Indian Military Aviation- September 29 2013

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 15 Feb 2015 12:34

http://www.livefistdefence.com/2015/02/ ... n-aew.html

the AEW is headed for trials completion in March and handover to IAF in Sept.

--
The more immediate good news for the programme is what the Indian Air Force thinks of the EMB-145i. In the words of a senior officer associated with the programme, and one who will be part of 4-6 month user evaluation trials aimed for April, the IAF is 'impressed and satisfied'.
...
The IAF officer quoted above says, "These are impressive timelines. Our team has been satisfied with the performance. There are still some ends to tie up in the process of matching requirements with performance, but all major requirements have been demonstrated, including intercept control, battle management, Electronic Support Measure (ESM) and Communication Support Measure (CSM), data handling and the crucial SATCOM links. This could be one of the most trouble-free developments we have had so far."

VinodTK · Post by **VinodTK** » 15 Feb 2015 16:38

^^^^

CABS sources say at least two countries could sign MoUs declaring their interest in getting more information about the platform to support potential acquisitions. A confidential list of nations that have asked for briefings on the platform includes Malaysia, Indonesia, Brazil, Oman, and UAE. Embraer has taken it upon itself to (a) look at consolidating the EMB-145i into a standard marketable product that the two countries can jointly pitch in the global market, and (b) handle South American operations by itself.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 15 Feb 2015 17:52

wow - we on BR have been waiting for this stuff. Now hope IAF orders another batch of Embraers and the Project India (6 full up AWACS) program goes on full speed.

RoyG · Post by **RoyG** » 15 Feb 2015 21:09

Karan M wrote:wooohoo AMCA fins got redesigned

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AFEI_iZvHhw/V ... 0/AMCA.jpg

non stealth day 2 variant
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--j2kibQZBf4/V ... CA%2B2.jpg

seems like an ok design visually, edge shaping etc.

curved cockpit edge will likely be refined further.

I actually like the design. Very nice progress.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 16 Feb 2015 00:00

Things aren't exactly all doom and gloom for the IAF
http://www.forceindia.net/Interview_ACMArupRaha.aspx

What acquisitions are likely to enter IAF by the end of 12th Defence Plan (2012-2017)?
By the end of the 12th Plan, a majority of the Su-30 MKI would be delivered and we are also expecting the first squadron of LCA to be equipped with full strength of aircraft. The deliveries of upgraded MiG-29 aircraft have already commenced and those of the upgraded Mirage-2000 and the Jaguar DARIN-III are expected to commence during the current Plan period. The C-17 and C-130 deliveries have been completed and deliveries of additional six C-130 aircraft are scheduled in 2017. The deliveries of the Mi-17 V5 being procured for replacing the Mi-8 helicopters will be completed and the induction of the Heavy Lift Helicopters and Attack Helicopters may also commence. The deliveries of 75 PC-7 Mk-II Basic Trainer Aircraft (BTA) commenced during this period and will be completed by August 2015. The first indigenous AEW&C will also be inducted soon. The induction of the indigenous Akash missile system will continue and the induction of the MRSAM systems is expected to commence. Along with these, a large number of other weapon systems, EW systems and radars have also been inducted into the IAF during the current Plan period. The implementation of Modernisation of Airfield Infrastructure (MAFI) project has been completed at the model airfield and we expect the completion of work at another 17 airfields during 12th Plan.

member_24684 · Post by **member_24684** » 16 Feb 2015 08:01

.

Airbus A 330 MRTT

Airbus and the Indian MoD are set to sign a contract to procure the multirole tanker transporter (MRTT) aircraft based on the A330 platform.

Well informed officials told Defenseworld.net Delhi correspondent that the contract negotiations committee has completed discussions with Airbus Defence and Space executives and the contract signing could happen “anytime, most probably after the conclusion of Aero India 2015 in Bangalore.

Defense World

Indranil · Post by **Indranil** » 17 Feb 2015 21:05

Was listening to talks in the Aero India Seminar. Prasanth Singh Bhadoria covered the HTT-40 and came across as a really angry man. He bashed IAF left-right and center, which people did not take nicely. He spoke of the HTT-34 and HTT-35 and how the IAF overlooked everything and then just went for imports. He was also angry with the "unceremonious" grounding of the HPT-32. He said that the fuel system was changed, and the recovery parachute mechanism was attached and certified by CEMILAC. He felt that the HPT-32 deserved another chance.

Anyways, the updates of the HTT-40 are as follows.
1. Front fuselage complete.
2. Rear fuselage complete.
3. Engine arriving in April (was very disgruntled about the anonymous letter which slowed him down by a couple of months).
4. Cockpit to be complete June-July, first flight to follow soon after.
5. All lessons from the IJT have been incorporated (Bhadoria has been associated with the IJT for the last 10 years).
6. Will have a 0-0 ejection seat.
7. He said HAL is going through with this project (with or without IAF's reuirements).
8. HAL wants to sell it to the Navy for coastal surveillance instead of helicopters. Navy was interested to put it on the aircraft-carriers. Bhadoria told them that the landing gears were not strong enough for carriers, but it can land and take off from any unprepared strip. With 2 additional fuel tanks, the plane should fly for 6 hours.
9. HAL is also going to the Army and saying IAF has the attack helicopters, you get the HTT-40 for ground support. It is much more effective (range and time at station), low on maintenance, and exctremely cheap. They can put everything on it from bombs, PGMs, rockets, anti-tank missiles to A2A missiles (showed a video of taking out aerial targets by some other trainer).
10. After the flight testing is done, he will ask for 100 crores (from HAL) for weaponization and 50 crores thereafter to make it into an attack UAV.
11. Said Navy and Army on board. Has recieved interest for exports. Hopes that IAF will come on board soon.

Added later:
I forgot to mention a major advantage of having a weaponized trainer. HTT-40 has a very similar cockpit to the IJT and AJT. So, by allowing the weapons training on a BTT, substantial costs can be saved. This seems to be the new trend in training in various airforces including the USAF owing to the funding crunch.

A Deshmukh · Post by **A Deshmukh** » 17 Feb 2015 21:51

indranilroy wrote:Anyways, the updates of the HTT-40 are as follows.

Any info on the timeline for flight testing and IOC?

sankum · Post by **sankum** » 17 Feb 2015 22:13

Thanks Indranilroy.

I just don't have the patience to go through the entire webcast

deejay · Post by **deejay** » 17 Feb 2015 22:38

indranilroy wrote:Was listening to talks in the Aero India Seminar. Prasanth Singh Bhadoria covered the HTT-40 and came across as a really angry man. He bashed IAF left-right and center, which people did not take nicely. He spoke of the HTT-34 and HTT-35 and how the IAF overlooked everything and then just went for imports. He was also angry with the "unceremonious" grounding of the HPT-32. He said that the fuel system was changed, and the recovery parachute mechanism was attached and certified by CEMILAC. He felt that the HPT-32 deserved another chance.

... Hopes that IAF will come on board soon.

I was speaking to some IAF folks attending a flight safety course in Bangalore yesterday. They were equally angry with HAL. It seems HAL and IAF have drifted too far apart.

srin · Post by **srin** » 17 Feb 2015 23:06

There was one session (i forget which) in the 2013 edition where the IAF officer took the HAL to task. Looks like this is a continuing saga.

I just wish they don't do it in public. And what's MoD doing ?

Indranil · Post by **Indranil** » 18 Feb 2015 00:05

This year the theme is Make in India. So, IAF is on the completely wrong footing. And they are getting it back in literally every session. I kind of feel for the current officers. They are being made to answer for oversights in the past.

For example, in the opening panel discussion, one of the panelists (from HAL) said that the HF-24 was a great plane of the era with the only short coming being that of its engines. So they suggested that the engines be upgraded and a deep penetration attack fighter is made out of it. IAF said that it did not need it. A few years later it produced an RFI for a deep penetration attack aircraft and chose the Jaguar which did not even meet the ASR! Then another panelist (from the private industry) picked up another example: IAF/IA came up with PSQR for helicopters which could not be met by ANY helicopter in the world. So then, they went back to change the PSQR, and it has been 10 years since nothing has come out! At this Adm. Puri said that he does not understand what business does the forces have in specifying quality requirements. They should just have a requirement specifications where they say what are the objectives of the weapon they want to get. Let the designers tell you how they can provide a solution to these requirements. The forces should then chose from these solutions. Anyways, the Air Marshall representing IAF agreed that there has been a problem in the past, but this is being rectified now. The AEW&C is a prime example. The minister in his concluding remarks agreed with most and said the navy model not only needs to be emulated by all the forces, but also by the bureaucrats.

Then in propulsion discussion, an IAF officer presented a talk on future engine techs, especially electric propulsion. This is my personal opinion, but it sounded like a literature review. At the end of the talk, people from GTRE started asking operational questions because the timelines quoted were 2025 onwards. To this the speaker said people at IITG and IITB have working prototypes which was not fathomable to anybody in the crowd. The chair intervened and asked a few more questions on his own which I feel the officer could not answer satisfactorily. This was soon followed by a talk from somebody from Safran on electric engine, who said their studies make them believe that aero propulsion will be hydrocarbon based for at least a few more decades. What people are trying to do is offload the other electrical requirements from the aero-engine. This everybody agreed.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 18 Feb 2015 00:15

Kind of surprising how a change in Govt completely changes the "expectations" from the services. Just goes to show how much the politics (and related optics) matter.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 18 Feb 2015 00:27

The first days presentations (Caveat I just skimmed them and very very cursorily) were so so.. funnily the plenary session (usually the most boring) seemed very interesting..some interesting info in the CEMILAC one (from what remains for FOC exactly but the presenter just slowly and steadily repeated what was in the slides) & the CABS AEW&C by the lady scientist was interesting from the amount of effort that goes into structuring such a complex program. Seriously no wonder very few countries attempt such complex programs, all sorts of software, hardware, flight testing certifications & each on a critical path. The HAL trainer one I skipped.. but interesting IAF & IN are supporting it. Guess money left at home than with Pilatus!!

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 18 Feb 2015 08:08

>> HAL wants to sell it to the Navy for coastal surveillance instead of helicopters.

could be a useful and cheaper supplement to the dorniers for the CG as well. but with one engine, it might need some addl certifications to fly over the sea?
equipment could be a FLIR/LLTV type pod feeding into a MFD in the rear cockpit.

Kartik · Post by **Kartik** » 18 Feb 2015 11:16

indranilroy wrote:Was listening to talks in the Aero India Seminar. Prasanth Singh Bhadoria covered the HTT-40 and came across as a really angry man. He bashed IAF left-right and center, which people did not take nicely. He spoke of the HTT-34 and HTT-35 and how the IAF overlooked everything and then just went for imports. He was also angry with the "unceremonious" grounding of the HPT-32. He said that the fuel system was changed, and the recovery parachute mechanism was attached and certified by CEMILAC. He felt that the HPT-32 deserved another chance.

Anyways, the updates of the HTT-40 are as follows.
1. Front fuselage complete.
2. Rear fuselage complete.
3. Engine arriving in April (was very disgruntled about the anonymous letter which slowed him down by a couple of months).
4. Cockpit to be complete June-July, first flight to follow soon after.
5. All lessons from the IJT have been incorporated (Bhadoria has been associated with the IJT for the last 10 years).
6. Will have a 0-0 ejection seat.
7. He said HAL is going through with this project (with or without IAF's reuirements).
8. HAL wants to sell it to the Navy for coastal surveillance instead of helicopters. Navy was interested to put it on the aircraft-carriers. Bhadoria told them that the landing gears were not strong enough for carriers, but it can land and take off from any unprepared strip. With 2 additional fuel tanks, the plane should fly for 6 hours.
9. HAL is also going to the Army and saying IAF has the attack helicopters, you get the HTT-40 for ground support. It is much more effective (range and time at station), low on maintenance, and exctremely cheap. They can put everything on it from bombs, PGMs, rockets, anti-tank missiles to A2A missiles (showed a video of taking out aerial targets by some other trainer).
10. After the flight testing is done, he will ask for 100 crores (from HAL) for weaponization and 50 crores thereafter to make it into an attack UAV.
11. Said Navy and Army on board. Has recieved interest for exports. Hopes that IAF will come on board soon.

Added later:
I forgot to mention a major advantage of having a weaponized trainer. HTT-40 has a very similar cockpit to the IJT and AJT. So, by allowing the weapons training on a BTT, substantial costs can be saved. This seems to be the new trend in training in various airforces including the USAF owing to the funding crunch.

great! thanks for the update Indranil!

Shreeman · Post by **Shreeman** » 18 Feb 2015 11:33

indranilroy wrote: ...landing gear will not be strong enough...
I forgot to mention a major advantage of having a weaponized trainer. HTT-40 has a very similar cockpit to the IJT and AJT. So, by allowing the weapons training on a BTT, substantial costs can be saved. This seems to be the new trend in training in various airforces including the USAF owing to the funding crunch.

A typical GA aircraft takes ~300m to land over 50 foot obstacles, give or take. Presume no 50 foot obstacles, why is the landing gear strength an issue? Are the landing distance specs available for HTT40? Is there a photo of the AI15 info board? Anyone taking picchars?

Indranil · Post by **Indranil** » 18 Feb 2015 12:02

Aah! you are speaking of "look ma, no hooks" kind of situation? That is just too risky for day in and day out operation.

Shreeman · Post by **Shreeman** » 18 Feb 2015 13:03

indranilroy wrote:Aah! you are speaking of "look ma, no hooks" kind of situation? That is just too risky for day in and day out operation.

No, I am not. I just want to know if there is a basis for "landing gear not strong enough".

For those wondering about single engine/coastal surveillance. In the weather these planes will fly, sith floats, everything is a runway. And these things do glide.

And it is the ADA that wants to atomate the landing/takeoff with auto-throttle, auto-pitch etc. I dont agree that thats where the focus ought to be unless the plane is really hard to fly.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 18 Feb 2015 13:35

indranilroy wrote:Was listening to talks in the Aero India Seminar. Prasanth Singh Bhadoria covered the HTT-40 and came across as a really angry man. He bashed IAF left-right and center, which people did not take nicely. He spoke of the HTT-34 and HTT-35 and how the IAF overlooked everything and then just went for imports. He was also angry with the "unceremonious" grounding of the HPT-32. He said that the fuel system was changed, and the recovery parachute mechanism was attached and certified by CEMILAC. He felt that the HPT-32 deserved another chance.

Anyways, the updates of the HTT-40 are as follows.
1. Front fuselage complete.
2. Rear fuselage complete.
3. Engine arriving in April (was very disgruntled about the anonymous letter which slowed him down by a couple of months).
4. Cockpit to be complete June-July, first flight to follow soon after.
5. All lessons from the IJT have been incorporated (Bhadoria has been associated with the IJT for the last 10 years).
6. Will have a 0-0 ejection seat.
7. He said HAL is going through with this project (with or without IAF's reuirements).
8. HAL wants to sell it to the Navy for coastal surveillance instead of helicopters. Navy was interested to put it on the aircraft-carriers. Bhadoria told them that the landing gears were not strong enough for carriers, but it can land and take off from any unprepared strip. With 2 additional fuel tanks, the plane should fly for 6 hours.
9. HAL is also going to the Army and saying IAF has the attack helicopters, you get the HTT-40 for ground support. It is much more effective (range and time at station), low on maintenance, and exctremely cheap. They can put everything on it from bombs, PGMs, rockets, anti-tank missiles to A2A missiles (showed a video of taking out aerial targets by some other trainer).
10. After the flight testing is done, he will ask for 100 crores (from HAL) for weaponization and 50 crores thereafter to make it into an attack UAV.
11. Said Navy and Army on board. Has recieved interest for exports. Hopes that IAF will come on board soon.

Added later:
I forgot to mention a major advantage of having a weaponized trainer. HTT-40 has a very similar cockpit to the IJT and AJT. So, by allowing the weapons training on a BTT, substantial costs can be saved. This seems to be the new trend in training in various airforces including the USAF owing to the funding crunch.

Keeping the comments on IAF vs HTT aside as enough has been said on that topic.

Really like the confidence of this guy, his vision (UAV!), IN for naval surveillance, a for ground support & also the out of the box thinking by the Navy. Put it on carriers. Don't know though whether it is exactly survivable in the MANPADS environment which IA will face. Perhaps a state of the art DAS would help.

If Bhadoria, HAL pull this off, we may have our own version of this. http://www.p1hh.piaggioaerospace.it/

At least HAL's folks doing such stuff is a plus.

Shreeman · Post by **Shreeman** » 18 Feb 2015 13:53

karan,

A war is not the only time you need small planes. Communication (good old mail), surveillance, just decreasing the travel time can make a ton of difference. Put floats on this thing and give a couple hundred to the coast guard. They cost about as much as a maruti to operate, and near the coast dont exactly need a huge satcom radome. Nothing runs as fast on water as these little things can.

And at 100+ knots something this size is not really a manpad magnet. UAVs arent exactly easy to shokt down due to their tiny engines. Hence F16s going up and shooting the searchers instead of ground fire.

The HPT32 was vastly underused. If it has a parachute and some 100 are sitting idle, how about handing them over to BSF, coast guard and the like?

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 18 Feb 2015 14:08

Shreeman, UAV's are pretty vulnerable against modern AD provided they have powerful enough radar & FCS. In peacetime, yes, Pak might use their F-16 to knock down a UAV. At wartime, they might decide its worth it to spend a few of their hoarded SPADA 2000 rounds.

If you want to see UAV attrition figures, look up NATO losses in East Europe during the Balkan stuff(some 30 odd as I recall, against a completely overwhelmed opponent) or even otherwise in Afghanistan. Intense UAV ops against decent defenses (eg PLAAF with Tors, S-300s, HQ-XX) will mean very high attrition. No getting around that I'am afraid.

CAS is even riskier. To conduct CAS you have to get low. Repeated passes become necessary & in that case, the jet is a MANPADS magnet. The main advantage "fast movers" have over aircraft is speed. You conduct an attack & egress at speed. Then you come in from a different vector. Am not sure whether a turboprop trainer can do that.

Rest, agree.

Shreeman · Post by **Shreeman** » 18 Feb 2015 14:51

Karan M wrote:Shreeman, UAV's are pretty vulnerable against modern AD provided they have powerful enough radar & FCS. In peacetime, yes, Pak might use their F-16 to knock down a UAV. At wartime, they might decide its worth it to spend a few of their hoarded SPADA 2000 rounds.

If you want to see UAV attrition figures, look up NATO losses in East Europe during the Balkan stuff(some 30 odd as I recall, against a completely overwhelmed opponent) or even otherwise in Afghanistan. Intense UAV ops against decent defenses (eg PLAAF with Tors, S-300s, HQ-XX) will mean very high attrition. No getting around that I'am afraid.

CAS is even riskier. To conduct CAS you have to get low. Repeated passes become necessary & in that case, the jet is a MANPADS magnet. The main advantage "fast movers" have over aircraft is speed. You conduct an attack & egress at speed. Then you come in from a different vector. Am not sure whether a turboprop trainer can do that.

Rest, agree.

Karan,

CAS is NOT a role for something like this. The word itself is proscribed for something not designed for that role.

re. MANPADs, this butgerfly will probably not fly over Lahore. But there is nothing wrong re. Amritsar or Ambala.

Again, *something* needs to break the 100s jinx and get into 1000s. What else can that be?

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 18 Feb 2015 15:45

Shreeman, the problem is CAS is what the gent is pitching for..

9. HAL is also going to the Army and saying IAF has the attack helicopters, you get the HTT-40 for ground support. It is much more effective (range and time at station), low on maintenance, and exctremely cheap. They can put everything on it from bombs, PGMs, rockets, anti-tank missiles to A2A missiles (showed a video of taking out aerial targets by some other trainer).

Now strategic strikes are in IAF hands. So choppers are used for CAS, tank busting etc. This is being pitched for that exact role.

Even Amritsar or Ambala, any formation nowadays will have tons of MANPADS accompanying it.

However, if it gets a state of the art DAS/DIRCM + puts the pilots cabin in an armoured shell, there might be some good use for it even so.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 18 Feb 2015 15:46

This was canned but interesting even so

http://defensetech.org/2011/12/31/embra ... k-contest/

Some interesting links
http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stor ... -kool-aid/
http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articl ... craft.html

Shreeman · Post by **Shreeman** » 18 Feb 2015 15:53

It is naive if HAL wants to go back to WW2 CAS. But given our strengths in describing thesematters they might well have meant COIN.

By Amritsar and Ambala, I only meant peace time roles. And peace time surveillance. There is plenty there that this craft can do, that UAVs wont do. Traffic management, parade route sanitation, disaster/flood watch. All that is today grossly under visualized.

Lever the war roles to the jet jockeys. But do build *something*, anything, in more than the NAL hansa numbers. It is embarassing to see the state of indian domestic *production*.

What good is design if you make 12 examples in two decades?

deejay · Post by **deejay** » 18 Feb 2015 17:26

^^^ Based on few above posts:
> I do not know about the HTT 40 but the HPT 32 had a poor glide ratio.
> Yes, there is a whole lot of peace time utility, a bird like this could do. BSF and Coast Guard could really use this for border area recce (inside air space) and coastal patrols.
>I specially like Indranil's point about armament training role and add to that night flying etc which were not done on HPT 32.
> To keep these small birds light and low cost, avionics go missing. I mean HPT-32 had air driven gyros (I hope my memory is right here).For an aircraft carrier operations we will need to fit pretty high end avionics. Meat Ball kind off stuff would be the basic add on.
> and those under carriages are not a big concern because essentially HTT 40 is a trainer and as trainees, folks will drop that plane hard anyway, quite often.
> But no, does not make sense using prime real estate of aircraft carrier for HTT 40 types (for the aircraft, spares, etc). Also, it will be a piston engine so a different fuel and refueling set up will be needed.

The above are my thoughts and just that.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 18 Feb 2015 17:40

Guys do listen to Bhaudaria, Bio. Cranfield graduate, RTI - option of MTA, HTT, FGFA, took up the HTT program.

Agree, disagree with his points but he does speak his mind.

http://aeroindialive.nic.in/show_ondema ... &id_part=6

Indranil · Post by **Indranil** » 18 Feb 2015 21:43

For me, the two things at AI15 are:

LUH

and HTFE25

Indranil · Post by **Indranil** » 18 Feb 2015 22:02

Karan M wrote: Really like the confidence of this guy, his vision (UAV!), IN for naval surveillance, a for ground support & also the out of the box thinking by the Navy. Put it on carriers. Don't know though whether it is exactly survivable in the MANPADS environment which IA will face. Perhaps a state of the art DAS would help.

If Bhadoria, HAL pull this off, we may have our own version of this. http://www.p1hh.piaggioaerospace.it/

At least HAL's folks doing such stuff is a plus.

Well of course, he can go to NAL/Kadet as well to see if they have made any progress with making Hansa unmanned. And ofcourse Tata has a big (if not major) stake in the P1-Hammerhead.

His pitch is that the trainer based attack plane is more survivable than attack helicopters, which is true because of it higher speed and manueverability.

Indranil · Post by **Indranil** » 18 Feb 2015 22:11

Shreeman wrote:
indranilroy wrote:Aah! you are speaking of "look ma, no hooks" kind of situation? That is just too risky for day in and day out operation.
No, I am not. I just want to know if there is a basis for "landing gear not strong enough".

For those wondering about single engine/coastal surveillance. In the weather these planes will fly, sith floats, everything is a runway. And these things do glide.

And it is the ADA that wants to atomate the landing/takeoff with auto-throttle, auto-pitch etc. I dont agree that thats where the focus ought to be unless the plane is really hard to fly.

Seriously, I don't know what are you talking about!!! What has ADA or auto-takeoff or auto-anything got to do with this?

He is speaking of a simple thing. If you want to act from an aircraft carrier, you need much stronger landing gear. He is not interested in that. A little less rugged landing gear can handle unprepared strips like a coastal grassland. or a beach. He showed videos of other armed trainers doing that in deserts, wherein the plane lands. The pilot refuels and flies away. Ofcourse such a plane can always work from a regular paved runway.

Floats is not an option because he wants a retractable gear for less drag and higher endurance. There was another talk from somebody in HAL Kanpur. They are thinking of modifying the Dornier 228 into a seaplane with floats.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 18 Feb 2015 22:41

Definitive inside view of the IAFs ops at Kargil from Tipnis sir

http://www.forceindia.net/ACM%20Tipnis.pdf

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 18 Feb 2015 23:53

indranilroy wrote:For me, the two things at AI15 are:

LUH, HTFE

Enjoy

srin · Post by **srin** » 19 Feb 2015 00:38

Karan M wrote:Guys do listen to Bhaudaria, Bio. Cranfield graduate, RTI - option of MTA, HTT, FGFA, took up the HTT program.

Agree, disagree with his points but he does speak his mind.

http://aeroindialive.nic.in/show_ondema ... &id_part=6

Thank you, fantastic talk. This jingo khush hua.I was thinking IJT for COINbut HTT-40 is probably better. All power to HAL for daring to try, to risk failure and ridicule. Hope they succeed.

srin · Post by **srin** » 19 Feb 2015 00:44

At 1:32:31, he talks of Su-30 costing $12000 per flying hour. That is quite low, and in fact, lower than the cost of Rafale (Google search gives me $16500 per hour). Not sure what to make of it.

Prem Kumar · Post by **Prem Kumar** » 19 Feb 2015 00:53

India may ink deal for 2 more Phalcons & 4 more Aerostats

http://www.ibtimes.co.in/india-plays-ho ... -bn-623701

Great news! Hope IAF orders more follow-on CABS AEW as well!

GeorgeWelch · Post by **GeorgeWelch** » 19 Feb 2015 03:22

srin wrote:At 1:32:31, he talks of Su-30 costing $12000 per flying hour. That is quite low, and in fact, lower than the cost of Rafale (Google search gives me $16500 per hour). Not sure what to make of it.

Pay in the IAF is less than the French air force.

It's part of the reason making comparisons across different organizations is so difficult.

brar_w · Post by **brar_w** » 19 Feb 2015 04:19

The only CPFH that is easy to scale from one user to the other is the fuel consumption and overall fuel utilization. The rest is all dependent on your logistical train, what currency your parts are bought and sold in, what currency you pay those you factor into the variable cost and most importantly what mission availability you have to maintain as a guarantee etc etc. There are some costs that are totally fixed, regardless if you fly 10 hours or 500 hours, and so on and so forth. If you decide as an operator to maintain 90% mission availability. your upfront cost to maintain that is going to be different then if you are willing to do with a 70% mission availability.

The Su-30MKI is a large twin engined fighter, its fuel consumption is going to be at par if not more than an equivalent western heavy fighter such as the F-15E.

Any number regarding CPFH is absolutely useless unless it is explicitly stated with the assumptions or a description of what is included (and importantly what is not). In the USAF, there are 3 to 4 different CPFH numbers depending upon the body that performs that and the use. The Comptroller may quote a CPFH number that is 30-50% lower than what the service may itself claim because of the things that are included in each calculation.

srai · Post by **srai** » 19 Feb 2015 05:14

^^^

Another thing to factor in, Rafale parts would be more expensive when compared to Su-30MKI parts.

Shreeman · Post by **Shreeman** » 19 Feb 2015 07:00

indranilroy wrote:
Shreeman wrote:
"indranilroy" Aah! you are speaking of "look ma, no hooks" kind of situation? That is just too risky for day in and day out operation.

No, I am not. I just want to know if there is a basis for "landing gear not strong enough".

For those wondering about single engine/coastal surveillance. In the weather these planes will fly, sith floats, everything is a runway. And these things do glide.

And it is the ADA that wants to atomate the landing/takeoff with auto-throttle, auto-pitch etc. I dont agree that thats where the focus ought to be unless the plane is really hard to fly.
Seriously, I don't know what are you talking about!!! What has ADA or auto-takeoff or auto-anything got to do with this?

He is speaking of a simple thing. If you want to act from an aircraft carrier, you need much stronger landing gear. He is not interested in that. A little less rugged landing gear can handle unprepared strips like a coastal grassland. or a beach. He showed videos of other armed trainers doing that in deserts, wherein the plane lands. The pilot refuels and flies away. Ofcourse such a plane can always work from a regular paved runway.

Floats is not an option because he wants a retractable gear for less drag and higher endurance. There was another talk from somebody in HAL Kanpur. They are thinking of modifying the Dornier 228 into a seaplane with floats.

Indranil,

The LCA for navy wants auto-pitch, auto-throttle. Clearly, automation is being brought in ADA/HAL designs. I did not accuse HTT40 of having it. That was not the intent.

Floats are easily integrated into anything that flies. I have seen every GA aircraft carry an accessory of this sort. The response was to the naval surveillance argument/single engine.

I was NOT referring to the presentation in particular. You are referring only to the presentation. Two different things.

I would like something capable of STOL, and floats. This fits most everything. There is a need. In the thousands. In GA, and in LE.

HTT32 was well supported, and never gained CAS/COIN teeth, I dont even want to go there.

Hope this resolves the disagreement.