Indranil wrote: Rohit, I have read Kapil sir's article that you are referring to. The problem was not the engine. HAL had just widened the back to accommodate the engine into the air-frame which made the area ruling go for a toss. But that is actually okay. If the engines produced the required thrust, streamlining the aircraft was a much easier exercise.
The instance was quoted to highlight the fact that aircraft development in India is not as simple a task as we make it out to be. And especially, it is absolutely wrong to blame IAF for not nurturing such an ecosystem in India.
The reason I say above, and I say this with utmost seriousness and responsibility, is because the whole R&D and production set-up is fragmented. In the absence of MOD playing the leadership role, each component behaves in an independent manner. For IAF to be able to nurture ecosystem of any sort, it needs to have a say in the decision making process. Which it simply does not have. The GTRE response is a case in point. They did what they could - and not what they should've done. Because they're only responsible for the engine.
Here is what Group Captain Kapil wrote about Marut with reheated Orpheus engines (first and second excerpt are from different articles):
Meanwhile, for the MkIR, and earlier MkIA, the aft fuselage had just been fattened to accommodate the larger diameter of the engines with reheat. The after body drag was very high. In a personal duel between HAL’s chief engine designer and Director GTRE, both accused each other of doing poor scientific work. HAL alleged that the engines were losing too much thrust in the installation while GTRE said the loss of performance was due to excessive drag resulting from the poor design of the after body. The project was in dire trouble and had been carrying on only because of the unwavering support of Groupie Das, His death killed the project.
He was the greatest supporter of the HF-24 Mk IR with reheated Orpheus engines. It had the prospect of being earlier and better than the Jaguar. Its performance was less than it would have been if the rear fuselage had not simply been enlarged by HAL to house the larger engines and their nozzles. The nice area rule of the original design had been vitiated badly. All the same, the performance of the aircraft was impressive. All it needed was to get the right avionics. According to me, the other design work should have been for the addition of a second hydraulic system, and of course streamlining the fuselage a lot better than the fat end.
The Indian Mil-Industrial complex is beholden to only itself. Not the end-user. Everyone talks about IAF not doing enough to nurture an ecosystem, no-one talks about whether HAL and other entities like GTRE did their best to address this requirement. For them, every project is just another work that they do. Only in hindsight to worthies at these institutions lament about lost opportunities in building an 'ecosystem'.
Sample this:
The original HJT-16 canopies were also sliding ones. They were being replaced with clamshells. In view of this, I asked SC Das to design the sheer pins so that during ground roll they would sheer off at 90 knots, the speed at which it was permissible to use the ejection seat. The job was done in over one year. Some aircraft were delivered with clamshell canopies with the correctly designed sheer pin (hinges). But during towing an aircraft at FIS, the canopy flew off due to a minor gust of air. A little later exactly the same thing happened at A&ATU, with a parked aircraft of which the canopy had not been locked in anticipation of some work yet to be done. Gp Capt PG Joshi came to do the enquiry and told me that he had to find the unit at fault. I said,” Not on your life! Let us go to HAL and see what the cause is”. We confronted SC Das. I asked him how he had designed the sheer pins. SC Smiled and said that not only had he designed it well, he had actually tested the sheering by actual canopy jettisoning on to a net at various speeds to get it exactly right at 90 knots. I then asked him how he arrived at the load on the pins. He looked at me as if I was an utter fool. He said, “You know it very well, half rho v squared s gives me the load”. I asked him what happens to the shock load when the canopy opens and hits the stops. Wouldn’t the load be very much higher? He admitted that they had forgotten to allow for it. My unit was not blamed by Groupie Joshi. At Air Hq I explained the visit to the VCAS Air Mshl Shiv Dev Singh and suggested that we ask HAL to redesign the sheer pins. He smiled and said that they had taken more than year for the first lot. Now if we were to ask them to redesign the sheer pins, IAF would not have the Kiran for at least another two years. He said that it would be better to accept the loss of a few canopies and not delay the aircraft any more. Apparently, strict instructions were issued that the retaining lever must be engaged, or else!
This is the kind of 'support' which IAF gets from HAL.
It seems the production of aircraft has always been an issue with HAL. Aircraft for which HAL does not have any OEM to fall back upon. Looking up the Marut history, one comes across the spare part issues which IAF faced for a very long time.
Here is what Group Captain Kapil said about withdrawal of Marut from service in another article:
It was retired mainly due to its very complex production procedures and the inability to ensure prompt supply of spares which were also difficult to produce.
Does this sound familiar from Tejas perspective:
While Prof. KW Tank was a very good designer, he obviously did not know much about production technology to minimise manufacturing time, costs and time or to ensure maintainability.
Another quote from the same person which highlights the fragmented nature of our whole Mil-Ind complex:
Gp Capt Das as the CTP of HAL was the driving force for follow-up versions of the HF-24, named Marut in IAF. He did extensive flight testing of the HF-24 Mk1R with reheated Orpheus engines on it. Equipped with modern avionics. this would have been a strong competitor to the SEPECAT Jaguar. On January 10, 1970, the brilliant career of Gp Capt Suranjan Das came to an untimely and tragic end in the fatal crash of the HF-24 Mk 1R prototype. On take-off, the canopy opened and probably the right engine lost power. Unfortunately, he could not have ejected out of the aircraft unless the canopy flew off, which it didn't. At that time his father, the ex-Chief Justice of India, was the Vice Chancellor of Vishwa Bharati at Shantiniketan. He was naturally very sad at the irreparable loss and yet very proud of his son. Dasu's death killed the 1R project.
Imagine, a prototype development got shut-down because the CTP died in a plane crash! What does it say about HAL as an organization?
The same story repeated itself with respect to Tejas in multiple ways. I simply cannot get over the fact that R&D establishment dictated what the IAF should have? And then went about giving themselves impossible targets and fantastic timeline estimates. All IAF objections were brushed aside. And we faced the pain of all IAF concerns coming out to be true.
BTW, do look at the timelines given in some of the projects which HAL proposed to IAF for follow-on projects after Marut - all very fantastic and impossible to meet. And none of them mentions the engine aspect. The same engine aspect which would've fatally struck the Tejas program but for Americans having an engine of the same weight class - an engine which would've given the required performance as per ASR if the weight aspect on Tejas had been met. Now ask yourself this - what would've happened if an engine of same class and close dimensions as Kaveri was not available?
The only thing constant is the threat scenario which India faces and which IAF is duty-bound to address. If the domestic industrial system cannot or will not provide these, it will seek imports. Yes, there will be biases and institutional inertia. But to park the blame on these aspects for everything wrong with our military industrial complex is plain wrong.
From my reading of Marut episode, IAF cannot be blamed for not giving Marut a fair chance. Frankly, they did. But I don't think that they really had the patience to stick with it and perfect it. It was an ideal chance to grow the aerodynamic engineers and engine developers within India. It was ideal because they could learn from refining what was essentially a good design. That chance went begging. And did not return till the late 90s and early 2000s.
By all accounts, IAF supported Marut in every possible way. From accepting an under-powered aircraft and modifying its role to working with HAL on the spare part business. All IAF officers who flew Marut were always praise for it, even though they lamented the fact that it was 'grossly under-powered'.
As far as squadron operations are concerned, the first year saw chronic shortages of spares and serviceability. Bobby recalls there were days on end when there was one aircraft on the line. This too would be taken up by the Flt Cdr for the first sortie and invariably ended up with snags galore. That was the end of the days flying. Once Bobby managed to get airborne on that lone aircraft. The Flt Cdr was greeted with a message on the briefing – room board “The early worm gets the bird!” By 1968 things began to improve and a silver lining began to appear. In Brian deMagry’s words “However, we eventually learned to love the Marut, which was an excellent and steady weapons platform.” A familiar refrain repeated by subsequent Marut pilots during the rest of its operational life.
From the same article as above:
Sudhir Batra has provided an interesting account of those early, dare we say heady, days: “AOC-in-C , WAC ( I think Air Mshl Minoo Engineer) wanted to show cause Maruts as a potential force. In early 70s, most senior officers pinned lots of faith and hope on the Marut, because they felt that during war we can not depend on western suppliers and we should develop our own fighting machine. He decided that four aircraft of 220 Sqn would take part in Fire Power Demo at Tilpat Range in 1971 to celebrate AF Day.<SNIP>
BTW - I read IAF imported 140 Hunter a/c, 140 Su-7 and 147 Marut of all types were manufactured. And while we had 6 Hunter and IIRC, 6 Su-7 squadrons, we had 03 Marut squadrons.
