LCA Tejas: News and Discussions

deejay · Post by **deejay** » 01 Mar 2016 11:45

putnanja wrote:Can you please point to domestic versions that exist and can meet mil-grade and has been certified by CEMILAC or foreign military aviation agencies? You don't build plane around parts that are available domestically if the domestic ones do not meet the flight grade requirements. And many of the parts that need to go into aircraft, whether military or civilian, has to go through multiple rounds of testing and be certified by relevant certification agencies. All the parts are acquired through e-tenders, and ADA has to go through them.

I am not sure putnanja ji that I can even try to answer that question. I do agree with Shreeman's POV. If not bulbs than other things on the list. My info is 2009 vintage. I am sure our manufacturers can make majority of the O-rings which were imported then in the civil martket if not all.

Speaking outside of the LCA list -

The same is true for bulbs, lubes, casings, etc. The list is huge. My experience is limited to civil aircraft inventory of a single type and we would import practically 100% of our spares because none was certified locally.

I spent some time reading up DGCA certification processes. Mil certification, I am sure will be tougher. But it has to be done. Maybe, Dilip Sir has some better insights.

Shreeman · Post by **Shreeman** » 01 Mar 2016 12:01

putnanja wrote:Can you please point to domestic versions that exist and can meet mil-grade and has been certified by CEMILAC or foreign military aviation agencies? You don't build plane around parts that are available domestically if the domestic ones do not meet the flight grade requirements. And many of the parts that need to go into aircraft, whether military or civilian, has to go through multiple rounds of testing and be certified by relevant certification agencies. All the parts are acquired through e-tenders, and ADA has to go through them.

putnanja,

links posted by another poster above.

Indranil · Post by **Indranil** » 01 Mar 2016 12:12

shiv wrote:Watch this video from 15 to 17 seconds. Just 2 seconds. A mysterious door opens up near the nose gear before take off. I have never noticed that before, Is this part of the "landing gear modification" that has been done

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p6D9iTqKYY

No. It's been like this for a while now. That door opens while parked, and when the NLG is being extended or retracted.

Shreeman wrote:The door looks like the standard two part main gear door. Was it not like this always?

It is not a two part. It is a single panel hinged on one side.

Dileep · Post by **Dileep** » 01 Mar 2016 14:52

Yes, I do have some insights.

The requirements are really tough. For example, there was an LoI for landing lights for LCA. The lights must take 10g sinusoidal acceleration while ON, and 15g while OFF. We had tried to put together a proposal, but our mechanical experts pulled out after running a few simulations. I don't think any bulb maker can do it, except by someone who had decades of experience in the field of building aviation lights.

It is all business case onlee. Without volumes, we can not invest good money to develop good stuff and then sell to recover the money. So, we do not build capability. It is a vicious cycle.

But, we are getting there. We have made leaps and bounds progress in things like automobiles. That is purely because there is volume to support innovation. We may do the same thing in aero, some day.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 01 Mar 2016 15:11

this was the support-infra problem the RTA was supposed to fix...more than carrying pax.

deejay · Post by **deejay** » 01 Mar 2016 15:31

Dileep wrote:Yes, I do have some insights.

The requirements are really tough. For example, there was an LoI for landing lights for LCA. The lights must take 10g sinusoidal acceleration while ON, and 15g while OFF. We had tried to put together a proposal, but our mechanical experts pulled out after running a few simulations. I don't think any bulb maker can do it, except by someone who had decades of experience in the field of building aviation lights.

It is all business case onlee. Without volumes, we can not invest good money to develop good stuff and then sell to recover the money. So, we do not build capability. It is a vicious cycle.

But, we are getting there. We have made leaps and bounds progress in things like automobiles. That is purely because there is volume to support innovation. We may do the same thing in aero, some day.

Thank You for the clarification.

member_28108 · Post by **member_28108** » 01 Mar 2016 15:33

While people are going ballistic on import of bulbs etc I will give an example of how things really work. For the heart lung machine we use tubes made of Tygon tubing .It is under Saint Gobain and the actual extruder is DuPont. Now I asked why India cannot manufacture such a simple thing as this tube - i came to know the reality when the companies cutting and packaging the tubes told me- the entire medical grade Tygon tube production for the whole world for a year takes roughly 1/2 a day to extrude. DuPont does this extrusion usually once a year for the medical industry and then changes the jigs /extruders or whatever for their other production. So, practically no one else (including Russia Brazil etc) bother to try to manufacture ii as it just isn't economical .(Brazil is a country which is particularly loath to import and even they have to buy this).
This is the truth regarding outsourcing of manufacturing- if they don't have volumes they will not be able to do it simply because it is uneconomical. So who will set a military grade bulb production line for a few bulbs ?

uddu · Post by **uddu** » 01 Mar 2016 15:46

Agree, but who knows it's few bulbs. It can be for all the aircrafts in service with the IAF, which itself is a huge number. And what about export of the same.

vcsekhar · Post by **vcsekhar** » 01 Mar 2016 16:13

Hi everyone,
I have been a long time member and used to actively participate a long time ago.
After reading some really off putting messages about component manufacturing capability in India for aviation related components i really wanted to add my 2 cents...

We own and operate a electronic components mfg company and we are one of the few who are certified to the Indian defense standard and also to a few EU defense standards... We have looked into getting MIL certified but although we can and do meet the spec, the certification process is itself so onerous and expensive we decided to not go through it.

Like Dileep said above its all a business case...
There is no local aviation manufacturing company wanting to source any components in India and since most of our aviation related manufacturing (BEL, HAL, etc) make only licensed stuff, all sourcing related decisions is in the hands of the OEM. The OEM's do not have any intentions to qualify local suppliers as the qualification process is so expensive, nobody will go through with it unless there is an extremely good reason for it. If you think it is easy getting an approval for changing current approved components, please talk to the sourcing department of any large MNC, for example, GE, for a simple and non critical components that is already within our capability and is in current production, they will take anywhere from 6 months to 2 years (for non aviation - industrial systems)
AFAIK, companies like Airbus, boeing, honewell etc that have started sourcing have started with basic mechanical components and then moved onto assemblies where the suppliers had already cut their teeth supplying to HAL. These were all generally low risk sourcing and after getting sufficient experience they have moved into more value added stuff, and without HAL to support these suppliers they would have been nowhere.

Manufacturing is not a simple job when even the most basic of raw materials need to be imported from all around the world (as an example, we import more than 80% of all our materials from over 10 countries). Even a simple components can take ages to design and build at the required quality level at the required quantity and the investments are high. When there is no demand there is no incentive to any company to do this investment. If anyone thinks it is simple they should visit a electronic component manufacturer and see first hand what goes into it.

We have had bad experiences dealing with some of our local customers (govt defense related) where they will want to order components worth a few hundred Rs and then will call us for negotiations!!!

It is always going to be a chicken and egg issue until the govt wakes up and puts a priority on developing a good local capability and then guarantees investments made into defense related components (same was done in all the western countries .. I have personally met with companies with whom we do business with, where this has happened). Yes, i know some people will start jumping up and down saying that this is business risk and companies have to take risks etc etc.. but companies will measure risk against reward and then guess what ... with our defense manufacturing track record the risk is just too high.
I have many such stories about companies asking for the moon in specifications and then expecting the costs to be the same as what they would buy at the local dealers.

Aircraft manufacturing is difficult and very complex, that we have managed to build the LCA in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds is a huge achievement and it should be celebrated. It will take a bit of time to ensure that the serial manufacturing system can achieve the same level of competence and HAL needs the support of GOI and the IAF to ensure that all the work does not go down the drain. A good, strong project manager with sufficient authority is required to push the LCA team in a sustained manner to make the serial manufacture a success.
Keep in mind that this has been done before for the choppers where we produce the ALH which is pretty unique in its class in the world. And with its success we have the LCH coming along so strongly.

Sorry for the rant ... some of the messages just got me thinking that some people think that aircraft manufacturing can be equated to software or automobile ....

Hope it made sense to someone ..

Cheers...

srai · Post by **srai** » 01 Mar 2016 16:16

uddu wrote:Agree, but who knows it's few bulbs. It can be for all the aircrafts in service with the IAF, which itself is a huge number. And what about export of the same.

There are too many varied types from multiple sources in service, all with different specifications. So I can imagine that would be hard to do volume on. When India continues with LCA and then AMCA and then UCAV etc then standardization and reuse could be made from design stage itself.

vcsekhar · Post by **vcsekhar** » 01 Mar 2016 16:16

uddu wrote:Agree, but who knows it's few bulbs. It can be for all the aircrafts in service with the IAF, which itself is a huge number. And what about export of the same.

Its very nice of you to say this, but, there probably are 1000's of types of bulbs across the fleet and each of them would have their own spec... so who is going to even try to do this ....
Once again, chicken and egg issue...

member_28108 · Post by **member_28108** » 01 Mar 2016 16:18

Uddu how much do you think is the inventory size and to whom are you going to export ? There needs to be tangible numbers to start a production line. Also are the same bulbs going to be used in all our aircraft ?

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 01 Mar 2016 16:39

Dileep wrote: The requirements are really tough. For example, there was an LoI for landing lights for LCA. The lights must take 10g sinusoidal acceleration while ON, and 15g while OFF.

I think the chicken and egg analogy is good.
10G and 15G do not sound like very high numbers - I suspect my phone takes a bigger beating than that every time I drop it - or the various flashlights I own. But when someone writes out these specs - no one in the defence ministry will accept anything different - that is until wartime comes and sanctions kick in. then they will do jugaad and discover that some local bulb also works and because it is wartime they are allowed to change the specs. Just a guess.

I wonder how much commonality LCA bulbs have with various bulbs used in other aircraft in India?

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 01 Mar 2016 16:39

srai, linked to point Al & composite raw materials were not listed.

---

specs are getting tougher for Indic-industries perhaps due to lack of process maturity and QC. R&D alone doesn't fetch you the product. there are billion other things in manufacturing maturity to build quality products.

deejay · Post by **deejay** » 01 Mar 2016 18:08

VC Sekhar ji, thank you for the illuminating post.

I had some back ground info from aircraft maintenance agencies for NSOP operators in India. I imagined it would be tougher. But your posts clarify a lot.

tsarkar · Post by **tsarkar** » 01 Mar 2016 18:50

maitya wrote:
tsarkar wrote:The only radar for which we’ve ToT and source code is Bars. Its manufactured at HAL Hyderabad. Which is why Astra is tested on Su-30MKI, because we have the source codes.
I thought the BARS RCs were designed/developed by LRDE (or was it DARE?) as a part of project Vetrivale. Integrating a RC wouldn't be possible without very very deep sharing of almost all aspects of Transmit-Receive paths and their control.

Either that, or we did develop the h/w and shared the microcode wth the Russians so that they can implement the required A-A/A-G algorithms on it and integrate it.

Whatever, but it's good to know that we have full control/access to the BARS algorithms - now that is one deep ToT that way.

Check out http://www.hal-india.com/Avionics%20Div ... bad/M__122

RLSU RADAR - Primary sensor for Su-30 to detect and track Airborne, Ground and Sea targets.
Radar Computer- 1 Radar Computer- 2 (RC1 & RC2) - Interface to MC, Radar control parameter computation.
Mission Computer (MC) - Navigation & Guidance; Weapon Aiming – Task Management etc
Weapon Control System - Preparation of Aircraft armament to combat applications. Guided tracking of missiles till it hits the target

It is because we've full ToT for radar that we were able to integrate Astra & Brahmos A with Su-30.

There is a HAL graphic somewhere for Mirage 2000/RDY2.

nirav · Post by **nirav** » 01 Mar 2016 19:02

@shiv Saar : I'm not big on physics.still,

The talk was of Gs due to acceleration.
When you drop your phone, the g acceleration is 1G only. If you think its 10-15g sinusoidal acceleration, would request you to quantify it.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 01 Mar 2016 19:27

nirav wrote:@shiv Saar : I'm not big on physics.still,

The talk was of Gs due to acceleration.
When you drop your phone, the g acceleration is 1G only. If you think its 10-15g sinusoidal acceleration, would request you to quantify it.

No no I am talking about dropping it and when it hits the ground - I think the G forces (negative G) could exceed 1000 G momentarily. It accelerates down at 1G and stops in microseconds. G forces at that point are extremely high.

Assuming a drop of just 1 meter and a very slow stopping time of 0.1 seconds when it hits the ground you still get a negative G deceleration of 100 G. Typically it will be higher because 0.1 sec stopping time on hitting the ground is probably too slow an assumption

member_28108 · Post by **member_28108** » 01 Mar 2016 19:56

shiv wrote:
nirav wrote:@shiv Saar : I'm not big on physics.still,

The talk was of Gs due to acceleration.
When you drop your phone, the g acceleration is 1G only. If you think its 10-15g sinusoidal acceleration, would request you to quantify it.
No no I am talking about dropping it and when it hits the ground - I think the G forces (negative G) could exceed 1000 G momentarily. It accelerates down at 1G and stops in microseconds. G forces at that point are extremely high.

Assuming a drop of just 1 meter and a very slow stopping time of 0.1 seconds when it hits the ground you still get a negative G deceleration of 100 G. Typically it will be higher because 0.1 sec stopping time on hitting the ground is probably too slow an assumption

A body falling freely is falling at 1 G when stopped it can generate forces of 1000's of G's but this is not the same for a body which has to sustain high G forces for an extended duration of time and not microseconds as in a falling phone.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 01 Mar 2016 20:33

prasannasimha wrote:
A body falling freely is falling at 1 G
thi

Yes. And that means it is accelerating at 9.8 meters per sec^2 starting from zero velocity

So let me do the calculation rather than doing wild guessing as I have done above..

its velocity when it hits the ground is given by the formula v^2=2as
where a=9.8 and s=1 meter

So velocity when it has fallen 1 meter is square root of 9.8x2 =4.4 m/sec

When the phone hits the ground it stops suddenly. I am assuming the stopping time for the phone is 0.1 sec which is very slow. Actually it probably stops moving in an even shorter time. The G forces the phone faces when it stops moving is given by the formula v=u+at where V is 0 and u is 4.4 m/sec and t is the time to stop moving = 0.1 seconds. a is the acceleration

so we get
-4.4/0.1=a =44 m/sec squared

The G force that a phone experiences when it hits the ground after falling 1 meter is ~4G and not 100 G as I had wild guessed above

If the phone stops moving in 0.01 seconds when it hits the ground it experiences about 44G The latter is probably closer to the actual G forces. it experiences because phone hitting ground stops dead in an instant and 100 milliseconds is too long. Electronic items are exposed to such acceleration and deceleration momentarily when watches are dropped or a remote is dropped. In fact if you jump down from a height of 1 meter your body will experience the same g forces momentarily - the heel, hips and spine may have G forces exceeding 10 G momentarily. Those are the bones that break if the person does not consciously break his fall.

Added later - I just wonder what might cause sinusoidal acceleration up to 15G for an aircraft bulb? The only thing I can think of is severe vibration. Where would a bulb be exposed to such severe vibration. I guess that there is one bulb that is fixed to the nose wheel undercarriage and I expect that experiences severe vibrations and heavy "sinusoidal acceleration"

Zynda · Post by **Zynda** » 01 Mar 2016 20:55

Shiv saar is right. g forces are a measure of forces that act on a structure due to acceleration or deceleration. It is a numerical multiplier to calculate equivalent static loads on a system which is experiencing dynamic system of forces.

So an object which when hits the ground after a free fall, due to sudden change in momentum, forces are generated which can exceed many gs momentarily.

FYI, at steady/cruise flight, 1g = Lift/Weight.

So if the light needs to be qualified for 15g, it means that the components of the light assembly & its joints, should break at loads equivalent to 15 times the weight of the assembly. I am thinking 10g requirement is a fatigue requirement...

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 01 Mar 2016 21:03

Zynda wrote: So if the light needs to be qualified for 15g, it means that the components of the light assembly & its joints, should break at loads equivalent to 15 times the weight of the assembly.

Ah yes - I never thought of that - the mounting and stuff also has to take those loads and heavy shaking. That reminds me of a story about HF 24 and vibration from gun firing - see the story in the lower half of the image. I guess this is what "sinusoidal G forces" can do

Shreeman · Post by **Shreeman** » 01 Mar 2016 21:33

The debate above, if read with patience and withholding ones biases temporarily should clarify the make challenge. Industry will always cry "cheap", they want butter on the bread. And the government labs that were supposed to develop core technology will always cry "hard" and pretrnd to be systems integrators pushing the basic r&d to industry.

This means that anything india-genious is really not genious at all. Everything is rebdged Saint Germane duPont onlee. Then the remaining qualities are timely production and reliability/predictability. These are hampered by the "onlee" attitude and culture of corruption. With numbers themselves becoming a dirty word, falling out of favor for better shining toys, one is reduced to richard measurement contests on speculative news reports.

So is there a way out of this? If it were easy to get out of vicious cycles, addiction would not exist. Women would be equal to men. Money would be more fairly distributed. Diamonds would be worth dust.

The solution lies in multiple, numerous failing programs. Each will produce some hardened veterans, individuals who will learn some art, and enough cunning to navigate the odds to defy the system. Over a period of time, they grow and manipulate the local conditions where the ecosystem then appears to have a far more local flavor. And a little bit of irreplaceable organic content. So you need the MTA, RTA, HTT, IJT, everything J and everythingT to be separate arms of the government. Duplicate the effort, because time is cheap right now. Skills are the scarce element.

Those questioning should see the number of government "institutes" in china, "bureaus" in russia, or "companies" in eu/us. Each has the same percentage of luddite incompetent cooks and bottle washers as HAL. But each provides sufficient low cost internship/training/proving ground for that one or two individuals that will matter.

The consolidation trend is wrong. The current approach to try to mimic zero cost blind copy manufacturing for the sake of acquiring tooling will not work for india as it did for china.

Oh, and in the end, the lack of purpose needs to be fixed too.

I hope this answers the make question -- todays money will be worth 10x or 100x future money depending upon which route you choose and how much inflation that causes. But thats a separate siscussion.

You want products, ban monopolies. No less than two competing transport, trainer, rotor, jet establishments. At this point, time is ripe to send LCA to a new hindoosthan jet manufacturing, inc. Independent of HAL. They can poach HAL for talent, and source their components. This is what grew the automobile industry.

Volumes and margins and costs are all the same arguments raised in the pharma industry. Harder problems there, I would argue. They are doing quite well in India, arent they?

member_28108 · Post by **member_28108** » 01 Mar 2016 22:02

If you Google phone falling G forces the forces that occur are calculated. It all depends on the stopping distance and if it is 2mm from adrop of 4 feet it approximates 2000 G !!

nirav · Post by **nirav** » 01 Mar 2016 22:28

the discussion is not focused.

from bulbs should be made in India to explanation that the bulbs are not ordinary and need a rating of 10g to 15g sinusoidal acceleration to phone falling on the ground equalling higher G hence bulbs on aircraft arent that knocked up as they are made to appear.

The moot point is the phone falling on the ground might experience effects of high Gs only for fractions of seconds whereas the bulb will have to endure the Gs for a much larger timespan in flight,take offs landings and repeatedly over its operational lifespan.

There simply is no comparison. one could try subjecting a phone to repeated cycles of acceleration due to gravity and impact high Gs for the timespan the bulb is expected to function under stress...

the results will certainly be shattering

I also dont understand the fuss about those bulbs being made in India or not. The engine radar and a lot of armament isn't. While we are okay with that, why so much debate and discussion over a bulb ?
Surely those bulbs wont get sanctioned !

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 01 Mar 2016 22:43

nirav, the discussion veers to 'have to import even a bulb!" type of comment.

We suffer from this syndrome.

the operating and non operating sinusoidal vibration are very important.
Most aircraft have vibration due to various sources: engine, aerodynamics (random vibrations), weapon firing etc.

Dileep and vcs thanks for the perspectives on travails of defense manufacturer in India.

Kartik · Post by **Kartik** » 01 Mar 2016 22:50

Dileep wrote:Yes, I do have some insights.

The requirements are really tough. For example, there was an LoI for landing lights for LCA. The lights must take 10g sinusoidal acceleration while ON, and 15g while OFF.

Ah, 15G while off confirms that the Tejas airframe was designed as a 9G fighter ..1.5 times factor of safety added to that and you get 13.5G but these guys probably were still conservative and took it even further to 15Gs for the airframe.

Karan M · Post by **Karan M** » 01 Mar 2016 23:02

Shreeman wrote:Gentlemen, (and not specifically karan) it is all nice to make fun of the old shreeman ji, but have you considered that if the plane for which materials are processed from ingots (so design, development, and manufacturing are in house and no one else has a use for it) STILL uses imported bulbs, then it is highly likely that ALL bulbs for ALL planes are imported. Just like the tires.

Or you could have designed your plane for a bulb you do make.

Which is it to begin with, then we can talk building and making.

I have no idea what you are talking about. You are confoosing me.

Point is very simple - LCA program has not been funded by GOI to indigenize parts to the level BRF wants. They could not keep manufacturing capacity idle and built up at pvt plants. Even PSUs said go take a hike. So even parts they did have LSP/SP level of TOT for, did not translate into mfg.
Same issue with Arjun, but to LCA programs credit they got to 53% LRU indigenization.

So, you want a full desi plane, go Soviet or go Khan, either ways spend for the same.

PS: Tires

http://www.drdo.gov.in/drdo/pub/techfoc ... 16_WEB.pdf

PPS: Glass is half full or half empty. At 53% I say its half full and by Mk1A will get to 3/4ths full.

PPPS: LCA was modeled on the Gripen as at the time, Gripen team's sourcing was considered to be the ideal way. This is what is stated.
http://media.moddb.com/images/groups/1/ ... pen_uk.jpg
http://www.nyteknik.se/incoming/article ... s_1000.jpg

In short, we can sit and complain about LCA or see how far it has come on so little & even the last mile is being fixed.

Sid · Post by **Sid** » 01 Mar 2016 23:07

Dileep, are these G ratings necessary even for LED fixtures? Or the G ratings are for LED drivers/ballasts.

Shreeman ji, everything said and done we do agree that all this stuff should be sourced from Indian market. But we are not there yet, maybe in 10 yrs from now.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 02 Mar 2016 00:20

good question.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 02 Mar 2016 05:52

Let me get this straight.
"Sinusoidal acceleration" is a continuous reversal of acceleration causing negative and positive G alternately isn't it? Dileep?

That means vibration - like shaking Hafiz Saeed's head back and forth till he breaks his spine no?

Isn't this about ruggedness under severe vibratory conditions? Not 8G turns or sustained G in a single direction

Shreeman · Post by **Shreeman** » 02 Mar 2016 06:04

Sid wrote:Dileep, are these G ratings necessary even for LED fixtures? Or the G ratings are for LED drivers/ballasts.

Shreeman ji, everything said and done we do agree that all this stuff should be sourced from Indian market. But we are not there yet, maybe in 10 yrs from now.

I would argue that the fixtures are very probably not, LED.

Ramana -- It is clearly not have to, but it is want to import even a bulb. The silly point I was making in the usual awkward way, was that not only was the user hosting different dinner parties, designer was ordering pizza, engine makers hankering for frog legs, and manufacturer wanting sushi. No one even wants a take out from haldiram. Even if it is fresh dhokla. And I mean the fresh dhokla, when patrubhumi visited, was being fresh made. Many young workers were seen scurrying around preparing the plates. All those agitation related water worries are a thing of the past. We have our bowl full, said the sources, bottle washers and cooks are busy as far as the lunch orders are concerned. It is clear sailing for first 20 dhokla plates.

Sid, the optimist says, things improve over time. Just give time, onlee. The pessimist says, time only allows for neu means of sabotaje. Obscurity is not security or there would have been a ghajwa-i-dilli-fort already some twenty years ago. At least make a cohesive attempt towards translucency if transparency is now out of the window. If the weakness is at instrumentation, materials, composites, automation, machining or precise fabrication, whatever, somewhere there must be some sort of disclosure. Regular disclosure.

If you can berate 50% MKI as bad and not lose half of gujrat then the sky is not falling if this is more visible. It wont be relevant for another 10 years to a war effort. And pretty obsolete by then. It is a philosophy thing. And yes, it is irritating to hear it this way.

No, I will not further derail the debate. The G questions are better carried forward.

Kailash · Post by **Kailash** » 02 Mar 2016 07:13

Unless there is a desperate need to make it in India (e.g war time unavailability, another N-bomb tested by India etc), the economics and red tape simply doesn't permit make these imports in India. At its best it will set back the delivery schedule and/or compromise on the quality of the parts replaced.

Most IPR for the LCA rests with the ADA/DRDO and local replacements for F404 and 2052 are in the making. It could be made available to privates at a royalty. If at all the private companies want a business case, there needs to be a 20 year vision. Obviously, it will need an entire consortium to pull it off. Right now with the 80KN engine and uttam type active radar, it will still be heavier, degraded in performance mk0.85, available 10 years from now, priced the same or even more than the advanced HAL version. Problem is nobody will want this plane - IAF or export customers or the consortium. Business case falls flat - huge money over long time periods without any assured way of making profits. Sounds more like a task for a government than any private consortium.

Aircrafts are not like ships or subs where an L&T can invest thousands of crores, build capability, and wait for orders over decades. More capital and dynamically changing requirements - combined with the long wait and uncertainty over numbers. There is no business case here.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 02 Mar 2016 08:10

relatively OT: The hummingbird and Woodpecker are cool examples.

Hummingbirds do 10G while pulling out of a dive. 34G when they whip their head and body.

Woodpeckers do a negative 1200 G while it hammers on the wood. We will die of concussion at 80 perhaps.

Akshay Kapoor · Post by **Akshay Kapoor** » 02 Mar 2016 12:58

Karan,

I agree with your comment of glass half full. Tejas is designed and made by us top to bottom and we have a good degree of indegenisation given our industrial base. So what we must do is - stockpile the non ideginised components in case of war and sanctions. In the meantime we can keep increasing the indegenised content to the level possible and aim to build our MIL which obviously will have to be a big exporter as well.

Defence should be exactly opposite the JIT supply chain of the corporate world. We must stockpile imported components in large numbers.

member_28348 · Post by **member_28348** » 02 Mar 2016 16:04

"a piece of LCA history"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
here is a Marathi newspaper article(in my collection) right after few days of first flight of LCA tejas (ever!) on 4th Jan. 2001

title= "second test flight of LCA soon"

highlights= "information provided by indian aerospace technology and industry (?)"
"saras- an indigenous transport aircraft to be tested by year end"
"huge response received at pavilion of indian aerospace technology and industry in Singapore Asian aerospace exhibition"
"great numbers of order expected for LCA, LCH, Lakshya and Saras"

note= the reporting of indian military affairs look naïve even today as it was in 2001 and before that.

member_28348 · Post by **member_28348** » 02 Mar 2016 16:12

https://plus.google.com/102028100015375 ... ZZzZ7mntxj

JayS · Post by **JayS** » 02 Mar 2016 16:21

^^

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 02 Mar 2016 16:22

chetan_chpd wrote:https://plus.google.com/102028100015375 ... R7Ek5sarSj

Amazing. Do preserve your cuttings - I used to do that as a boy and young man - they are a useful piece of history. Thanks for posting

member_28348 · Post by **member_28348** » 02 Mar 2016 16:36

thank you