LCA news and discussion

Kanson · Post by **Kanson** » 24 Apr 2010 12:05

http://angle-of-attack.blogspot.com/201 ... -aesa.html

Label on the table reads: Active electronically scanned plannar array radar for Light Combat Aircraft.

Whereas if taken notice of 2052 there is marked difference..
http://www.iai.co.il/33796-34455-en/ELTA.aspx

sunnyv · Post by **sunnyv** » 24 Apr 2010 12:12

Cain Marko wrote:
sunnyv wrote:Even if they do manage to get AESA
Considering the small nose of Tejas , we cant expect to get a great performance from RADAR.
My guess is at max 700 TR module.
LCA nose and small? You may say the aircraft is small, the inlets look small, the engine is small- but nose? That there radome is straight away Mirage-2000 - MiG-29 class -HUGE for a bird as small as the LCA. The MMR antenna is about 650mm - equal to the Zhuk and RDY, bigger than an F-16 Apg68.

CM.

Yes i agree but what i meant to be small was , cant expect a 900 mm antennae or 1000 TR module in that nose to get a supreme performance.
we will get Range as of ZHUK-AE .
125 for 1m2 Target.
Cant expect more, as someone in back-post was pointing about less Range.

Nose is indeed exceptional

vina · Post by **vina** » 24 Apr 2010 12:43

why is the trainer carrying a missile

The LCAs (just like F16s) tend to carry dummy wingtip missiles normally, even on routine test flights and other flights. My guess is that it increases the moments of inertia in yaw and roll and probably keeps them below the max designed values for "sanity" and to keep things nice and easy..

You probably don't want to be rolling at full rates in an F-16 as a routine (rumored to be around 360deg /s).. that sort of thing can remove the eyeballs out of their sockets..

David Siegel · Post by **David Siegel** » 24 Apr 2010 13:11

Kanson wrote:http://angle-of-attack.blogspot.com/201 ... -aesa.html

Apart from the Images, there is something more on this Blog..here is the highlight =>

Angle of Attack has learnt that the Radar tested on India's Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) was Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) Radar. Complete information is still not available but it is confirmed that the radar was AESA bring India in a club of select few nations. So far only the Americans have a AESA radar in service on their F/A-18 Super Hornet and the F-22 Raptor. UAE also has AESA radar on their F-16 Block 60 which is also of American origin.

...

According to him LSP-4 will be ready in a month and the LSP-5 will be ready a week later after LSP-4.Hence we can conclude that IOC certificate could be received by the Tejas within 6-7 months from now.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 24 Apr 2010 13:16

the defexpo elta model shows the faceplate shaped as a flattened oval to fit the shape of F-16 nose.
but USA has made it clear it will not support Israel retrofitting 2052 into Sufa. they need a good
customer and we are it. maybe japan or south korea should they go for domestic fighter programs
- although everything that unkil has like APG >77 will be on table for them also.

the one in the blog shows a more conventional round plate as seen in zhuk/apg63 type shape and its
the shape of Tejas nose too.

mashallah if its AESA and someone confirms it with ADA, I will instruct my fighters to fire a volley
of katyusha at the local goat market to register my celebration and I will personally fire the DhSk
on the roof at the national bird always buzzing overhead. AoA.

Gagan · Post by **Gagan** » 24 Apr 2010 13:40

Angle of Attack has learnt that the Radar tested on India's Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) was Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) Radar.

No words are enough to describe this feeling !

Prasad · Post by **Prasad** » 24 Apr 2010 13:58

Gagan wrote:
Angle of Attack has learnt that the Radar tested on India's Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) was Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) Radar.

No words are enough to describe this feeling !

Our own AESA!! The only two things left in the LCA were the radar and the engine. If this news about the radar is true, then LCA mark 2 is on its way. If only we can get a good engine from the joint venture or something. Lungi dance in full !

sunilpatel · Post by **sunilpatel** » 24 Apr 2010 14:03

Dileep wrote:I am not really particular about AESA for LCA at this stage. Any darn radar that can detect a paki F-16 before he detects us, and manages a BVR shot would do. Let us get IOC and put the birds to work first.

True...but ' ye dil mange more '

i think this little baby becomes heavy due to load of greedy expectations

on a serious note, Paki F-solah are also getting upgrades and Tejas has to face the challenges of 2015++, so it must be far more capable than Solah...Cause Tejas has many more friends other than Solah... j-10, j-11 etc..etc..

chackojoseph · Post by **chackojoseph** » 24 Apr 2010 14:29

Probably a 2052. I said this sometime back, may be 2 years ago. I will get this verified.

H_Trivedi · Post by **H_Trivedi** » 24 Apr 2010 14:52

My first post though have been following LCA development for years and of course BR too.

Congratulations to all on LSP 3 flight. Indian systems integration has finally come of age. Even if the engine is not ours and the radar (not clear yet whose?), but integration in itself is a complex task.

And if its flying AESA then its swept me, at least, off the ground.

Still cant believe it and got no signs of it. Saw ELTA2052 and the MMR at the DefExpo but the AESA which is supposed to be powering LSP 3 was no where in sight.

But if its AESA, why would DRDO call it MMR as is being given out in releases?

Anyway, this is all the more important because the parliamentary standing committee had taken the program to task recently.

http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/ ... 398254.ece

AESA - Cant beleive it.

sunilpatel · Post by **sunilpatel** » 24 Apr 2010 15:14

sukhoi_z wrote:
AESA - Cant beleive it.

though Always loves to have AESA on our little sweet bird, IMO, it wont be AESA...cause i know out Enthu DRDOians..if it was AESA then there would be lots Noise all around...
'remember the Arjun Saga??'

it will be simple mechanical scan radar..having 2032 processor...

karan_mc · Post by **karan_mc** » 24 Apr 2010 15:31

highly unlikely ,but if journos like shiv ,sukhlaji or Vishnuji can investigate and settle this issue ones it for all ,it will be good for us too

chackojoseph · Post by **chackojoseph** » 24 Apr 2010 15:50

I just called up the relevant authority. I am told that its an MMR. I will be told if its AESA or not as soon as its confirmed.

Bharadwaj · Post by **Bharadwaj** » 24 Apr 2010 15:59

The Paanwaalaa story about cooling issues could be a clue that an aesa was fitted...

steve · Post by **steve** » 24 Apr 2010 16:03

They say all the testing is over except for few sensors and radar. Now in that case what about the empty of LCA . Earlier the Dry weight of LCA was quoted at 6500 Kg . Later they were showing it at around 5600 Kg. Can any body confirm as to what is the final Dry weight of LCA.

Second, Can any body shed some light on this new radar on LCA .........

First they quoted simply as MMR radar from Israel
Then an AESA radar ??
Now a Indian Antenna, radome and scanner with a Israeli processor ???????

What the hell is going on ??

Gagan · Post by **Gagan** » 24 Apr 2010 17:50

Err guys,

I think the radar on LSP-3 might turn out to be the Mechanically scanned MMR with an ELTA 2032 processing unit, and the LRDE's antenna.

The MMR has been ready for a while. There is one edition of it on top of a DRDO building in B'lore for a while now, monitoring the airspace over the city.

The AESA won't make an appearence all of a sudden like this. We will hear snippets of news from panwallahs long before it appears. The AESA would probably be the one having heating issues, and might be on the Hack right now undergoing testing. The AESA might make an appearance on Mark-2 LCA. (That'll be one of the things that'll make it Mark-2!)

One can't judge the difference between 2052 and DRDO AESA just on the basis of a photo. The antenna can be configured to be of any shape depending on the radome. The ELTA 2052 AESA has that flattish shape probably because they want it for their F-16s which has a flat, small nose.

nrshah · Post by **nrshah** » 24 Apr 2010 18:00

What the hell is going on ??

May be we are learning the art of maintaining secrecy from Russians.. Keep giving contradictory statements/ hints and keep the jingoes busy in guessing... remember the case of MIRV where Mr A Chander said we are developing them and Mr V K Saraswat declined developing MIRV...

Gagan · Post by **Gagan** » 24 Apr 2010 18:03

Or DRDO's processing unit is having heating issues, and ELTA's 2032 processing unit made it to LCA's MMR on the flight.

So is the MMR on LSP-3 is mechanically scanned with options of Indian or Israeli 2032 processing unit? And the yehudi processor made it to the flight because the desi one was having heating issues?

Will someone please clarify?

sunilpatel · Post by **sunilpatel** » 24 Apr 2010 18:04

nrshah wrote:
What the hell is going on ??
May be we are learning the art of maintaining secrecy from Russians.. Keep giving contradictory statements/ hints and keep the jingoes busy in guessing... remember the case of MIRV where Mr A Chander said we are developing them and Mr V K Saraswat declined developing MIRV...

I wish, if we could do it...more like DELETED....suddenly subs and j-10 comes out ...

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 24 Apr 2010 18:36

Gagan wrote:Err guys,

I think the radar on LSP-3 might turn out to be the Mechanically scanned MMR with an ELTA 2032 processing unit, and the LRDE's antenna.

The MMR has been ready for a while. There is one edition of it on top of a DRDO building in B'lore for a while now, monitoring the airspace over the city.

Quite right. And the mechanical scanning unit was on live display in Aero India 2007. I have it on video IIRC

Pratik_S · Post by **Pratik_S** » 24 Apr 2010 18:52

Hey guys the thing about the radome, antenna and scanner was mere speculation on my part. My source only said that its a AESA, nothing more than that.
Angle of Attack

nachiket · Post by **nachiket** » 24 Apr 2010 19:25

Isn't this a pic of the slotted array antenna of the mech scanned MMR? Somebody goofed up while naming the display it seems.

KrishG · Post by **KrishG** » 24 Apr 2010 19:33

This is the pic of MMR from Aero India-2005
http://www.acig.org/artman/uploads/lca_mmr.jpg

This is the antenna for MMR (one of the many Indian components of MMR) displayed during DefExpo-2010
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_o_no4M2xEPY/S ... 795470.JPG

And the possibly new AESA radar under development
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iGO4cv1GqO0/S ... G_1074.JPG

karan_mc · Post by **karan_mc** » 24 Apr 2010 20:34

Yes it is a Local development of AESA radar ,on table you can see

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iGO4cv1GqO0/S ... G_1074.JPG

Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) Radar for light combat aircraft (LCA)

sum · Post by **sum** » 24 Apr 2010 20:43

smpratik wrote:Hey guys the thing about the radome, antenna and scanner was mere speculation on my part. My source only said that its a AESA, nothing more than that.
Angle of Attack

Pratik-ji,

So you are standing by your assertion ( based on how knowledgable and trustworthy the source is) that a AESA flew on the Tejas?

If so, super duper news!!!

Kanson · Post by **Kanson** » 24 Apr 2010 20:56

sunnyv wrote:Even if they do manage to get AESA
Considering the small nose of Tejas , we cant expect to get a great performance from RADAR.
My guess is at max 700 TR module.

It is 730

karan_mc · Post by **karan_mc** » 24 Apr 2010 20:57

Admin mai baap please email some jurnos you know and confirm this i think i will not be able to sleep tonight

Kanson · Post by **Kanson** » 24 Apr 2010 21:34

Singha wrote:the defexpo elta model shows the faceplate shaped as a flattened oval to fit the shape of F-16 nose.
but USA has made it clear it will not support Israel retrofitting 2052 into Sufa. they need a good
customer and we are it. maybe japan or south korea should they go for domestic fighter programs
- although everything that unkil has like APG >77 will be on table for them also.

the one in the blog shows a more conventional round plate as seen in zhuk/apg63 type shape and its
the shape of Tejas nose too.

mashallah if its AESA and someone confirms it with ADA, I will instruct my fighters to fire a volley
of katyusha at the local goat market to register my celebration and I will personally fire the DhSk
on the roof at the national bird always buzzing overhead. AoA.

Singha saab, I dont remember Elta offering a 'swashplate' type 2052 model for the LCA. I heard no news abt that. If i'm wrong pls correct me.

BTW.. some timepass...

Olivier Travert, Vice President, EADS Defence and Security says, “EADS has checked and confirmed that the AESA radar can be fitted on India’s LCA. It will be a customised version of the AESA radar that is fitted on the Eurofighter. We will submit our bids to HAL soon.”

http://www.selexgalileo.com/EN/Common/f ... CAPTOR.pdf
If anyone find similatries between the one which is depicted as Captor-E and what is displayed as ASEA for LCA, its purely your imagination only.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iGO4cv1GqO0/S ... G_1074.JPG

Cain Marko · Post by **Cain Marko** » 25 Apr 2010 00:59

Kanson wrote:
sunnyv wrote:Even if they do manage to get AESA
Considering the small nose of Tejas , we cant expect to get a great performance from RADAR.
My guess is at max 700 TR module.
It is 730

sunnyv wrote: Yes i agree but what i meant to be small was , cant expect a 900 mm antennae or 1000 TR module in that nose to get a supreme performance.
we will get Range as of ZHUK-AE .
125 for 1m2 Target.
Cant expect more, as someone in back-post was pointing about less Range.

730 TRM? For a nose that big it would be v.suboptimal, what size TRMs does the Elta chappies have? The solah has a smaller nose, so does the Gripen, so does the Rafale, and still they have AESAs ranging from 900 (Rafale) - 1000+ TRM (F-16/GripenNG). Why would the Tejas suffer from smaller nos of TRMs when its nose is decidedly bigger? Nope, perhaps due to cooling issues and requirements it might not be as big as an ApG-79 (1100TRM) as on the Shornet (similar sized nose as the LCA- slightly bigger perhaps) but I fully expect it to be a 1000 TRM AESA.

And just to fuel the rumor mill some more - if you recall correctly, there were newsreports of India getting some 2052 units in around 2007 (for evals?). Thereafter, there was a sudden rush of AESA offers from vendors such as Selex (Captor AESA) and perhaps even from Raytheon.

Still, even if it is a Mech, no harm - the range figures on it are excellent and the 2032 is definitely top of the line - RDY-2 / Captor M class - if I were to hazard a guess.

CM

sunnyv · Post by **sunnyv** » 25 Apr 2010 01:19

Ok
Question - Will size of the antennae have effect in determining no of TR modules.
More you have on less area more will be heat generated .
If you have a 700 mm antennae like ZHUk-AE and instead of putting 1100 modules you decide to put 2000 . Can you simply achieve it without any hassle.
And the dia of MMR is 650-700 .

Cain Marko · Post by **Cain Marko** » 25 Apr 2010 01:57

sunnyv wrote:Ok
Question - Will size of the antennae have effect in determining no of TR modules.

In general, yes. The larger the size of the antenna, obviously the more the no. of TRMs that can be stacked. Case in point - F-16 sized antenna (700X500mm) ~ 1000 TRM. Apg-79 sized antenna (650-700mm) ~ 1100 TRM.

More you have on less area more will be heat generated .

Fair enough - cooling requirements are often the biggest hassle it seems - it was indeed a major problem with the Apg-80 as well as the Zhuk A. So you have tradeoffs. But there is little reason to believe that this will make the MMR- AESA on the LCA any smaller than 1000 trms. If they found enough space on the solah to stick in 1000 TRMs AND an IRST ball as well, I don't see why a similar (or larger) sized radar cannot be managed into the LCA, which has a decidedly larger Radome.

If you have a 700 mm antennae like ZHUk-AE and instead of putting 1100 modules you decide to put 2000 . Can you simply achieve it without any hassle.

Not quite that simple - TRM size is itself an issue, iirc, russian MMICs are not that small, so no, they couldn't really fit 1000 TRMs on a 575 mm antenaa like the original Zhuk A (680TRMs only). Hence, the upgrade to the 700mm antenna further back in the nose so as to fit the 1064 TRM version definitive Zhuk A. Otoh, the americans and possibly the euros have miniaturized designs (gen 2) and they can stack close to 900TRMs on a 575mm antenna (Rafale and the RBE-2 for example or the 1000 trms on the solah).

And the dia of MMR is 650-700 .

Which is a very good thiing imvho (apart from the possibility of offereing a greater reflective surface for radeo waves).

Of course all this is a very rudimentary level of understanding, gurus like Dileep should certainly be able to provide better insights.

CM

Cain Marko · Post by **Cain Marko** » 25 Apr 2010 02:11

To answer my own queston re. the readiness of the EL-2052, one interesting fact is that the EL-2052 started flight testing in around 2005, a long time back. The Selex radar on the Gripen otoh just started flight testing v. recently (late 2009) but is apparently already making great progress, Co. folks are confident that everything will be in order. The Zhuk A (680TRM version) too started evals in 2007 and was considered fully developed by end -2009. So around 2 years for development of AESA seems decent (including integratrion of A2A, A2G modes)

I can't see why the 2052 (or a variant thereof called the MMR) would not be ready for the LCA by now. No wonder the news reports about Indian purcahse/evals in around 2007.

CM.

Umesh · Post by **Umesh** » 25 Apr 2010 07:25

Hello,
May I know which radar was used on the LSP-3? (and will be used in the future for the MK.1?)
All the newspapers say "Elta" radar. But which one specifically, anyone know?

I know it's either the EL/M 2052 or the EL/M 2032. But I'm not sure which one it is out of those. And if possible, can you provide a source too.

Thanks

David Siegel · Post by **David Siegel** » 25 Apr 2010 08:16

Confusion over Tejas LSP-3 radar
http://idrw.org/?p=1415#more-1415

Pratik_S · Post by **Pratik_S** » 25 Apr 2010 08:35

sum wrote:
smpratik wrote:Hey guys the thing about the radome, antenna and scanner was mere speculation on my part. My source only said that its a AESA, nothing more than that.
Angle of Attack
Pratik-ji,

So you are standing by your assertion ( based on how knowledgable and trustworthy the source is) that a AESA flew on the Tejas?

If so, super duper news!!!

Yes I stand by my assertion and the source is highly trustworthy and knowledgeable, The same source was also the one which informed me about the LCH first flight before any other news media was able to get their hand on it.

Gagan · Post by **Gagan** » 25 Apr 2010 08:50

This MMR has mechanically steered written all over it. This MMR is NOT an AESA.
This is the one that's been in testing all these years.
The antenna is DRDO, the back processing unit is Elta 2032 or DRDO.

I wonder if this was on LSP-3 or a true AESA.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 25 Apr 2010 08:57

multi-mode radar is a generic term, an AESA can be called multi-mode radar as well.

Gagan · Post by **Gagan** » 25 Apr 2010 09:13

Is it possible to have a similar processing unit for both an AESA and a conventional steered radar, and add some unit and software doing the AE Steering on an AESA?
IOW can the research on a conventional radar be used on an AESA with the addition of an AESA beam only?

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 25 Apr 2010 09:31

I doubt that. an aesa probably needs far more computational power (hence the added cooling needs also) and raw power to serve the tx/rx modules ?

F22 uses a liquid nitrogen cooling pack in the way some high end gamers do. I wonder what the JSF uses - probably a downscaled version of the same. about the SH APG79 no additional air inlets are visible in nose, so maybe liquid too.

http://www.richard-seaman.com/Aircraft/ ... GoNavy.jpg

negi · Post by **negi** » 25 Apr 2010 09:38

Fwiw MMR's Antenna platform is a product of BARC's control and instrumentation division and ECIL.