Actually I have a big doubt about weight decreasing on the block 2, sounds like a fantasy. Can't think of a single fighter design in recent times where weight has reduced in the newer version - gripen, viper, fulcrum, hornet, flanker. And many of these had metal components that were replaced by composites allowing for reduction. The tejas otoh, already uses composites in a big way. Btw, all of the aforementioned birds had weight increases upon upgrade, and that is despite far more experience in such exercises. It will be a miracle if they.maintain same weight for mk1 and mk2, let alone reduction. The best candidate for weight reduction in second iteration was probably the mirage 2000 since its engine was quite heavy resulting in poor twr, a 414 would certainly have helped if the design allowed it.Vipul Dave wrote:late Parvez Khokhar sir had voiced his concern over weight increase in MK2. However in recent recently published article of Saurav Jha, it was stated that designers of MK2 were successful in bringing the design weight of MK2 down by 350 KG compare to MK1.So weight increase is not be a problem. So far as higher fuels consumption is concern in GE 414 Engine, It may not consume more fuel for same performance level i.e say for example 20 KN thrust is required for X performance. GE 414 shall not consume more fuel for that power compare to GE 404 since GE 414 is an engine which operates at very high compression ratio so not necessarily there should be high fuel consumption for same performance. In fact the fuel consumption shall be less.
His concern over poor air intake design is very genuine. We should hire American company such as Boeing to resolve the intake issue. Other improvement we may carry out is wing redesign. This unnecessary large design has resulted in weight and turn rate penalty.
If we carry out some practical changes such as wing and air intake redesign along with continuous work on AOA increase and wight reduction in MK1, We can enhance the performance of even MK 1 and can make that a very decent plane acceptable to IAF.
Am not too sure about range / endurance being reduced based on increased power; the SFC for the 414 is better than the 404, also, it will carry more fuel, but you never know - more fuel.capacity might mean a weight and range penalty . Tech gurus can probably enlighten here
But no, the mk2 seems another candidate for overpromise and underdeliver, esp. in terms of weight reduction and ridiculously optimistic timelines.