The Radiance of Tejas: A bright prospect for 'Make in India'
I must state at the outset, that the title of this post is a tribute to B.Harry, a true geek whose wantonly premature demise was a major loss to the analysis and archival of Indian military research and development (R&D). Needless to say, he is greatly missed by Indian military buffs, though his writings live on, such as this excellent two-part document (
http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/downl ... diance.pdf) on the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) published in 2004.
Ten years have passed since that paper came out, and today deliveries of combat standard units of the HAL Tejas Mk-I are beginning with the first 'series production' aircraft, SP-I taking to the air in late 2014. SP-I therefore marks the arrival of India's first indigenous combat capable fourth generation fighter that boasts the extensive use of carbon composites (more than 70 per cent of the airframe by weight) an indigenous quadruplex digital flight control system, indigenous mission computers and a modern glass cockpit capable enabling all weather day/night operations and the carriage of precision guided weapons.
Seeding an aerospace eco-system
Indeed while the LCA program has endured waves of criticism, the fact is that it has helped grow a domestic aerospace eco-system in India that has the potential to be truly game changing. This was achieved starting from a situation in the late 1980s when India had lost most of its domestic capabilities for developing fighter aircraft on account of the HAL HF-24 Marut, India's first homegrown fighter, not being succeeded by a follow on program. Owing to that, a lot of standard test facilities such as the LCA mini bird & iron Bird for flight control system Integration, a dynamic avionics integration rig, brake dynamometer & drop test rigs, secondary power system & fuel system test rigs, engine test bed, mobile electromagnetic interference/compatibility test facility etc. had to be set up in India from scratch by the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) which manages the overall LCA/Tejas development program.
Today several domestic companies are involved in the Tejas program and some of them are now global Tier-II and III suppliers, having cut their teeth with this project which has seen the indigenous development and production of major sub-components such as aircraft-mounted accessories gearbox, carbon-carbon brake disc, heat exchangers, hydraulic & fuel valves etc. By value, 65 per cent of the components are now indigenous (although many are still built by HAL itself) and this is expected to climb to 80 per cent in the next few years.
All this has been accomplished with a total spend of about Rs 14,047 crores, spread over the Tejas Mk-I, MK-II and naval LCA programs (Note: I am looking at developmental costs only, not on what had been spent towards producing delivery standard aircraft). The total spend on the flagship Tejas MK-I program itself has been around Rs 8000 crores. That mind you is a rather modest amount for seeding a credible national aerospace capability, especially when you consider that almost 10 billion dollars was spent on the 2010 Commonwealth Games alone if all the related infrastructure development for that event is taken into account. And do not forget that the money for Tejas development was not sanctioned at one go. The full scale engineering development (FSED) phase-I for the Tejas program began only in 1993 with Rs 2188 crore being allocated to the program at the time which included the Rs 580 crore sanctioned in 1988 for the project definition phase (PDP). The delay in FSED allocation was in no small measure due to the fact that India had to go through the tumult of the balance of payments crisis of 1990-1991.
The scope of the 'spend' on FSED phase I was limited to building and flight testing two technology demonstrators only. One of which flew on 4th January 2001, overcoming American sanctions imposed post-Pokharan-II in 1998 which saw the whole LCA control law (CLAW) development team being thrown out of America. Undeterred by Lockheed Martin terminating its participation in the CLAW program, ADA scientists managed to develop flawless CLAW indigenously and the fact that the Tejas flight-test program has managed over 2000 flights without any incidents is a testimony to that effort.
Anyway, that first flight gave enough confidence to the government to sanction Rs 3301.78 crores for FSED Phase-II that involved the design, development and flight testing of 3 Prototypes and 8 Limited-Series. production (LSP) units. A final tranche of Rs 2475.78 crores was sanctioned as late as 2010, with the Mk-I heading towards Initial Operational Clearance-I (IOC-I) in 2011. What nobody tells you is that this staggered financial approval scheme entailed major delays which also contributed to increasing the need for several design upgrades towards obsolescence management. Indeed the entire Tejas program had to weather a time when India was emerging out of socialist stasis and going through the pangs of liberalization.
As far as I am concerned the program really materialized in the mid-1990s and the air staff requirement (ASR) of 1995 that was agreed to by ADA at the time broadly set the ultimate performance objectives for the project. With reference to the 1995 ASR, the Mk-I has already exceeded the angle of attack (AoA) requirement of 24 degrees, by some two degrees (i.e it has achieved 26 degrees), which is highly commendable and comparable to the best that the Mirage 2000 could do. This could even be increased to 28 degrees in the future. High alpha testing of course meant that parachutes and related systems developed by the Defence Development and Research Organization's (DRDO's) Aerial Delivery Research and Development Establishment (ADRDE) for spin recovery were integrated into test aircraft as a safety measure, though they were of course never required to deploy. The Mk-I has also demonstrated +7G and has flown at a maximum Mach number of 1.6 at altitude.
SP-2 meanwhile is expected to be ready by March 2015 and at least four units in all will be delivered to the Indian Air force (IAF) before the end of 2015 in order for it to form a mini-squadron in Bangalore itself. These aircraft are of course part of the initial 20 unit order for Tejas MK-Is and sport a configuration that received Initial Operational Clearance-2 (IOC-2) in December 2013. Once the full 20 unit order is executed, the IAF will operationalize a squadron at Sulur. A further 20 units will also be purchased by the IAF from HAL's production line, though these will be of a configuration that has been accorded final operational clearance (FOC).
Final operational clearance
However FOC for the Tejas Mk-I is now expected to be achieved only by late 2015. This, according to Dr K. Tamilmani, Director General (Aero),DRDO, is chiefly on account of delays in receiving two significant parts from an overseas vendor that will need to be certified for FOC acceptance. These are of course a bolt on inflight refuelling (IFR) probe and a new quartz nose cone radome, both of which are being procured from different divisions of UK's Cobham. While the Tejas program was earlier expecting to receive the IFR probe by September 2014 and the quartz nose cone by November 2014, it seems that the probe will only reach Indian shores by the end of January 2015 and the first of a total three units of the new nose cone will arrive a month or so later. It is understood that IAF teams have been making visits to Cobham to lean on them to deliver these items faster.
'If Cobham had kept its delivery timelines, the idea was to wrap up ground check outs for the IFR probe in October-November and then commence flight trials says. Some 20-25 day/night flights at different altitudes and speeds would be needed to clear the IFR system and had the probe been delivered in September, it would have easily been cleared before mid-2015', says Dr Tamilmani . He also says that adding the probe itself and flying it is not an issue since it has already been integrated on the hi-fidelity Tejas simulator developed by DRDO's Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) and has even been flown by test-pilots on it.
Now the new quartz nose cone supplied by Cobham replaces an indigenous one and is expected to help the Mk-I's multi-mode radar (MMR) (which has an indigenous antenna and scanner but an Elta EL/M-2032 processing back end) achieve 60 per cent more range than with the latter. The indigenous nose cone has of course already been fully qualified for all modes of the MMR but the current loss through this composite part limits the MMR's detection range to around 50 kms for a fighter sized target and this is expected to increase to more than 80 kms with the new quartz nose cone.
According to Dr Tamilmani, the first nose cone that Cobham made 'had problems' with appreciable losses which led them to making a second cone that is still undergoing structural load tests in the UK. This second nose cone will be supplied to India only in February 2015 and besides spot checks some 50 sorties will have to be flown to qualify this new nose cone. Though three Tejas flight vehicles outfitted with the MMR are ready to receive the new quartz nose cones, the delivery schedule is staggered with the remaining two being delivered at an interval of a month each after the first one. So as per Dr Tamilmani, there are no technological issues deferring FOC but merely process related ones subject to the vagaries of the foreign supplier for the two aforesaid parts.
Now while the Tejas Mk-I does boast many frontline technologies, its aerodynamic performance unfortunately cannot meet the 1995 ASR in its entirety. Truth be told the ASR agreed upon by ADA at the time would in any event have been difficult for the Mk-I to achieve in its current state with or without canards. This is perhaps a reason why only forty units of the Tejas Mk-I fighter version have been ordered till date by the IAF. An order for 16 units of the type trainer developed for the Mk-I are also expected from the IAF, with the definitive configuration for it taking to the air last month in the form of PV-6. The IAF has also had concerns about the Mk-I's turn-around time and wanted certain modifications not all of which could be executed on the Mk-I design which has obviously been frozen ages ago. Over the years there were also additional requirements raised by the IAF to keep the aircraft contemporary which included things like the integration of a supersonic drop tank and these were met according to Dr Tamilmani. Anyway concerns about maintenance apart, the Mk-I has shown its reliability by flying up to three sorties on a single day during trials in both Leh and Jaisalmer on several occasions.
More Mk-I orders are therefore not ruled out since at the end of the day the Tejas Mk-I is superior to Mig-21s of any vintage flying with the IAF today, some of which are expected to serve into the early 2020s. Moreover the Tejas Mk-I acquitted itself exceedingly well during Iron Fist (IF) 2013 with its deployed weapons being bang on target during that demonstration, a fact that is often missed by commentators in India. In a single sortie during IF-2013, the Mk-I demonstrated air-to-air capability by firing a R-73E missile and air-to-ground capability by dropping laser guided bombs (LGBs) directed by a LITENING pod carried on one of its pylons.
Enter the tejas Mk-II
To address the IAF's 1995 ASR fully, work is now underway on the Tejas Mk-II which will sport a new and more powerful engine in the form of General Electric's (GE's) 98 kilo newton generating F414-GE-INS6 , 99 units of which have already been ordered. The F414-GE-INS6 replaces the current MK-I engine which is the F404-GE-IN20. Contrary to earlier speculation, Dr Tamilmani says that the Tejas Mk-II does not require an intake re-design since the MK-I intake was in any case intended to be used with the Kaveri engine which has a greater mass flow than the current F404-GE-IN20 . Studies have shown that the existing intake can easily handle the additional mass flow from the F414-GE-INS6.
Together with the IAF, ADA has also introduced what Dr Tamilmani terms a 'weight reduction approach' and as per him some 350 kgs have already been shaved off the Mk-II design with a reduction of 500 kgs being the ultimate goal vis a vis the baseline Mk-I design. The Mk-II design is also expected to achieve a 5 percent improvement in drag characteristics through 'production improvements' related to further streamlining (reduced contour variations etc) of the Mk-I airframe.
All these changes are expected to increase the aerodynamic performance of the Tejas design sufficiently to be very close to meeting all ASR parameters according to Dr Tamilmani. The IAF is fully cognizant of this and is now fully integrated with the LCA program. 'The IAF has positioned 23 officers to support our program', says Dr Tamilmani. 'They also have 30 airmen on the tarmac to prepare the aircraft', he adds.
The Mk-II design will specifically address the sustained turn rate (STR), climb rate and transonic acceleration shortfalls of the Mk-I. The ASR requires a STR of 18 degrees (same as the F-16's) and Mk-II will close in on that. The climb rate will also be more or less satisfactorily reached. Transonic acceleration is expected to be realized fully. Moreover the Mk-II airframe will certainly be able to reach and fly through Mach 1.8 in a dive.
The Mk-II is also likely to sport an indigenously developed active electronically scanned array (AESA) fire control radar currently under development by DRDO's Electronics and Radar Development Establishment (LRDE) under Project Uttam. Hardware has already been realized for this radar which has a range of 100 km and rooftop testing is underway. Apparently December 2015 has been set as a time for both DRDO & the IAF to take stock of the maturity of this radar since the IAF wants clarity on the radar front for the Tejas Mk-II. Though the Uttam AESA currently weighs 120 kgs which is some 40 kgs more than the current MMR, there will be no problem in integrating it with the Mk-II which can easily carry a radar of this weight. So if the end-2015 stock taking exercise satisfies all stake holders, Mk-II will definitely feature LRDE's AESA once it completes development. In fact this radar if successful is also intended as an upgrade package for the IAF's Jaguars and Mig-29s and the Indian Navy's (IN's) Mig 29Ks.
Today neither ADA nor the IAF want to jump headlong into the Israeli offer on the EL/M-2052 for the Mk-II especially since Project Uttam is progressing quite well and LRDE is confident that it will be able to deliver a good product within the stipulated time frame. Specifically LRDE's successful development of an airborne AESA used by DRDO's AEW&C aircraft, two of which are being inducted into the IAF has enabled it to master look down modes for the Uttam AESA as well. Dr Tamilmani says that he is taking monthly reviews of this radar and firmly believes that it will succeed. The Mk-II will also see the incorporation of a new on-board electronic warfare suite which is being jointly developed with the Israelis.
The glass cockpit for the Mk-II is going to be new as well. For one it is going to feature bigger 8 x 12 inch displays rather than the 5 x 5 and 6 x 6 inch displays currently featured in the MK-I cockpit. A prototype of the Mk-II cockpit already exists. While the initial lot of MK-II displays will be imported, in the future Samtel will supply indigenously developed ones.
Now, the 'Inboard' i.e the complete layout for the Mk-II has been is frozen. The Mk-II will have some 25-30 percent commonality in parts with the MK-I and these parts (i.e not requiring any modification) are already in production. For the MK-I parts that have to be modified, thousands of new drawings are being worked upon jointly by DRDO-HAL and the private sector. According to Dr Tamil Mani 'The final Mk-II drawings will be completed by December 2015.'
The IAF wants the first flight of the prototype to happen by 2017, but Dr Tamilmani says that given the extensive instrumentation and system check out requirements, it could be that first flight spills over into 2018. A total of four test vehicles will be built and all of these will be of production standard. At least three of these at a minimum will be in airborne testing before the end of 2019 and FOC is likely to be achieved in another 2-2.5 years from then.
Make it modular, make it in India
The issue however is not merely of developing a Tejas variant that can meet the 1995 ASR. It is also of producing the aircraft quickly and in numbers. As we can see HAL's current production line for the Mk-I isn't exactly the world's fastest. HAL of course points to the low number of orders for the MK-I to account for the current nature of its production line. While this is not an invalid argument per se, the fact is that HAL is also currently building a lot of the components for the MK-I in-house and still hasn't managed to outsource enough of the production to suppliers.
So a parallel effort aimed at the modularization of the Mk-II design is under way with appropriate interfaces being defined with the help of companies such as HCL. According to Dr Tamilmani, 'The idea is to 'terminate' things like electrical looms, hydraulic pipes, fuel line pipes etc. at the module level which can then be connected with other such modules.' These modules will then be outsourced with HAL assuming a lead integrator role for a number of downstream private suppliers who will build modular parts to specification. HAL would naturally retain its role in instrumentation and flight testing. This is the practise now in the civil aviation industry in the West and even for their fighter programs. The aircraft level original equipment maker (OEM) thereby ceases to be a wholesale producer but becomes a systems integrator leveraging economies of scale and finding it easier to enforce quality control.
Speeding up the production process for the Mk-I with better quality control will certainly be important because it is going to be ordered in much greater numbers than the Mk-I as is evidenced by the existing purchase of 99 GE F414 engines. Then there is also a 56 unit order from the IN for a navalized version of the MK-II. The IN incidentally has already put up money for a total of four naval prototypes NP-1 to NP-4.
According to Dr Tamilmani, if a completely debugged Mk-II can be delivered by HAL, domestic orders alone are likely to climb to many hundreds, since the entire Mig-21 and 27 pool would need to be replaced and there will certainly be a focus on exports. Already South-East Asian countries have been making serious enquiries about the HAL Tejas program and a well -developed Mk-II is likely to find favour in these markets.
Of course exporting the Tejas Mk-II would mean having an arrangement with GE for the engine since an indigenous engine to power Tejas variants is currently not available given that the Kaveri program could not deliver a usable low-bypass turbofan for that purpose. Through its lifetime any single engined fighter needs about 3.5 engines. So domestic orders alone, are going to drive demand for GE engines into the thousands not to mention potential exports.
The time has therefore come to lean upon GE to set up a turbofan production facility in India to meet both domestic as well as export requirements. This would very much be in keeping with 'make in India' whereby FDI for a sub-system such as an aircraft engine facilitates Indian fighter exports. Indeed it will be quite ironical that while China & Pakistan will market their JF-17 fighter powered by a Russian turbofan in Latin American and African countries, India could end up offering the Tejas with an American origin engine but 'made in India'.
