Indian Military Aviation- Jan 10 2012

[shiv]

At the HAL stall one young man told me that HAL would go it alone with HTT 40 and that it was up to HAL to make sure that it becomes attractive to potential customers. He stressed that the HTT 40 would be armed. I asked him if HALs LUH was also a HAL in-house program - but he aid that the government has funded that one.

As regards IJT he said it is flying again and has passed sea level trials in Goa. The engine hurdles according to him have been crossed but there were other issues. He specified that the last crash was not due to engine but did not say what it was. The strakes on the fuselage and the vertical surfaces below the tail were put in because trainers are supposed to recover predictably from spins and the suggestion to add these came from spin tests (vertical wind tunnel) in Russia. (Recall we used a French facility for LCA)

I find it interesting that we do not have a wind tunnel for spin tests. We have no way of doing high altitude testing of engines. In other words we do not have in house facilities for basic performance tests for aircraft. The question of designing a new aircraft or engine and testing it fully within India simply does not arise. How can anyone imagine we have the tech to do all that. We do not. We have to depend on foreign facilities for critical tests.

[vina]

it would take a lot of hard work starting with the AL31 and making something this bad out of the AL55.
makes me think the AL55 has nothing in common with AL31 in design or materials and saturn dusted off some mothballed design from the 60s and gave it to their D-team to implement...with our funding ofcourse.

Oh. The AL55 uses the same gas path and materials and is a "derivative" of the AL31 alright.

I suspect what IAF chief is talking about is not the whole truth, but rather "truism", which hides more than it reveals.It is not as if the engine is not designed for 1500 hrs or whatever, it is. So why the 100 hrs life , because it probably is CERTIFIED only for that at present. In due course it will get fully certified for 1500 hrs. But which airframe is being held up until it is fully certified for life hours and all flight regimes ? Yup, you guessed it, the IJT.

So, there you are. You are paying with program delays and funds for the Russians to develop and certify the engine which they hope to replace a perfectly acceptable Ukranian one for their own airframes and getting kicked in the nuts in the bargain.

With all of the HAL Chief Tyagi's bombast of IOC in Dec 2013 for the IJT, probably the engine is fully certified now (if the pace of Jan 2013 testing is any indication). But the kicks they took in the gonads for 10 years I am sure will be remembered for a long time to come.

But the question is what about the Mantri and MoD baboons who I am sure did the "stratejee" and Al-lie-Yance Yumm and Yea (M&A) kind of YumBeeYea giri. Who is going to hold their feet to the fire and kick them in the nuts ?

[SagarAg]

At the HAL stall one young man told me that HAL would go it alone with HTT 40 and that it was up to HAL to make sure that it becomes attractive to potential customers. He stressed that the HTT 40 would be armed. I asked him if HALs LUH was also a HAL in-house program - but he aid that the government has funded that one.

As regards IJT he said it is flying again and has passed sea level trials in Goa. The engine hurdles according to him have been crossed but there were other issues. He specified that the last crash was not due to engine but did not say what it was. The strakes on the fuselage and the vertical surfaces below the tail were put in because trainers are supposed to recover predictably from spins and the suggestion to add these came from spin tests (vertical wind tunnel) in Russia. (Recall we used a French facility for LCA)

I find it interesting that we do not have a wind tunnel for spin tests. We have no way of doing high altitude testing of engines. In other words we do not have in house facilities for basic performance tests for aircraft. The question of designing a new aircraft or engine and testing it fully within India simply does not arise. How can anyone imagine we have the tech to do all that. We do not. We have to depend on foreign facilities for critical tests.

I am actually looking forward to the development of HTT-40 by HAL. For me its HAL ki izzat ka sawal hai. I will be very happy if HAL goes forward on its own and develop best in its class basic trainer and get some export orders.
I am really surprised to know that we don't have a spin test facility in India. I don't know what offsets are we acquiring from foren imports if we don't even have a basic spin test facility to test our swadesi systems.

[shiv]

One of the offset clauses with USA (or France?) is to set up a spin test wind tunnel in India

[Indranil]

At the HAL stall one young man told me that HAL would go it alone with HTT 40 and that it was up to HAL to make sure that it becomes attractive to potential customers.

Love this attitude. This is how a corporate should speak.

As regards IJT he said it is flying again and has passed sea level trials in Goa. The engine hurdles according to him have been crossed but there were other issues. He specified that the last crash was not due to engine but did not say what it was. The strakes on the fuselage and the vertical surfaces below the tail were put in because trainers are supposed to recover predictably from spins and the suggestion to add these came from spin tests (vertical wind tunnel) in Russia.

This is what Ajai Shukla had reported, but we all derided him.

[Surya]

wow

this was a video from a presentation at Aero India

He could not find any other place to give this lecture??? Frankly I thought it was obnoxious in many places.

Its like our annual customer conferences where a couple of obnosious customers will come there and loudly criticize everything you do.

Surely bashing the DPSUs at this venue does no good????

and if he does want to bash them - he should let someone present all the problems imported shit has had.

maybe could explain how for years Mig 27s flew with some so called sophisticated equipment basically dead\
or how whole batches of Russi missiles were as good as diwali rockets

at least he has someone to complain to about Desi products - he had no one to go to for the phoren ones. they sucked it up and depended on tactics and other imported mal to compensate for it



there are problems on both sides and the truth is somewhere between- but that presentation was over the top

IMHO and all that

[Surya]

To buttress shivs point here is ACM Browne

from livefist
In response to a question about reported "discomfort" in workshare negotiations, Browe said there were "no issues" from the IAF's side. "Our interest is with the direct supply of 18 aircraft. The other 108 will be license produced by HAL. Dassault is free to choose production partners in India and abroad for kits. But these kits finally have to go to HAL for license production. We don't get into that. That isn't our concern."

[shiv]

Single crystal turbine blade story.

A gentleman from DMRL was very friendly and informative and took the wind out of my pompous sail just before I clicked an image of a dirty used component on display.

1.The image below shows the development of tech (in SDREland) from plain casting (labelled equaxed), to "dirtectionally solidified" to single crystal.


2. The image below is of examples of blades made by the three methods mentioned above


3. For single crystal blades to have a hollow honeycomb interior, a ceramic core is used around which the crystals are grown. The core is leached off later. The image below shows ceramic cores with the hollow part of a blade visible.


4. Here is a fully formed blade - the extra spiral bits needed for manufacture will be removed for finishing the blade.


5. From the HAL stall - a single crystal blade used in Al 31

[Suresh S]

excellent post 4481 rohit.+1

[rohitvats]

<SNIP> The IAF's warfighting doctrine is based around a huge component of imported products and as long as imports work the warfighting doctrine wlll work. This is a strategic error. I think the IAF's warfighting doctrine is good only for short Indo-Pak type wars. For long tern survival and dominance the warfighting doctrine will have to be brought down several notches from its current "we will fight with the highest tech we can buy" to the highest tech thet country can achieve in practice. For that the IAF and DPSUs need to depute offcers who are smart to work with each other. This mindset of IAF only for figting and DPSU only for production needs to change. At least some IAF enginners need to start working with DPSUs

Someone needs to point out to both DPSUs and IAF that we have more or less mastered 1950s to 60s level tech and any wars we fight will have to keep that in mind. By semanding 21st century tech we get only imports.

Shiv, at the expense of repeating myself, I have tried to answer the above assertion earlier. Here is what I wrote:

@Shiv: While your post(s) above is on dot regarding the level of aviation related technology in the country, rest of the argument about IAF being out of sync with national level of capability and need for PLAAF style air force of 70s is, IMO, not correct. Please allow me to elaborate:

As you’ve rightly pointed out, the aviation technology has already moved and reached point X on evolution scale. And so has the associated war-fighting technology and doctrine. And the bar is set by the west. The growth of aviation industry (in the west) and the air-warfare theories (in the west) form a self-propagating loop and feed off each other.

In this evolution was thrown a young nation in 1947. By this time, the evolution of aviation industry had already reached X+1 on evolution scale. India at this point had two options – (a) invest in de-novo development. (b) Jump start the segment by taking external help like the Chinese did with Mig-15 and up to Mig-21. For some reasons best known to leaders then, India did not consider it important to focus on option (a) while option (b) was ruled out due to geo-political considerations of the government.

So, we took a third route and bought what we could or, what others would give to us. We tried to be as close to X+1 as possible – resources permitting. Sometime in between, we tried to develop an aviation industry around HF-24 Marut. But the same failed to take off due to short-sightedness of IAF – this is a cross they’ll always carry around their neck.

While India was trying to play catch up with growth in evolution scale of aviation industry with imports, contrasting example emerged to our north-east – the Chinese model. By the time they emerged as a coherent nation, the development in aviation segment had left them far behind. They chose option (b) above to jumps-start their segment by collaborating with the USSR. They built whatever their technical prowess would allow them to – which consisted to copies of USSR airplanes. But here again, the development of their own industry reached a dead-end once the Russian assistance was cut-off and west declined them technology. For all the progress they made in 60s-80s, they have nothing to show from their own stable. The largest and most worthwhile component of their air force is a Russian copy. And the Chinese nation launched an industrial espionage on unprecedented scale to obtain technology to bridge the gap with west. Their products today are a clear proof of the same.

The Chinese aviation sector has not evolved in a linear fashion – it has jumped many iterations courtesy the single minded focus to hog technology from all possible means. They were not high volume-low tech force by choice – when they could break out, they did. Their model is pretty clear and clever – the operational readiness of their air-force and its modernization is de-linked from the evolutionary aspect of the aviation segment. The manufacture and induction of the Russian copies and imports of latest aircraft + technology ensures that their air force readiness is de-risked from the ability of their aviation segment to come with platforms like J-10 and J-20/J-21.

So, your argument that IAF needs to be low-tech/high volume force just to prevent the ‘whine’ factor is incorrect. PLAAF was not low-tech out of choice – that is how the circumstances were. The security of the nation and operational readiness of the air force cannot be held hostage to how far the domestic aviation industry has reached on evolution scale – especially when it is still learning to walk. The two need to be de-linked and risk spread across.

For good or bad, the decision makers of this country chose to adopt a development model for aviation sector and you cannot turn the clock back. So, while the Rafale and PAKFA of the world will continue to be tech-leads of IAF, LCA and subsequent versions will form the mass.

Also, the technological levels of HAL and India in general cannot match-up to where the world is through linear fashion and by making planes which are 30 years too late. The booster – whether foreign collaboration or TOT or pure copying – will have to be employed. ALH and AWACS are a case in point. Or, we’d be forever in catch-up mode and waiting for Godot.

[vivek_ahuja]

wow

this was a video from a presentation at Aero India

He could not find any other place to give this lecture??? Frankly I thought it was obnoxious in many places.

Its like our annual customer conferences where a couple of obnosious customers will come there and loudly criticize everything you do.

Surely bashing the DPSUs at this venue does no good????

This Aero-India is proving to be fun-fun-fun and its only the second day.

The IAF boys are out to ensure that even their die-hard supporters are hard-pressed in their day-to-day work in the future. Browne is out kicking down dominoes not realizing that they are stacked in a circle and the last one will take him down with it. His senior commanders are roaming about slowly pressing the knife inside the in-house R&D efforts with a big smile while the guys getting stabbed are taking shots at the IAF and getting whistles and applause from their peers feeling the same knife being pushed into their chests as well.

The second day has only begun, saar. By now the HAL boys and girls have had a night to sleep over the "Customer is King" part and will be gunning for the IAF today.

Ting!! Round two has begun!

[rohitvats]

.<SNIP>It is really not a technology this or that problem, but rather an institutional mindset problem. Why dont we hear the Navy whine about it ? Because they are a builder's Navy and not a buyers Navy.

For the Navy 'whining part' - please have a re-look at the presentation again. An Officer from IN, who is presently attached to CEMILAC actually got up and congratulated the IAF officer for his presentation - because these are exactly the issues they face in IN.

All the other Air Forces (first world ones anyway), have competent teams /divisions that can create conceptual studies, architectures, look ahead in tech development, seed such competencies strategically and yes, work with their country's industries to come up with a product.

Here we don't have that. All the IAF is used to is, "Give us Dollars, we go shop abroad" and then whining about this and that, with total lack of any ownership and skin in the game. Of course the Army keeps august company with them on that, with the Navy sailing the high seas majestically all alone.

Ah! the famous Navy example - is design the only thing with respect to a capital ship? And what is the equivalent in case of an aircraft or helicopter or any other product to roll out of DPSUs of all hues and used by the IAF?

For eg, whining about product support for ALH.. Come on, were they not whining about the Hawk ad nauseum when the kits started arriving in India, about lack of serviceability, "rusted kits" and this and that . What about their much vaunted Mig 29. What kind of support did they get from Mig at all ? So why did they need to establish a parallel full repair and overhaul and near new build capability for the Mig 29 alone, when they send back the rest of their fleet to HAL for that (Mig 29 wasn't built by HAL, so the IAF was forced to build a parallel infra and it looks like the Mig 29 upgrade is going to be done at IAF Base Repair depots from Russian kits). Don't we know the horror stories about Mig 29 availability and spares that used to be the case, especially critical engine related ones ?

The whole argument above is quite facetious...the screw-ups by foreign vendors in product support is an excuse for the same behavior by HAL? Since IAF has been shafted by Russians, it should similarly grin and bear it with HAL? IAF had to soldier on with Mig-29 in absence of proper support from Russia and they are doing the same with ALH. They could not throw out the Mig-29 nor are they throwing out the ALH. On the contrary, both the IA and IAF are committed to inducting still more ALH of more advanced variety - add to it the induction of derivatives like Rudra and LCH.

Asking for tech and product support is their right as user and it is the responsibility of HAL and DPSUs to provide for them. It seems HAL/DPSU consider their job as done whence the product is delivered. And the user runs from pillar to post to get the required product support.

The trouble with the HAL-IAF relationship is that the IAF probably sees HAL as an extension of their Base Repair Depots and would like to park a retired Air Vice Marshal like Barobora or some there and run it as their extension...A creeping acquisition if you want to call it.

The way everyone bandies about the 'more user involvement' as an answer to all the issue raised by IAF, this might well be that is required.

[Kanson]

wow

this was a video from a presentation at Aero India

He could not find any other place to give this lecture??? Frankly I thought it was obnoxious in many places.

Its like our annual customer conferences where a couple of obnosious customers will come there and loudly criticize everything you do.

Surely bashing the DPSUs at this venue does no good????

and if he does want to bash them - he should let someone present all the problems imported shit has had.

maybe could explain how for years Mig 27s flew with some so called sophisticated equipment basically dead\
or how whole batches of Russi missiles were as good as diwali rockets

at least he has someone to complain to about Desi products - he had no one to go to for the phoren ones. they sucked it up and depended on tactics and other imported mal to compensate for it



there are problems on both sides and the truth is somewhere between- but that presentation was over the top

IMHO and all that

Well said. What a poor judgement, internal bickering at international mela? When you throw mud at, you are ought receive some and neither grace enough to accommodate other views, very poor stage manners. Ultimately wrong person, with wrong attitude and totally at wrong place to show such bickering.

Customer is King

They never learned it, did they? In a monopoly dictated by GoI, everyone works at the pleasure of GoI. And who is the Customer?

And I concur with Shiv. As one can read history, Armies of reputation broke their back to built their arms and as we see repeatedly, Indian Armed forces behaves as remnants of erstwhile British Indian Army. While Mr. Pande proudly pointing the first application of aircraft in war, history also tells that it was an airforce officer who invented Jet engine. There is no such thing as If I have to be a solider I won't take initiative in building/maintaining weapons.

Why not get your hands dirty, for a change? Then anyone can see what Shiv is trying to say. You have to work with what you have.

[Austin]

Seems like the fight or lets says concern of IAF with post product induction support wrt to indiginous product has come in the open and AI is not the best place to put those out but perhaps IAF too is getting frustrated at the pace of it and wants an open discussion and is ready to take the brick from the other side too.

In a way its good as something constructive will come from it for every body

[vivek_ahuja]

While Mr. Pande proudly pointing the first application of aircraft in war, history also tells that it was an airforce officer who invented Jet engine. There is no such thing as If I have to be a solider I won't take initiative in building/maintaining weapons.

Sad as though it is, there is no orientation within the IAF for basic R&D which is what is required akin to USAF labs. These days they (IAF) even have to force junior officers to read up on military journals and other technical papers from worldwide conferences in order to maintain at least some semblance of up-to-date knowledge of technology. But what this has done is create a culture of buzz-words and brochure style superficial knowledge foundation. You can also imagine how this kind of reading up of magazines and journals can really bias folks in uniform about upcoming tech without having anybody to go to move past the brochure glossy pictures. The only ones who can clarify this to them are not in uniform: DRDO types. But your average Flight-Lieutenant has been brought up over the years on the bread and butter of negative DRDO myths within the services. So this then permeates into disaster later when they get senior enough and have to interact with the pure scientific types from DRDO, ADE etc.

So while it is indeed history that an air-force officer developed the first practical jet engine, don't hold your breath on that culture happening with the IAF anytime within this generation, if not more.

You and Shiv talk that the IAF should work with what is available. I say that WE should do the same with what is available in the IAF as well and not have unrealistically idealistic expectations from them.

JMT and all that.

[vivek_ahuja]

AI is not the best place to put those out

That's putting it so mildly that I felt weak in my knees reading it.

but perhaps IAF too is getting frustrated at the pace of it and wants an open discussion and is ready to take the brick from the other side too.

That's what it certainly appears like, doesn't it? I mean, this was not a impromptu comment to some journalist question or something. It was a proper presentation with slides, bullets and italic fonts. Somebody must have worked on the slides for quite some time considering all this, putting it together. Then he must have had it reviewed by his bosses to verify the content and must have gotten a nod from all of them to go present this stuff to the world.

Says a lot about how heart-felt this stab in the back was from the IAF today.

In a way its good as something constructive will come from it for every body

You think? My feeling is that the HAL boys and girls who had to listen to this humiliating lecture in front of the world will never forget it. And I don't mean that in a good way either.

[SagarAg]

AI is not the best place to put those out

That's putting it so mildly that I felt weak in my knees reading it.

but perhaps IAF too is getting frustrated at the pace of it and wants an open discussion and is ready to take the brick from the other side too.

That's what it certainly appears like, doesn't it? I mean, this was not a impromptu comment to some journalist question or something. It was a proper presentation with slides, bullets and italic fonts. Somebody must have worked on the slides for quite some time considering all this, putting it together. Then he must have had it reviewed by his bosses to verify the content and must have gotten a nod from all of them to go present this stuff to the world.

Says a lot about how heart-felt this stab in the back was from the IAF today.

In a way its good as something constructive will come from it for every body

You think? My feeling is that the HAL boys and girls who had to listen to this humiliating lecture in front of the world will never forget it. And I don't mean that in a good way either.

-ve(IAF) -ve (HAL) will definitely bring +ve outcome. That is my opinion.
On a lighter note: IAF is so obsessed with foren maal that they even imported Mr.Bean for their presentation slides. They couldn't find any swadesi worthy enough to be there.
PS: The above line should be taken in a lighter way.

[Austin]

Vivek I am quite fine with IAF criticising the DPSU/R&D as long as they apply the same bench mark for phoren systems as well and looking at the criteria that IAF applied for its recent big ticket purchase it seems IAF wont take shit any longer and gone are the days of pappi jhapi and low initial procuement cost to total life cycle cost even if its expensive initially.

Coming back to these slides and the talk these are certainly not prepared over night and a lot of stastics has been shown to set the record straight from IAF prespective.

There is a tendency in Indian R&D to show that if the product is inducted by service which means its a job well done and time to move to next big one but its a job half done as the sildes mention maintenance is every thing and the most difficult one of the 3 stages.

The fact that they are making sure that LCA does not meet the same fate as cheetal/ALH etc means that they are given a good thought for post product support and things will get better from here or in IAF words more needs to be done.

Now DPSU/R&D can take it as an insult and come back with an attitude of we will hit you back where it hurts you the most or take the open slap and work to improve their shortcoming listed by IAF so that that in the next AI or the next one after that IAF comes up with a silde that showing how they were in 2013 and how a good progress they have made in 5 years , The choice is that of DPSU/R&D , IAF is right in saying customer is the king , you cant argue with that in todays era.

[Kanson]

You and Shiv talk that the IAF should work with what is available. I say that WE should do the same with what is available in the IAF as well and not have unrealistically idealistic expectations from them.

JMT and all that.

We or anyone never asked for USAF replacing IAF. We and everyone in India work with what we have, ie IAF. So nothing wrong in expecting the same from IAF.

[rohitvats]

Me agreeing with Austin on BRF....

Vivek I am quite fine with IAF criticising the DPSU/R&D as long as they apply the same bench mark for phoren systems as well and looking at the criteria that IAF applied for its recent big ticket purchase it seems IAF wont take shit any longer and gone are the days of pappi jhapi and low initial procuement cost to total life cycle cost even if its expensive initially.

Correct. Fact of the matter is that we know nothing about what IAF has complained about and to whom about foreign products. That is why all these examples of Jaguar and Mig-27 are incorrect. GOI have them these system and IAF managed with what all it had.

In fact, there was a very detailed article which pointed that the decision to induct Mig--23BN as Tactical Air Support Aircraft (TASA)
was incorrect because not enough thought had been applied to it. The Russians gave and GOI took. And IAF operated. It does not mean one can extend the same analogy to other products and use the argument to cover the short-comings of the HAL or DPSUs

Coming back to these slides and the talk these are certainly not prepared over night and a lot of stastics has been shown to set the record straight from IAF perspective.

And the good Officer restricted himself to very specific examples of post induction support. He is after all their man in Air HQ to look after the maintenance aspect of the air force

There is a tendency in Indian R&D to show that if the product is inducted by service which means its a job well done and time to move to next big one but its a job half done as the sildes mention maintenance is every thing and the most difficult one of the 3 stages.

And that is what exactly he has brought out. But as it the want on the forum to hold the Services responsible for all that ails domestic Mil-Ind complex, only the ASR revision and technology obsolesce got picked up. I'm not too sure if people here even understood what the officer was trying to convey.

The fact that they are making sure that LCA does not meet the same fate as Cheetal/ALH etc means that they are given a good thought for post product support and things will get better from here or in IAF words more needs to be done.

In fact, having learnt from the past, IAF seems to be thinking ahead. IAF is asking for documentation about 2nd line repair for an aircraft which is yet to be inducted into service for next two years. Time and again he uses the term 'exploitation' of the system...which is only possible if they can maintain the system and ensure availability for operations.

But all that is lost in the din of 'IAF needs to be more involved' and 'tech-base' of the industry in India.

Now DPSU/R&D can take it as an insult and come back with an attitude of we will hit you back where it hurts you the most or take the open slap and work to improve their shortcoming listed by IAF so that that in the next AI or the next one after that IAF comes up with a silde that showing how they were in 2013 and how a good progress they have made in 5 years , The choice is that of DPSU/R&D , IAF is right in saying customer is the king , you cant argue with that in today's era.

Well, I think they just learnt the Customer is King adage with the Basic Trainer aircraft saga.

[vivek_ahuja]

Me agreeing with Austin on BRF....

And all it took was the disintegration of public discourse between the military and the scientific and engineering community on national security matters.

Small price to pay, I say.

[SagarAg]

disintegration of public discourse between the military and the scientific and engineering community on national security matters.

That is a breaking news line Vivek ji.

[rohitvats]

<SNIP> Why not get your hands dirty, for a change? Then anyone can see what Shiv is trying to say. You have to work with what you have.

What next?

Ask the HAL/DPSU engineers to man and use systems they produce in real life situation? Let us see that also for a change. Maybe then they'll understand the gravity of the situation.

[PratikDas]

Please dispense with the strawman of domestic products being unsafe or user-unfriendly. You have obviously chosen to ignore the recent test pilot reports for LCA and ALH.

[SagarAg]

Please dispense with the strawman of domestic products being unsafe of user-unfriendly. You have obviously chosen to ignore the recent test pilot reports for LCA and ALH.

Why would/should he. His mindset is same as that of IAF's. SO nothing wrong in his statement.

[Misraji]

Me agreeing with Austin on BRF....

Vivek I am quite fine with IAF criticising the DPSU/R&D as long as they apply the same bench mark for phoren systems as well and looking at the criteria that IAF applied for its recent big ticket purchase it seems IAF wont take shit any longer and gone are the days of pappi jhapi and low initial procuement cost to total life cycle cost even if its expensive initially.

Correct. Fact of the matter is that we know nothing about what IAF has complained about and to whom about foreign products. That is why all these examples of Jaguar and Mig-27 are incorrect. GOI have them these system and IAF managed with what all it had.

In fact, there was a very detailed article which pointed that the decision to induct Mig--23BN as Tactical Air Support Aircraft (TASA)
was incorrect because not enough thought had been applied to it. The Russians gave and GOI took. And IAF operated. It does not mean one can extend the same analogy to other products and use the argument to cover the short-comings of the HAL or DPSUs

Coming back to these slides and the talk these are certainly not prepared over night and a lot of stastics has been shown to set the record straight from IAF perspective.

And the good Officer restricted himself to very specific examples of post induction support. He is after all their man in Air HQ to look after the maintenance aspect of the air force

There is a tendency in Indian R&D to show that if the product is inducted by service which means its a job well done and time to move to next big one but its a job half done as the sildes mention maintenance is every thing and the most difficult one of the 3 stages.

And that is what exactly he has brought out. But as it the want on the forum to hold the Services responsible for all that ails domestic Mil-Ind complex, only the ASR revision and technology obsolesce got picked up. I'm not too sure if people here even understood what the officer was trying to convey.

The fact that they are making sure that LCA does not meet the same fate as Cheetal/ALH etc means that they are given a good thought for post product support and things will get better from here or in IAF words more needs to be done.

In fact, having learnt from the past, IAF seems to be thinking ahead. IAF is asking for documentation about 2nd line repair for an aircraft which is yet to be inducted into service for next two years. Time and again he uses the term 'exploitation' of the system...which is only possible if they can maintain the system and ensure availability for operations.

But all that is lost in the din of 'IAF needs to be more involved' and 'tech-base' of the industry in India.

Now DPSU/R&D can take it as an insult and come back with an attitude of we will hit you back where it hurts you the most or take the open slap and work to improve their shortcoming listed by IAF so that that in the next AI or the next one after that IAF comes up with a silde that showing how they were in 2013 and how a good progress they have made in 5 years , The choice is that of DPSU/R&D , IAF is right in saying customer is the king , you cant argue with that in today's era.

Well, I think they just learnt the Customer is King adage with the Basic Trainer aircraft saga.

++1 with Rohit Saar on this issue.

What the hell!!! We have an IAF officer giving example after example of how they faced they issues and had to run from pillar to pillar to get it fixed.
And all we do here is wax eloquent of IAF's responsibility to the nation in increasing indigenization!!!! .....

We all applauded VK Singh's revelation of the Tatra scam.
Wasn't the IAF officer quoting examples of just the same??
Budget earmarked marked for indigenization not showing any results.
Sudden realization that MBB was closing down the Series 85 rotor blade facility and IAF being asked to pay for 25 year worth of spares!!!!

What level of hypocrisy is this?
This is not the place for false pride based on half-truths.

All the tamasha that is done, having documentation handing ceremonies with garlands, Ministers touring facilities, foundation laying days. Complete bull$hit.
Where is the actual product support, Bhaiyya??

Lets leave all that face-saving drama to the Chinese.
We want to become a superpower without working as hard to become one.
Kudos for such a forceful presentation. My respect.

--Ashish

[PratikDas]

An organisation with any sense of etiquette, since ethics would be too much to ask, would have chosen Antony's office for the blow by blow.

[rohitvats]

Please dispense with the strawman of domestic products being unsafe or user-unfriendly. You have obviously chosen to ignore the recent test pilot reports for LCA and ALH.

Whose talking about them being unsafe? That is your interpretation, not what I wanted to convey.

BTW - your post is exactly the issue which the IAF Officer's presentation brings out. ALH (as it is already operational) is a great aircraft to fly. Fine. But what about looking beyond only the great a/c to fly bit? How about ensuring that as an organization which is the sole manufacturer and supplier of ALH, you need to ensure product support? So that the great flying machine can be used in timely manner to do what it was meant to do? And for information sake, there is still the issue of cyclic saturation which has not be resolved on fleet wide basis.

[rohitvats]

Please dispense with the straw-man of domestic products being unsafe of user-unfriendly. You have obviously chosen to ignore the recent test pilot reports for LCA and ALH.

Why would/should he. His mindset is same as that of IAF's. SO nothing wrong in his statement.

It would be better if you make effort(s) to come up with something worthwhile on the topic rather than comment on my mindset. That way at least you can add something to the debate at hand rather than use cliched terms which you yourself don't seem to understand. However, given the hand-wave kind of arguments and reasoning in your previous posts, I doubt that happening anytime soon.

I don't need a certificate from you or anyone on this forum.

[Aditya_V]

I know people might think it is irrelevant but there is an Elephant in the room, Arms Agents and Politcains.

I think the IAF has the right to complain but some aspects need to be improved but the way our Media . Did the USA have a fully operational F-22 to take to battle when they inducted know. But the USAF/ US media never went to town asking to scrap the project.

Remember Suresh Kalmadi- former Rajya Sabha MP sponsored a resolution in parliament asking for killing the LCA.

We don't what other bureaucratic games are played by politcos and Arms agents to make sure we don't overcome the tech challenges we face today.

A PM or RM to wants to be present at a Photo op at an A-5 launch should be present to explain why these nation has failed to develop these technologies rather than let HAL take the entire shafting or IAF getting blamed for it. and not putting false cases against former Def ministers and Navy chief's for say Barak-1 missile purchase.

If this mindset at the top does not change I am afraid we can never really succeed.

[Misraji]

An organisation with any sense of etiquette, since ethics would be too much to ask, would have chosen Antony's office for the blow by blow.

Not meaning to dis-respectful, Pratik Saar.
But one wonders how many times IAF must have raised this issue with MOD before they went public with this.

And why are we so worried about ethics and etiquette when we will lose the next war because of this sort of nonsense?

As a jingo, I am glad they came out with the facts rather than hide behind false smiles and promises to support indigenous products
What use is a weapon system which is not available?

They say every coin has two sides. HAL has been trumpeting how great ALH was in Siachen and in Kashmir.
They never said anything about the overhaul times being months on end.
Now that is hypocritical too, isn't it?

--Ashish

[SagarAg]

++1 with Rohit Saar on this issue.

What the hell!!! We have an IAF officer giving example after example of how they faced they issues and had to run from pillar to pillar to get it fixed.
And all we do here is wax eloquent of IAF's responsibility to the nation in increasing indiginisation!!!! .....

What level of hypocrisy is this?
This is not the place for false pride based on half-truths.

All the tamasha that is done, having documentation handing ceremonies with garlands, Ministers touring facilities, foundation laying days. Complete bull$hit.
Where is the actual product support, Bhaiyya??

Lets leave all that face-saving drama to the Chinese.
We want to become a superpower without working as hard to become one.
Kudos for such a forceful presentation. My respect.

--Ashish

What will HAL do with your respect ? They are more hurt by the disrespectful attitude of the presenter. The HAL guy rebutting the presenter with counter facts and guys clapping. The lady LCA R&D scientist saying they are being demotivated by the last 3-4 presentations. What IAF got by by making a mockery of HAL/ADA DPSU's products in front of whole international public only time will tell.
If they don't want HAL made products just say clearly. Matter finish. But here lies the catch. They can't do that since HAL is the only domestic aeronautical development agency. They are heavily dependent on them. Moreover escalating the differences in public should have been refrained by IAF as well as HAL. As I had already said before without joining hands one can't move forward or start another competitive agency like other nations have.

[SagarAg]

Why would/should he. His mindset is same as that of IAF's. SO nothing wrong in his statement.

It would be better if you make effort(s) to come up with something worthwhile on the topic rather than comment on my mindset. That way at least you can add something to the debate at hand rather than use cliched terms which you yourself don't seem to understand. However, given the hand-wave kind of arguments and reasoning in your previous posts, I doubt that happening anytime soon.

I don't need a certificate from you or anyone on this forum.

You are beyond certification by friend. And you should feel honored that I have compared your mindset with that of IAF. Doesn't it give you a proud feeling. Is it wrong if I compare your mindset with IAF or you are even beyond that ?

[PratikDas]

An organisation with any sense of etiquette, since ethics would be too much to ask, would have chosen Antony's office for the blow by blow.

Not meaning to dis-respectful, Pratik Saar.
But one wonders how many times IAF must have raised this issue with MOD before they went public with this.

And why are we so worried about ethics and etiquette when we will lose the next war because of this sort of nonsense?

Because this is Aero India and other countries might just have been interested in buying HAL's products. More international orders for an Indian organisation would have meant streamlining of manufacturing methods, better manuals, support hotlines etc. If I was a customer willing to buy from HAL, the IAF would make me rethink. With friends like these, you don't need enemies.

[Misraji]

What will HAL do with your respect ? They are more hurt by the disrespectful attitude of the presenter. The HAL guy rebutting the presenter with counter facts and guys clapping. The lady LCA R&D scientist saying they are being demotivated by the last 3-4 presentations. What IAF got by by making a mockery of HAL/ADA DPSU's products in front of whole international public only time will tell.
If they don't want HAL made products just say clearly. Matter finish. But here lies the catch. They can't do that since HAL is the only domestic aeronautical development agency. They are heavily dependent on them. Moreover escalating the differences in public should have been refrained by IAF as well as HAL. As I had already said before without joining hands one can't move forward or start another competitive agency like other nations have.

My respect was for IAF, not HAL.
And the respect was for bringing out the truth NOT for hearing that products made in India are not working out as planned.

And people are feeling emotionally hurt!!!! Jeez!!

Well. What happens when IAF try to fight wars with non-available assets and lose?
Who is going to be blamed? Not to mention entire Nation is going feel hurt.

What happens when ATC radar malfunctions and there are fatalities?
What about all that trained manpower asset which just went down the drain?
How much time and money will IAF need to spend replacing that?

Well. Firm up and get to work.
One's emotions mean diddly squat if the work is not being done.

--Ashish.

[Misraji]

Because this is Aero India and other countries might just have been interested in buying HAL's products. More international orders for an Indian organisation would have meant streamlining of manufacturing methods, better manuals, support hotlines etc. If I was a customer willing to buy from HAL, the IAF would make me rethink. With friends like these, you don't need enemies.

No Sirjee. This might exactly be the reason while there have been no sales of ALH other the few in South America.

All the betterment of manufacturing methods, manuals etc would not have come automatically.
HAL would have to do it.
When HAL cannot cater to their primary customer who is buying from them in hundreds, what chance do other have?
IMHO, IAF just proved that they can't and they need to change.

Would I be willing to buy a defective car from a friend just because he is my friend?
What if I had to run around trying to fix the car while he just went to town announcing what a great deal he had given me and how considerate a friend he was?

There is no friend or enemy here.
HAL wants to be a be a global organization.
They are expected to work like one.

--Ashish

[rohitvats]

<SNIP>You are beyond certification by friend. And you should feel honored that I have compared your mindset with that of IAF. Doesn't it give you a proud feeling. Is it wrong if I compare your mindset with IAF or you are even beyond that ?

Spare me your sentence formation skills.

If you spend half the time in understanding the topic at hand rather than regurgitating what other have been saying, you could have come up with something worthwhile. But as I said earlier, fat chance of that happening. In the meanwhile, please continue with your juvenile antics.

[eklavya]

The only way you can fight 21 century wars with 60s tech is to use nukes early in a war. We have the nukes but we do try to avoid them and fight wars like high tech countries. we are pretend high tech. Pakistan and North Korea have better and more doable warfighting doctrines.

Just think how fast tech has moved. We are going to be importing forever and our wars will be controlled by end user licences. Great.

Dr. Strangelove: How do you know whether the Paki, NoKo, and Indian nukes are not controlled by end user licences?

[PratikDas]

Misraji, do you think think South American companies don't have standards? I've worked in Mexico [Central America] on assignment for a very large and respected national company for 8 months. I was on my best behaviour because I thought they deserved it. Please don't detract from HAL's export successes. Heard about after sales support problems from there?

[Misraji]

Misraji, do you think think South American companies don't have standards? I've worked in Mexico [Central America] on assignment for a very large and respected national company for 8 months. I was on my best behaviour because I thought they deserved it. Please don't detract from HAL's export successes. Heard about after sales support problems from there?

I am not making a comment on South American companies.
I am pointing out that HAL has only few sales of ALH (that they are in South America is an incidental fact).
IMHO, 18 sales count as export, not export SUCCESS!!

All in all, I am saying that countries are not exactly falling head over heels to buy ALH.
Doesn't it make one wonder why?

Of course, I am merely presenting a hypothesis. It may well not be true.
But IAF, their chief (IN COUNTRY) customer just slammed them for their support.
What does one think then?

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

--Ashish