Navy on course to induct it's latest destroyer, #Kochi, on Sept 30, the 2nd in a class of 3 such warships. #INSKolkata was inducted last Aug
India's 1st #Scorpene submarine, #Kalvari, to leave construction yard in Mumbai for rigorous sea trials on Sept 30, induction next year
That sounds about right. Note this stat from another articlesrai wrote:^^^
Sounds like the former is a ship repair/refit part of Project Seabird. The latter is the main naval base (also part of Project Seabird) housing ships, submarines, aircrafts and arsenal.
With combining INS Kadamba and INS Vajrakosh Project Seabird may be that large. Google does not have latest images yet.Aditya G wrote:That sounds about right. Note this stat from another article
Together with INS Kadamba, 20 km, away,
Is seabird really that huge?
Edit: Google Earth calculations show that the frontage is not more than 5K. So its probably 2Km
Following a visit by a delegation of top Indian Navy officials to see firsthand U.S. naval facilities along the East Coast, defense officials say they’re close to deciding just how the U.S. Navy will offer assistance to India as it attempts to develop its own aircraft carriers,
The effort has huge implications for U.S. defense and foreign policy in Asia. New Delhi wants American help in taking command of the Indian Ocean at the same time that another Asian power – China – is racing to expand its fleet and extend its reach all the way to Africa. Washington is seeking a closer ally and a check on Beijing’s ambitions.
It also has major implications for the U.S. defense industry. Even after years of frustrations with India’s infamous procurement bureaucracy, which can make the Pentagon look as nimble as a tech startup, American contractors see the prospect for vast new projects as the world’s largest democracy continues reaching to become a 21st century superpower.
“For industry, it’s the potential,” said Keith Webster, the Defense Department’s director of international cooperation. “It’s just something that ... cannot be ignored.”
Something else that’s different now are the commitments of President Barack Obama and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who have agreed to cooperate on developing aircraft carriers, jet engines and other defense technologies. Meanwhile, Modi has been making a big domestic political push he calls “Make India,” to create a new era of manufacturing on the subcontinent.
This is the context in which Vice Adm. S.P.S. Cheema, the chief of India’s Western Naval Command, Rear Adm. A.K. Saxena, the director of general naval design, Rear. Adm. S. Ahuja, the assistant controller of carrier projects, and Acquino Vimal, the Americas director in the ministry of external affairs, made their visit last month to the U.S.
They called at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia, Naval Air Engineering Station Lakehurst in New Jersey, the Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington, and a high-level meeting at the Pentagon with acquisition chief Frank Kendall.
“The big thing in which [the Indians] are interested is pretty clear,” said Rear Adm. Thomas Moore, who heads the Navy’s carriers office and participated in the recent Indian visit. “They clearly want to understand, how do you indigenously build an aircraft carrier?”
They “didn’t come over here saying ‘I want, I want, I want.’” he added. “They came over here saying, ‘Here is what I’d like to go do. Can you help us understand how you go do this?’”
The Indians were shown how the U.S. Navy builds a carrier from start to finish, including how to take top requirements from the Pentagon, flow them into a ship’s specifications and then take those specifications and turn them into drawings, Moore said. The delegation also got a taste of how the Navy’s carrier program office is organized, how technology and research is conducted and how the overall acquisition system works.
One specific area of focus was the General Atomics-built Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System aboard the new aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, which uses high-powered magnets to help aircraft take off, in place of the steam system on older ships.
The U.S. Navy has endured cost problems and setbacks fielding that and other new systems aboard the Gerald R. Ford, but Moore’s Indian visitors nonetheless showed “significant interest,” he said. The Indian Navy appears committed to building ships that, like the U.S. Navy’s carriers, use catapults and arresting gears to launch and recover aircraft, as opposed to the “ski jump” used aboard smaller ships.
“They’d like the tactical advantages you get from catapults and arresting gear on an aircraft carrier, which is significant,” Moore said. “So they are trying to understand what it takes, technically, to do it.”
The Indians are already taking their first stab at building a 40,000-ton carrier expected to be delivered in 2018 or 2019. India’s plan for its next carrier is more ambitious: a ship around 65,000 tons.
With these plans in place, the next question becomes: what kind of aircraft would the Indians operate?
India has a fleet of about 45 Russian-built MiG-28K fighters that fly from its current aircraft carrier, the Vikramaditya, also acquired from Russia. The ship began its life as the Soviet missile cruiser Baku, which was mothballed and then purchased by New Delhi along with a major conversion to turn it into a more fully capable aircraft carrier.
That work, which stretched for years and cost nearly $2.5 billion, was one of the projects that has made Indian defense acquisitions infamous. Other examples have included deadly accidents aboard its ships and submarines as well as a years-long effort to buy a batch of advanced fighter aircraft, one ultimately cancelled this month even after India had formally selected the French Dassault Rafale.
Lockheed Martin had offered its F-16 Fighting Falcon as part of that competition and Boeing had offered its F/A-18E and F Super Hornet, which competed against the Rafale, the Eurofighter Typhoon and others. India’s interest in building its own aircraft carriers means that it eventually must decide which aircraft they’ll operate, but Webster said that has so far not been a part of the discussions with the Pentagon.
If and when New Delhi is interested, however, the U.S. government and its contractors would certainly listen
eagerly, and if the Pentagon and American aerospace were to try again with a fighter sale to India, Webster said, the bid would reflect Modi’s emphasis on “Make India.”
“If, for some reason, they decide to open that up again, and if they come to us and say, ‘our preference is, this time around, to have all that done under the rubric of [the defense technology-sharing program]? We would be willing to do that,” Webster said.
ARLINGTON, Va. (NNS) -- Answering the call from the Chief of Naval Operations to help build and strengthen international partnerships, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and ONR Global have increased scientific cooperation with the Indian government in recent weeks, including a series of high-profile meetings in India Aug. 21-23, and in the U.S. just before that.
All of this was taking place while a U.S. Navy research vessel carries scientists from both nations into the dark, choppy waters of the Bay of Bengal to find new ways to forecast monsoons.
Recent developments include:
-Assistant Chief of Naval Research (ACNR) Capt. Rob Palisin returned last week from a trip to Bengaluru, India, having met with scientists there to advance new ways to address blast mitigation.
"This trip was a superb example of international cooperation amongst the top scientists in blast mitigation methodologies from the U.S. and India," said Palisin. "The technical acumen of India's scientists, professors and students was quite impressive-their expertise can definitely help our science and technology efforts to continue advancing in this research area.
"I had the opportunity to tour some of their world-class research facilities and anticipate there will be additional opportunities to expand the collaborative engagement between our countries."
-The ACNR's visit comes on the heels of recent meetings with Indian researchers in Arlington, Virginia, where topics ranged from traumatic brain injury to high-altitude fatigue and the effects of the atmosphere on high-energy lasers. Those meetings included naval officers, scientists, ONR Global leadership and other U.S. officials Aug. 12-14.
Called the India-U.S. Joint Technical Group (JTG), the tri-service program (including Navy, Army and Air Force participation) represents another example of the growing partnerships between the U.S. and Indian scientific communities.
"Our work with the science and technology community from India has been important and mutually beneficial," said Dr. Walter Jones, executive director at ONR, who spoke to the JTG. "To truly push the frontiers of knowledge in the sciences-to give our Sailors and Marines the technological edge-we rely on collaborative efforts like these."
Long recognized for forging scientific partnerships and fostering outreach around the world, ONR Global works with the international scientific community to advance open-source, unclassified knowledge and promote international collaboration.
ONR Global Commanding Officer Capt. Clark Troyer emphasized that U.S.-India collaboration has taken on increased prominence.
"Cooperation in science and technology is the lifeblood of scientific advancement," he said. "Cutting-edge work in cognitive science, autonomy, and advanced materials was discussed at these recent meetings-and the collaboration with our Indian colleagues has proven invaluable."
-In late August, the research vessel Roger Revelle, a ship owned by ONR, set out with U.S. and Indian scientists on a month-long mission in the Bay of Bengal, centered on monsoon prediction.
Officials affiliated with the voyage noted that ONR efforts in basic research lead to better understanding of the processes which control prediction of the ocean and atmosphere.
-Finally, recent meetings of the Joint Working Group on Aircraft Carrier Cooperation, which seeks to strengthen U.S.-India cooperation in carrier and related defense matters, included an appearance by Chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. Mat Winter, who emphasized the importance of advancing science and technology collaborations with India.
Overall, officials say, all of these efforts further develop key partnerships that provide leading-edge technologies to Sailors and Marines today and in the future; greatly benefit the general public of both nations; and support the Pacific Pivot announced by the Obama administration in 2013.
I can see:Singha wrote:can anyone id the small cluster of ships next to the vikky?
is that INS Jalwashwa in the back or one of the tankers ... the lack of any radar on the front mast indicates its not a ffg/ddg.
In a clearly provocative move against China, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has invited Japan to join the annual India-US naval war games. Known as the “Malabar exercises,” the war games are to be held in the Bay of Bengal, the northeastern arm of the Indian Ocean, in October.
This decision of the Indian government to make the naval exercises trilateral has been clearly encouraged by Washington as part of its aggressive “pivot” to Asia—that is, the military encirclement of China in preparation for war.
The Malabar exercises have been held annually since 1992, except for a four-year suspension by the US because of Indian nuclear bomb tests in 1998. The US resumed them in 2002, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
On the invitation of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, Japan, Australia and Singapore participated in those annual exercises in 2007. That led to strong diplomatic opposition from China, and India did not repeat the invitation to Japan until this year.
The Indian and Japanese navies conducted their first bilateral maritime exercises in December 2013 in the Indian Ocean. While forging bilateral military-strategic ties with both the US and Japan, India has sought to avoid being a part of a US-led alliance in the region against China.
After dragging its feet for several years, New Delhi’s decision to invite Japan for trilateral navy exercises highlights India’s closer alignment with the US’ strategic agenda following Modi’s coming to power. The US has been working to expand its trilateral alliance with Japan and Australia against China by adding India, making the alliance in the Asian-Pacific region a quadrilateral.
As part of that effort, Washington has encouraged India to take a more assertive role in the South China Sea where Beijing has territorial disputes with US allies like Vietnam and the Philippines. India is also involved in joint oil exploration with Vietnam in the South China Sea, over Beijing’s objections.
Speaking August 24 at the Defence Services Staff College in Wellington, in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, US ambassador in India Richard Verma said that the upcoming Malabar games would be the “most complex naval exercise we’ve executed together, with a US carrier strike group, a submarine, and a P-8 [an aircraft designed for long-range anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions] exercising together with an Indian destroyer, frigate, oiler, and its own P-8.”
Since Modi’s coming to office in May last year, the Obama administration has intensified its efforts for integrating India closer into its strategic agenda against China, and Modi has responded by tilting New Delhi ever closer towards Washington. During Obama’s Indian visit last January, Modi’s agreement on the US-India Joint Strategic Vision for the Asia-Pacific and the Indian Ocean marked deeper integration into the US “pivot” against China.
India also collaborated with the US in the regime-change operation in Sri Lanka last January, in the presidential election which ousted Mahinda Rajapakse, who had developed close ties with China, installing instead Maithripala Sirisena, who is committed to fixing Colombo firmly into Washington’s strategic orbit.
Underlining the development of closer military ties with the US, the Indian air force will participate in joint air exercises codenamed Red Flag, hosted by the US next April at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, after an absence of six years.
India has also been developing closer relations with Japan and Australia. In June, Indian Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar met with his Australian counterpart and the Japanese vice foreign minister.
Indian analyst Harsh V. Pant welcomed this trilateral alliance in an article titled “Asia’s new geo-politics”, published in Deccan Herald on August 11. He said, “Uncertainty of Chinese power and intentions in the region as well as of future American commitment to maintaining the balance of power in Asia ranks high in the strategic thinking of regional powers. Rapidly evolving regional geopolitics is forcing Asia’s middle powers—India, Japan and Australia—to devise alternative strategies for balancing China.”
Encouraged by India’s decision to invite Japan for the Malabar exercises, Australia is urging New Delhi to consider quadrilateral military exercises. During a visit to India this week, Australian Defence Minister Kevin Andrews expressed Canberra’s interest in joining naval exercises with the US, India and Japan. In response to a question during an address at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses in New Delhi on September 2, Andrews said: “If quadrilateral opportunities arise, we would be inclined to be part of those exercises.”
The Indian and Australian navies will start their first-ever joint maritime exercise, AUSINDEX, on September 11 off India’s Visakhapatnam port in the Bay of Bengal. Highlighting how Australia is working to deepen its military ties with India, Andrews added: “Gradually we will expand the range of exercises. We are looking at air force to air force and army to army exercises over the next year or two.”
Japan, which has been developing military-strategic ties with countries in the Asia-Pacific region to contain China’s influence, is clearly eager to take part in the trilateral naval games with the US and India. In preparation for the October exercises, military officials from the three countries met at the US navy base in Yokosuka close to Tokyo on July 22.
The Modi government’s increasing tilt towards the US was also noted by Jeff Smith, a South Asia specialist at the American Foreign Policy Council: “I’d view aircraft carrier participation in this year’s drill as yet another signal from the Modi government that it was shedding the (previous) government’s anxiety about a more overt balancing posture toward China and a more robust strategic embrace of the U.S. and Japan.”
China’s elite has reacted cautiously to India’s decision to invite Japan for joint naval exercises. Zhou Bo, an honorary fellow at the Beijing-based Academy of Military Science, commented: “India alone cannot assure the security of the Indian Ocean, even if it regards (it) as its backyard and wishes no one to compete with it there.” He added: “If the Pacific Ocean is big enough to accommodate China and the US, so is the Indian Ocean to accommodate India and China.”
Beijing feels encircled by Washington’s “pivot” and thus tries to avert direct confrontation with the US and also to prevent India from fully integrating into the US strategic orbit.
Confronted by US-led military encirclement with a possible sea blockade of much of its trade through the South China Sea and Indian Ocean in any conflict, Beijing has been actively involved in developing an alternate route for its trade, including import of oil and raw materials for industries. Particularly, India’s close line-up with the US has left China the option of turning to Pakistan for helping to secure its economic lifelines.
The Modi government, in order to assert its regional hegemony and with the ambition of growing as a world power with the “promised” support of the US, is spending billions of dollars on new weapons and weapons-systems. Indian analyst Punit Saurabh wrote to USNI News, pointing to New Delhi’s aims of countering China in recent building of its military prowess, “India has steadily given a go-ahead to $40 billion investment in defense invigoration including construction of 6 nuclear subs, a mountain division of 60,000 trained soldiers, bases in India and outside, all of it aimed to checkmate the Chinese tactics.”
India’s decision for trilateral naval exercises in the Indian Ocean is aggravating tensions with China, with dangerous consequences. As the WSWS has repeatedly warned, the growing tensions between India and Pakistan and India and China have taken a more catastrophic turn with intensification of the US-China conflict. Given that all the states involved are nuclear armed, any eruption of military conflict would threaten the destruction of the vast numbers of people in the region and beyond
Dialogue in indo-pacific region
New configurations in Asian geopolitics are emerging thick and fast. The month of June saw the initiative of a new trilateral involving India, Japan and Australia when the Indian Foreign Secretary met his Australian counterpart and Japanese Vice Foreign Minister.
Japan will also be a part of the bilateral India-US annual naval exercises – the Malabar – slated to be held over the next few months. Though Japan has participated in these exercises in the past as well, this will be only the second time when it will join these exercises in the geo-strategically critical Indian Ocean region.
There is a growing convergence in the region now that the strategic framework of the Indo-Pacific remains the best way forward to manage the rapidly shifting contours of Asia. Proposed first by Japan and adopted with enthusiasm by Australia under the Tony Abbott government, in particular, the framework has gained considerable currency with even the US now increasingly articulating the need for it.
Though China views it with suspicion, many in the country are acknowledging that the Indo-Pacific has emerged as a critical regional space for India, and China needs to synchronise its policies across the India Ocean region and the Pacific. These developments underscore the changing regional configuration in the Indo-Pacific on account of China’s aggressive foreign policy posture as well as a new seriousness in India’s own China policy. Modi’s outreach to Japan and Australia has been a significant part of his government’s foreign policy so far as strong security ties with Tokyo and Canberra are now viewed as vital by New Delhi.
China’s increasing diplomatic and economic influence, coupled with domestic nationalistic demands, has led to an adjustment of its military power and the adoption of a bolder and more proactive foreign policy. From China’s unilateral decision in 2013 to extend its “air defence identification zone” (ADIZ) over the contested maritime area in the East China Sea overlapping with the already existing Japanese one to announcing new fishing regulations for the Hainan province in January 2014 to ensure that all foreign vessels need fishing permits from Hainan authorities in more than half of South China Sea, the list has been growing in recent years.
China’s land reclamation work in the Spratly Islands has been the most dramatic affirmation of Beijing’s desire to change the ground realities in the region in its favour. This has generated apprehensions about a growing void in the region to balance China’s growing dominance.
The government of Shinzo Abe used its big majority in the House of Representatives last month to override objections from opposition parties and pass legislation permitting collective self-defence (CSD). If CSD is permitted, Japanese self-defence forces may fight alongside US forces in conflicts not directly related to the national security of Japan. Japan’s Ministry of Defence is also likely to make a record budget request for fiscal 2016 as it seeks to buy new airborne refueling aircraft and continue building an Aegis destroyer.
With the US consumed by its own domestic vulnerabilities and never ending crises in West Asia, regional powers such as India, Japan and Australia have been more proactive than in the past to manage this turbulence. The new trilaterals emerging in Asia go beyond past attempts at rudimentary joint military exercises.
In December 2013, the Japanese Navy conducted its first bilateral maritime exercise with the Indian Navy in the Indian Ocean Region. With growing strategic convergence between the two, India invited the Japanese Navy in 2014 to participate in the annual Malabar exercises with the US Navy in the Pacific waters.
India and Japan have an institutionalised trilateral strategic dialogue partnership with the United States. Initiated in 2011, maintaining a balance of power in the Asian-Pacific as well as maritime security in the Indo-Pacific waters has become an important element of this dialogue. A similar dialogue exists between the US, Japan, and Australia.
‘Quad’ of democracies
And now a new trilateral involving India, Japan and Australia has joined these initiatives which can potentially transform into a ‘quad’ of democracies in the Indo-Pacific region. The roots of this potential partnership were laid in late 2004 when navies from the US, India, Japan, and Australia collaborated in tsunami relief operations all across the Indian Ocean.
Japan was one of the earliest vocal supporters of such initiatives. In 2007, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in his earlier stint as Prime Minister, lobbied for Asia’s democracies to come together. This was also actively supported by the US. Such an initiative resulted in a five-nation naval exercise in the Bay of Bengal in September 2007.
However, perceiving a possible ganging-up of Asia’s democracies, Beijing issued demarches to New Delhi and Canberra, causing this initiative to lose steam, since both Australia and New Delhi felt it unwise to provoke China. However, as China becomes more aggressive in the region, there are signs that India and Australia may be warming up to the idea again.
Uncertainty of Chinese power and intentions in the region as well as of future American commitment to maintaining the balance of power in Asia rank high in the strategic thinking of regional powers. Rapidly evolving regional geopolitics is forcing Asia’s middle powers – India, Japan and Australia – to devise alternative strategies for balancing China.
Though still continuing their security partnership with the US, these powers are actively hedging against the possibility of America’s failure to eventually balance China’s growing power. Asia’s geopolitical space is undergoing a transformation. While China’s rise is the biggest story still unfolding, other powers are also recalibrating and it will be of equal, if not greater, consequence in shaping the future of global politics.
(The writer is Professor of International Relations, King’s College, London)
INS Kochi,the second of the 3 P-15As will also be commissioned on Sep 30th says the HT report.The floating out ceremony of the first Scorpene-class submarine, Kalvari, on April 6 in Mumbai (HT File Photo)
Kalvari, the first of six French-designed Scorpene diesel-electric attack submarines, is likely to leave the construction yard in Mumbai for rigorous sea trials from September 30, bringing it a step closer to induction into the Navy
The submarines are being built under licence at the Mazagon Dock Ltd (MDL) in Mumbai under the Rs 23,562-crore Project-75.
“People are working round-the-clock to complete last-minute preparations. If all goes well, sea trials will begin on September 30,” a top official told HT.
Kalvari was floated out of her building dock on April 6. Some systems and equipment have been validated during basic dock trials in the months leading up to the start of complex sea trials, including weapon testing in June 2016.
“Joint teams of the Navy and MDL will now conduct specific tests related to systems, equipment, acoustics, safety, and survivability under different conditions of operation in the coming months before declaring Kalvari fit for induction by next September,” said another official.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/Images/po ... _pg13a.jpg
The remaining five boats will be delivered to the Navy by 2020. The 66-metre submarine can accommodate a crew of 31 and dive up to a depth of 300 metres to elude enemy detection.
The Scorpene project, plagued by cost overruns and missed deadlines, is important to the Navy as its underwater attack capabilities have blunted over time. India operates 13 ageing conventional submarines and an Akula-II nuclear-powered attack boat leased from Russia.
In contrast, China possesses 53 diesel-electric attack submarines, five nuclear attack submarines, and four nuclear ballistic missile submarines.
MDL is among the five shipyards shortlisted for a Rs 65,000-crore project to build six more high-tech submarines. It will help India counter the rapid expansion of China’s submarine fleet.
The inaugural Bilateral Maritime Exercise between India and Australia, AUSINDEX-15 is being conducted off the East Coast of India from 11 – 19 September 15. The exercise would be be jointly inaugurated by Rear Admiral Jonathan Mead, Head Navy Capability Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and Rear Admiral Ajendra Bahadur Singh, Flag Officer Commanding Eastern Fleet onboard INS Shivilak at Visakhapatnam. The maritime exercise is a tangible sign that will strengthen defence co-operation between the two countries as envisaged in the Framework for Security Co-operation announced by the Australian and Indian Prime Ministers in 2014. The week-long Bilateral Maritime Exercise comprising RAN ships HMAS Sirius (Fleet tanker), HMAS Arunta (Anzac class frigate), and HMAS Sheean (Collins class submarine) arrived Visakhapatnam on 11 September 15. The Indian Navy would be represented by INS Shivalik (stealth frigate), INS Ranvijay (guided missile destroyer) and INS Shakti (Fleet tanker). In addition, one Royal Australian Air Force P3C Orion surveillance aircraft and Indian Navy’s P8I Maritime Patrol Aircraft will operate from Chennai during the exercise.
I can never stop admiring the little jet that topples the Brahmos from vertical to horizontal and the counter jet that stops the topple exactly.Singha wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMkr_3_CZO4
video of brahmos firing from a kashin class ship. its wrongly labelled as a talwar class.
shows the recoil springs at bottom of the tube.
IMO, follow-on P-75I should have been based on Scorpene but with lot more indigenous content and other customization. That would have allowed continuity with lesser risks.Philip wrote:http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-new ... 89317.aspx
India’s Scorpene programme set to enter its most crucial phase
Rahul Singh, Hindustan Times, New Delhi
| Updated: Sep 11, 2015
...
Certain unnamed blog( haraam as per BRF) claims that this is exactly what is going to happen and the P-75I is all but dead ( as per IN sources)srai wrote:
IMO, follow-on P-75I should have been based on Scorpene but with lot more indigenous content and other customization. That would have allowed continuity with lesser risks.
Indian Naval Helicopter ALH Dhruv Gets Foldable Rotors
Source : Pinaki Bhattacharya ~ Dated : Tuesday, September 15, 2015 @ 02:10 PM
Indian Navy HAL Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopter (Image: zone5aviation website)
Naval versions of India’s ‘Dhruv’ Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) will get folding rotors to accommodate the chopper in tight spaces on board Indian ships.
Work on this modification has been done at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in Bangalore to make the rotors foldable which will increase the versatility of the helicopter. The Naval ALH Dhruv is currently used as search and rescue (SAR) helicopter which means it has to land on ships’ helicopter platforms, aircraft carriers and be stowed away in narrow spaces.
While the Indian Navy was happy with versatility of the 5.5 helicopter, a problem with the Dhruv was that its rotors did not fold to be fitted on smaller decks of offshore patrol vessels or even frigates of the class of INS Talwar.
The problem was raised by the Indian Navy about six months ago. A source in HAL said, “the problem has been sorted out. HAL representatives visited the naval installation in Vizag and demonstrated these changes that have been made about the foldability of the rotors.”
A navy source says that more than a dozen ALH have been asked to make the rotors foldable and are awaiting delivery. The problem of the Dhruv rotor is that two of its rotors did not fold the way the Indian Navy’s older helicopters such as the Chetaks or Sea Kings did on deck.
But now HAL has cracked the problem. Two of the Dhruv’s rotors fold into the body of the aircraft, while one remains straight outward.
What they apparently mean is - one blade lines up long the body of the aircraft (12 o'clock to 6 o'clock) while the other (3 o'clock to 9 o'clock) folds down along the sides.Aditya G wrote:Dhruv is a four blade chopper ...
Well in that case there will be huge production gaps between P-75 and P-75I. Nothing of this RFP scale in India gets done within a decade and the submarine force will remain in its depleted state for the foreseeable future.Philip wrote:The Scorpene has to first prove its mettle at sea before the IN/MOD decides upon increasing the number,modifying it,or acquiring a new design. Its design is not new anymore.Reg. our Kilos,v.quiet subs says the IN. U-boats superior to Chinese Yuans. With new AIP systems arriving,a futuristic boat that does not cost the earth is what is needed.
Depends who is ruling Dilli really. Have read a few articles about 3 or so more Arihant's being under construction. The submarine construction will go on. P-75 to P-75I won't happen till we can ensure it works, it's suited for our operational conditions etc. etc.Nothing of this RFP scale in India gets done within a decade and the submarine force will remain in its depleted state for the foreseeable future.
Ameen. It's a beautiful thing to watch, and definitely will put some shivers in chaddis worldwide because that sort of precision indicates a lot of other things. I presume.Singha wrote:yeah that bull snort turn and nosecap blow thing is worth the price of ticket alone.
