promote skill development by catalysing creation of large, quality, for-profit vocational institutions

To achieve 30 per cent of the government's target of skilling/up-skilling 500 million people in India by 2022
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviat

Post by shiv »

Image from Twitter: Caption reads: "women at munitions factory in Chilwell Nottinghamshire producing shells for artillery batteries on the front lines" Looks like WW1
Image

Needs to be seen with a 1945 paper written by my grandpappy
Image
Vidur
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviation

Post by Vidur »

Thank you for linking this discussion. The historical perspective from independence onwards throws light on how our thinking in defence production evolved (broadening it from aviation). It was particularly interesting to see the pre independence perspective and the impact of the Raj. This is an interesting infographic. https://infogram.com/share-of-world-gdp ... 2e6yjwqm16

If I can find the time and if there is interest, I will make an attempt to share some personal thoughts on the evolution of our defence establishment and current and future challenges.
JayS
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviation

Post by JayS »

Vidur wrote: If I can find the time and if there is interest, I will make an attempt to share some personal thoughts on the evolution of our defence establishment and current and future challenges.
Your efforts would be highly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviation

Post by SBajwa »

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bailadila_Range

My father took me to Bailadila Range back in early 70s. I saw Japanese people and machines there taking Iron ore out on small trains all the way to Vishakapatnam to be exported to Japan. Nehru signed a deal with Japan in early 50s to export Iron Ore.
Are we still doing it? Here is the 12 years ago where it claimed that we need to stop Iron ore to Japan and china.

http://www.financialexpress.com/archive ... es/130925/

What is the status now?
Vidur
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviation

Post by Vidur »

I am sharing some thoughts as promised. These are my personal thoughts and certainly not an official view. Please take them as such. There maybe some spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. Please excuse those. It was written in a few snatched moments and is completed late at night.

A. State of Nation at independence

1. India contributed 24 pct to world GDP in 1700. By independence this had reduced to 2 pct. The coinciding of the industrial revolution with colonisation had lead to asset stripping, de-education and deindustrialisation. This was facilitated by among other things cultural colonisation. Terms of trade (market value of domestic produce vs imports) had moved against India. This means that the labour of the Indian producer had been severely devalued.
2. Famines had raged through the raj era and the nation was in steep poverty. Therefore the first imperative was becoming self sufficient in food followed by reindustrialisation.
3. The institutions of the nation were colonial creations meant to facilitate the move of raw materials to the factories of England and create a stable environment in the colony. Railways were created for this purpose not to promote economic growth. The facilitation of the freedom movement was an unintended consequence. The ICS (predecessor of the IAS) was the means by which the empire was taken to the grass roots. The main objectives were revenue collection, maintaining law and order and facilitating the colonial exploitation. Welfare of the subjects was never an objective. The Imperial Police Service were enforcers and spent most of their time battling independence movement. The army was the backstop to civil authority but its domestic role had steadily reduced after the Afghan wars.
4. I will skip the crucial but controversial topic of the vision for a new India and confine myself to administrative experience of the leaders of the new nation. It was non existent. According to Freedom at Midnight, Nehru had asked Mountbatten to take over charge of the government during post partition riots. In his words 'we have spent our life agitating against you. We can barely keep a fully functional government going. We cannot handle this situation.'
5. The freedom movement's non violent genesis and the imprint of the Nehruvian Gandhian philosophy in strategic affairs is known to all. This resulted in a active disdain for national security and unwillingness to educate themselves in these issues.

Into these circumstances was the nation born.

B. Post Independence till 2000

1. Five year plans were launched to ensure that the goals of Food sufficiency and industrialisation was achieved. They were shepherded by the steel frame of the bureaucracy at the policy level and significant success was achieved. India became self sufficient in food grains, and lead by the public sector in basic industries we gained significant success in steel and coal. Other areas of success were large irrigation projects and to some extent rod construction. Land reforms were also attempted in a big way but with varying success (due largely to corruption at district level)
2. The planning framework was an important driver of the above achievements. National will was shown in setting up targets and these were tracked, accountability fixed and success achieved. Finances for the plan were integrated into the budget (plan expenditure/non plan expenditure). Social movements came up to support the process and the film industry played its part through many movies. The planning process worked in the first few 5 year plans because of this comprehensive application of national will at all important levels - policy, budget, institutional, political, district, state, social.

3. At the grass roots the charter of the DC was changed from ruling to development. The development organisation now grassroots till the block level. The DC of today has to work with all government departments (irrigation,health, education, pwd,sugar) to deliver the development goals. He has direct control only on revenue, everything else is a collaborative effort. Often work is seen to be done than actually done.

4. The colonial institutions of the IAS/IPS were used to run the country with almost no substantive reform and as time passed, naturally a system designed for exploitation changed from exploitation for the colonial master to exploitation for the system - Indian politicians and bureaucrats.That is why transmission mechanisms didn't work and poverty was not alleviated till the economics reforms of the 90s started. The steel frame is now rusting an in dire need of replacement. Coalition politics and regional leaders of starting in the 90s significantly increased metal fatigue and did heavy damage to the steel frame.

5. While we managed to build basic industries like steel and coal and power generation and did some good civil engineering feats, the public sector had not been able to build a real manufacturing base. And the private sector was used to a license raj diet of protection, trading and rent seeking.

6. Having looked at the background let's move on to defence. It was never on the agenda. Politically the agenda was active anti defence for ideological reasons. There were no long term plans for building a defence industry, no national will and no funding. The shocks of 62 and 65 and the regime change lead to a change and an attempt was made to do defence planning in the same way as 5 year plans. The first defence plan was launched in the late sixties. We are currently in the 13th plan. Some notable characteristics of defence plans - there was little political will, not supported in the annual budgetary process with the result that it became a largely paper exercise, MOF permission was needed at multiple stages which was very hard to get (the 12th plan had to be abandoned for this reason), it was run by the bureaucracy with little input allowed from the forces, no accountability and most importantly no national will. It is no wonder then this remained a paper exercise and becomes a bigger farce as time passes.

7. Despite a sprawling Defence industrial organisation ranging from DPSUs to Ordnance Factories and DRDO we had not managed to create a real defence industrial base. Despite Investment of significant resources in terms of land, labour and financial funding the DPSUs and OFB were not able to even produce consistent and high quality output of license produced equipment and munitions. Safe to say they were not in a position to build new weapon systems of an acceptable quality.

8. One important reason is that mass production, especially of advanced products, is a complex task and is best handled by the private sector. Since we were not able to build a private sector manufacturing base (license permit raj) there was no eco system for the PSUs to act as lead integrators even if they wanted to. We built basic industry through planning and software through the Private Sector but failed in manufacturing. That is why we have had success in missiles and mission computers but not in small arms. Without an eco system defence manufacturing is a pipe dream. We have spent decades in importing products adding a margin and passing them off as domestic produce. License production for decades has not helped us to absorb technology or leapfrog technology. Flagship programs like the LCA drew little benefit from decades of license production. Every aspect from aerodynamic design, to materials, to testing had to be learnt from scratch. The lack of a domestic manufacturing base and an eco system extended the timelines. Even program management had to be learnt because the Public Sector had never done it and we did not have a private sector manufacturing base. There are no short cuts.



C. Current Challenges

1. There is little expertise or interest in defence matters at the policy level. Defence is a long term project and politcial horizons are much shorter term but even if the government of the day wants to formulate a vision he ministry simply does not have the expertise to formulate one. A typical IAS officer comes to the ministry for a 3-4 year deputation and has no grasp of the complex issues he is rqeuired to grapple with. And it is rather unfair to expect him or her to . He has been trained in a different milieu with a different ethos - administering, firefighting, keeping all stakeholders happy, brushing issues under the carpet. What is called for is deep domain expertise, an empathy with national deference and defence personnel and a build and can do attitude. But we are administrators not builders and have grown up in a system that is designed to stop something from happening not to bring about radical change. There is also an institutional disdain for defence issues and the services in the bureaucracy, And even if a rare officer due to sheer personal interest manages to surmount these issues, by the time he or she is up the curve and able to make a difference, they move out. Therefore the biggest challenge getting political will for change and staffing the ministry with the right people.

2. The second challenge is the decision making process and the multiple levels of sanctions required. It would take me days to finish this note if I had to cover it all but I refer you to three data points. Firstly, the previous RM Shri Manohar Parikkar is on record in a TV interview questioning the need for dual MOF approval and saying he has no control on it , second I have referred to the abandoning of the 12th defence plan in para B (6) above. Lastly I refer you General VK Singh's statement of snakes and ladders, a very clear statement of the problem. The process needs a complete revamp.

3. Defence spending needs to go to atleast 3.25% of GDP ideally 3.5% of GDP. It is a waste of time and energy to talk about building a national defence base if there is no budgetary provision for it. And this spending level must be made statutory and sanction must automatically come as per the plan so that MOF cannot turn the tap off on approved projects to balance the annual budget. The 5 year defence plans make sense only if funds are sanctioned like they were for the 5 year plans. What is happening now is that services plan according to the 5 year plan and then project a need, it goes thorugh a tortuous approval process and then it is completely at the mercy of the Finance Ministry. It is better to abandon the whole planning process and save time and resources than to continue with this charade. But it is all not Finance Ministry's fault. They follow the political masters.

4. Addressing the above 3 points are necessary but no sufficient conditions in building a domestic defence industry. Reforming the public sector, making it accountable in a competitive market and building a big private sector industrial base has to follow. A level playing field has to be created for the private sector. A lot of promises have been made to them and many entrepreneurs have come forward and put skin in the game but they have been starved of orders. Projects earmarked for private sector keep getting diverted to the public sector. They will soon loose hope. There are cases where they supply to foreign governments but have failed to navigate our system. Shri Parrikar brought one of these cases to the public domain. There are many more.
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviation

Post by Rakesh »

Excellent post Vidur. Point 1 under the Current Challenges sub-heading really hits home.
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviation

Post by deejay »

Vidur Ji, great post. Lots of thought and learning went into that.

Please do continue to expand on those thoughts. I would be very interested in reforms if any that were attempted and any future planned reform that exists.
shiv
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviation

Post by shiv »

Vidur wrote: C. Current Challenges

1. There is little expertise or interest in defence matters at the policy level. Defence is a long term project and politcial horizons are much shorter term but even if the government of the day wants to formulate a vision he ministry simply does not have the expertise to formulate one. A typical IAS officer comes to the ministry for a 3-4 year deputation and has no grasp of the complex issues he is rqeuired to grapple with. And it is rather unfair to expect him or her to . He has been trained in a different milieu with a different ethos - administering, firefighting, keeping all stakeholders happy, brushing issues under the carpet. What is called for is deep domain expertise, an empathy with national deference and defence personnel and a build and can do attitude. But we are administrators not builders and have grown up in a system that is designed to stop something from happening not to bring about radical change. There is also an institutional disdain for defence issues and the services in the bureaucracy, And even if a rare officer due to sheer personal interest manages to surmount these issues, by the time he or she is up the curve and able to make a difference, they move out. Therefore the biggest challenge getting political will for change and staffing the ministry with the right people.

2. The second challenge is the decision making process and the multiple levels of sanctions required. It would take me days to finish this note if I had to cover it all but I refer you to three data points. Firstly, the previous RM Shri Manohar Parikkar is on record in a TV interview questioning the need for dual MOF approval and saying he has no control on it , second I have referred to the abandoning of the 12th defence plan in para B (6) above. Lastly I refer you General VK Singh's statement of snakes and ladders, a very clear statement of the problem. The process needs a complete revamp.

3. Defence spending needs to go to atleast 3.25% of GDP ideally 3.5% of GDP. It is a waste of time and energy to talk about building a national defence base if there is no budgetary provision for it. And this spending level must be made statutory and sanction must automatically come as per the plan so that MOF cannot turn the tap off on approved projects to balance the annual budget. The 5 year defence plans make sense only if funds are sanctioned like they were for the 5 year plans. What is happening now is that services plan according to the 5 year plan and then project a need, it goes thorugh a tortuous approval process and then it is completely at the mercy of the Finance Ministry. It is better to abandon the whole planning process and save time and resources than to continue with this charade. But it is all not Finance Ministry's fault. They follow the political masters.

4. Addressing the above 3 points are necessary but no sufficient conditions in building a domestic defence industry. Reforming the public sector, making it accountable in a competitive market and building a big private sector industrial base has to follow. A level playing field has to be created for the private sector. A lot of promises have been made to them and many entrepreneurs have come forward and put skin in the game but they have been starved of orders. Projects earmarked for private sector keep getting diverted to the public sector. They will soon loose hope. There are cases where they supply to foreign governments but have failed to navigate our system. Shri Parrikar brought one of these cases to the public domain. There are many more.
:eek: scary as hell!

Thanks for posting.
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviation

Post by Neela »

Vidur,
Thanks for this post.
I just have one question to get a clearer picture. How much discretionary powers in finance matters do DRDO chief;s get. In other words, how much budget do they get that they spend on their choices without having to go the MoD or MoF.
The reason for asking this is because ( and pardon me here) they are better positioned to make _technical_ judgements on which projects have long lead times and which _should_ be indigenised on a priority basis.
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviation

Post by shiv »

https://twitter.com/bennedose/status/902821328574545920
I am not given to scaremongering - but this scares the crap out of me: The State of Defence Manufacturing in India
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviation

Post by pandyan »

Vidurji - welcome and thanks for the great post
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviation

Post by Vidur »

Thank you all. Would welcome TSarkar views as well.

Deejay - many committees have given many proposals for reforms over the years. But nothing substantive has been implemented. I don't see any major reforms in the future. An empowered and engaged RM would be a prerequisite. Reform has to be top driven. PM has to take a political decision to set a vision, nominate people from outside the system to deliver and give them the tools.
Vidur
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Re: Industrial development & the evolution of military aviation

Post by Vidur »

Neela wrote:Vidur,
Thanks for this post.
I just have one question to get a clearer picture. How much discretionary powers in finance matters do DRDO chief;s get. In other words, how much budget do they get that they spend on their choices without having to go the MoD or MoF.
The reason for asking this is because ( and pardon me here) they are better positioned to make _technical_ judgements on which projects have long lead times and which _should_ be indigenised on a priority basis.
There are various categories of expenditures and financial powers thereof. For example for civil works (buildings, repairs, guesthosues ) there are significant powers. DRDI buildings and guest houses are excellent. Sanction for significant projects comes from ministry. Indeginisation is not only a matter of producing a system. The manufacturing eco system has to be built. We have enough tech demonstrators. Indeginsation is a long term pain staking process of creating razor sharp focus, best practices and accountability in DRDO ; a private sector industrial base and a component manufctauring base Ina competitive environement. I will refer you to some useful talks on this later
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