LCA News and Discussions

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vina
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by vina »

The controlling constriction is really at the other end ....

....There is a fatwa relating this mass flow rate to the pressure and temperature ahead of the turbine. It basically says that as as pressure goes up, max flow rate goes up (same as with musharraf) but as temperature goes up, max flow rate goes down as square root of temperature. This is not terribly important to the above discussion
Ah. A very eloquent sermon on the "Musharraf " problems, especially a choked one :lol: :lol: :lol: .
Anyway these doors are needed. As the aircraft goes through transonic speeds, there is a thing called "starting" of the inlet ..
Luckily, this Jehaj wont have this particular problem. It has a fully wing shielded inlet and will see subsonic flow at all design speeds.
Thanks all for the patient explanations
Shivji, one more thing I should have added (the answer "no problem, all mapped to ISA can be confusing). Yes, the thrust will decay with altitude. The max total thrust of a jet engine will be at sea level at zero forward speed (static thrust) and this is what all engines are specified at ISA. Now at altitude, the total thrust developed by the engine will be much less (air is less dense), and anway drag is much less as well, so you keep flying fast at high altitude with a less thrust.

For eg, if the Kaveri developed 50KN thrust at altitude, the IAF would absolutely immediately, pronto, fat-a-fat,right away, move heaven and earth and install that engine on the LCA and anything that they can lay their hands on. With that kind of thing, it can accelerate like a rocket!

However stuff like max revolutions, the engine pressure ratios and TET do remain constant (at sea level and at altitude) and are the constraints around which the engine is developed ..
A rocket on the other hand works best in vaccuum, unlike a jet..
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by Kanson »

Shiv Saar....

If i have to give a reply in a different style - already there are so many encroachments on the technical mumbo jumbo ( Welcome, Enqyoobuddin Al Turbinery!) :D - what is "gills" to the later version of MiG-21 is the same as auxiliary doors to LCA.

If you go back, the clarion call for the inlet redesign and remarks of poor design started after the Arakkonam Sea Level trials. Infact people here asked why IAF interested in testing at sea level whereas its main theatre of action is in north western India. As the report goes it was tested in hot and humid condition at sea level.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by Kanson »

Thanks Shiv - a pic is worth a thousand words. :D

Thanks RahulM.
Kartik wrote:Dear Kanson,

What I've stated is based on what I read in a published paper by 3 Indian scientists. It clearly mentioned the above facts (as well as the use of auxiliary intakes to re-energize the flow and improve pressure recovery at duct exit) as well as the fact that the Tejas has an S-duct. I cannot find that paper now, but maybe RahulM or Austin will have it..

Besides that, I also had a picture from ADA that someone sent (which I cannot share as he said so) that clearly illustrated the S-shaped duct from the side. The LCA's diffuser duct is S-shaped when viewed from the side, so the centerline is not straight. the Y-duct that you refer to is in the plan view.
I see the paper from REC, Allahabad, tries to do " Flow Improvement in Rectangular Air Intake by Submerged Vortex Generators " with the conclulsions such as "Chamfering of the duct corners improves the flow pattern to a large extent". I failed to see any relevance to Tejas as it has semi oval inlet shape and not rectangular.

At the risk of repeating myself, the observation you made holds good for the simple single S-duct. The flow characteristics in the case of LCA differ from the observation you made, where the S-duct is not single and not simple. Even for the two connected simple S-ducts the flow pattern changes from the single S-duct.

So the assumption on the design of air-intake which leads to engine flameout at high AoA is wrong.

Everyone working on the field knows what S-duct means but ADA prefers to call it as Y-duct. It should be not without any reason.
Last edited by Kanson on 15 Jul 2010 23:57, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by Kanson »


http://www.jafmonline.net/modules/htmla ... 415-bp.pdf
(1983) investigated the swirl in an S-duct of typical aircraft intake proportions at different angle incidences. The static pressure recovery (C
SP) reduced with the increase in angle of attack (CSP = 0.89 at 0°angle of attack and CSP = 0.37 at 30° angle of attack) and it could be improved by incorporating several mechanical devices at the inlet, such as, spoiler, fences etc. They studied two methods in order to reduce the magnitude of swirl by means of a spoiler and to reenergize the separated flow with the inflow of free stream air through auxiliary inlets.
The paper quote various studies that tries to remedy this distortion. If suppose, what is quoted can be taken as unassailable truth, and the flow distortion at 30 deg as described here leads to engine flameout( thats was the context of this discussion), there can be no aircraft which can do AoA comfortably greater than 30 deg. For ex. F-18 which has S-duct.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by enqyoob »

So in this case, if AoA exceeds, say 15 deg, it seems smart to open the doors on the under side, hey, and let the dynamic pressure of the stream blow in and "energize" the lazy flow coming through the main inlet, as the kuffar Bofors "energized" the pakis coming down the other side of Tiger Hill?

AoA indeed!
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by Manish_Sharma »

^^Welcome Enqyoob! I missed reading your posts, happy to see you back.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by negi »

Shiv ji if you would observe discussion started with remarks with regards to engine flame outs at high AoA , in my post 'conditions' referred to scenario where airflow impinges on the compressor blades at an angle greater than the max permissible value at which compressor blades can operate without stalling , from what I know this AoA has little/no relation to the altitude (as the blades on rotor have fixed pitch). I won't generate more noise as you see our job is done. :twisted:
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by Gagan »

AoA
N^3 is back!
The LCA engine topic is a magnet for N^3. Glad to have you back among the unwashed.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by Telang »

negi wrote:Shiv ji if you would observe discussion started with remarks with regards to engine flame outs at high AoA , in my post 'conditions' referred to scenario where airflow impinges on the compressor blades at an angle greater than the max permissible value at which compressor blades can operate without stalling , from what I know this AoA has little/no relation to the altitude (as the blades on rotor have fixed pitch). I won't generate more noise as you see our job is done. :twisted:
I dont know really, but I think the inlet guide vanes, and those between several stages of the compressor / turbine, could be of variabel pitch, and in modern engines probabaly their pitch is controlled by a computer. The physics of these matters changes from sub sonic to supersonic to hypersonic and from one altitude to another. But frankly this is my guess. Rest is for Pundits.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by sunny y »

Some LCA bashing by ex Jaguar pilot....From his photo on twitter he seem to be young. By this age, he has already retired, became software developer, web publisher. I don't know how long has he served in IAF, & what kind of experience he had with Tejas while he was in IAF which entitled him to make comments like some given below.
As an ex IAF officer he should have been well acquainted with the technical details. On his website he also says that Tejas has very little growth potential. Did he even bother to update his knowledge regarding the latest advancements made in Tejas avionics or is he still stuck in the 80's ?? :evil:

Someone please mail him a copy of Radiance of Tejas by B. Harry (R.I.P) :x


http://twitter.com/vkthakur
Additional LCA: The LCA cannot match in aerial combat the MiGs that it will be replacing. Reason to rejoice?
Additional LCAs: Is the Def Minister dumping sub-standard weapon systems on the IAF at DRDO behest?
WTF Alert! LCA Naval Nautanki. Talk about smoke and mirrors! http://goo.gl/tfBz
Def Min at LCA Naval Rollout...Rollout! Premature ejaculation? Maybe not. 80s tech rolled out in 2010...Delayed ejaculation?
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by Rahul M »

he is one of the original LCA baiters, signed up on BR after 26/11 and was warned by no less than 3 mods within the first 5 minutes of his stay for his language. also a regular CT nut from what we saw, probably a little off his rocker too.
did I mention he is a WKK ?
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by Telang »

Maybe not. 80s tech rolled out in 2010...Delayed ejaculation?
This guy must be a nincompoop. That is the kind everybody enjoys.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by negi »

Telang wrote: I dont know really, but I think the inlet guide vanes, and those between several stages of the compressor / turbine, could be of variabel pitch, and in modern engines probabaly their pitch is controlled by a computer. The physics of these matters changes from sub sonic to supersonic to hypersonic and from one altitude to another. But frankly this is my guess. Rest is for Pundits.
See it is the blades on the rotor which under go a stall and these are fixed pitch onlee , the variable pitch elements you talk about afaik are only on stators(which iirc are being done away with on modern turbofans) within the HPC section, the rotor blades even for the HPC are fixed. IGVs are there to prevent exactly the same issue we are talking about but compressor stalls due extreme AoA do happen despite the IGVs at various altitudes what is common in each of these scenarios is unstable air flow in the inlet .
Last edited by negi on 17 Jul 2010 00:59, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by sunny y »

he is one of the original LCA baiters, signed up on BR after 26/11 and was warned by no less than 3 mods within the first 5 minutes of his stay for his language. also a regular CT nut from what we saw, probably a little off his rocker too.
did I mention he is a WKK ?
No surprises here If that's his history :x

BTW Rahulji What is WKK ??
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by Manish_Sharma »

Telang wrote:
Maybe not. 80s tech rolled out in 2010...Delayed ejaculation?
This guy must be a nincompoop. That is the kind everybody enjoys.
No nobody enjoys. If you'll go to his site kuku sawf org and click on Tejas article you'll be surprised how many people have thrashed his trash under the comments part, just scroll down to comments part and its such a happy scene to find so many Tejas lovers. :D
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by Cybaru »

sunny y wrote:Some LCA bashing by ex Jaguar pilot
That's his opinion. Some folks can add value, some can't. I have met one or two that do not like anything that they fly, they just want JSF. To each his own, they are speaking from their likes and dislikes and where they are in life.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by Rahul M »

Kanson
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by Kanson »

enqyoob wrote:So in this case, if AoA exceeds, say 15 deg, it seems smart to open the doors on the under side, hey, and let the dynamic pressure of the stream blow in and "energize" the lazy flow coming through the main inlet, as the kuffar Bofors "energized" the pakis coming down the other side of Tiger Hill?

AoA indeed!
You can not even think of such thing on LCA...poor design!..poor design!...see the sweet seventeen across our border...5th gen tech!..Wonderful 5th gen tech, even F-22 misses that!
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by nachiket »

Rahul M wrote:he is one of the original LCA baiters, signed up on BR after 26/11 and was warned by no less than 3 mods within the first 5 minutes of his stay for his language. also a regular CT nut from what we saw, probably a little off his rocker too.
did I mention he is a WKK ?
And he got into the Air Force?? :eek:
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by narayana »

Unfortunately there is no shortage of LCA Baiters,one Mr.Prof.Prodyut das writes in Vayu as follows
The LCA nettle must be grasped firmly.As of present its a "failure".the LCA is not going be ready in any useful time.No one loses pension/padmasree in case 2010 date line fails.Technologically it is totally,insecure,even its material of construction is sanctions prone.

The detail engineering of airframe was careless.the airframe should be redesigned in aluminium and the detail design gone over with a fine comb by engineers rather than 'scientists'......
and much more

surprising to see someone coming up with doubts on airframe after so many years and so many successful test flights and on the eve of IOC.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by Tanaji »

^^^ Interesting argument that: its of composites, so technologically insecure and sanction prone. Had they built it out of aluminum, he would have said "not advance enough saar, TFTA western fighters use composites only saar".

In such arguments, you cant win, its like rolling in the mud with a pig.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by vina »

Unfortunately there is no shortage of LCA Baiters,one Mr.Prof.Prodyut das writes in Vayu as follows

....
surprising to see someone coming up with doubts on airframe after so many years and so many successful test flights and on the eve of IOC.
I did read Prof Pradyut Das' article in the Vayu and I don't have a problem with that. Two reasons 1) His arguments logically follow and 2) He knows what he is talking about.

However, that doesn't mean that you have to agree with him and you can agree to disagree!.

Some of his arguments are rooted on the lines 1) Quantity trumps quality 2) It is well within our capability to re-use "legacy" systems well by creating huge numbers and upgrading them suitably.

His argument of using the Al-55I engine from the IJT and use two of those to upgrade the Ajeet and induct them in massive numbers can sound quixotic. It is a throw back to the PLA "strategy of old" , using huge numbers of obsolescent/ obsolete equipment in huge numbers and fight a war of attrition!.

Unfortunately that kind of stuff is long past and outdated. It is way past it's sell by date and technology does progress to a state where such "solutions" are dangerous if adopted. For eg, you cannot have mounted cavalry with sabres or spear and sword wielding infantry in going against troops with machine guns, however much you outnumber them. It will be a slaughter. You can do that when technology levels are roughly comparable. Not otherwise. Try having a squad with breech loading muskets going against another armed with assault rifles !

One thing I can tell is that it was criminal not to use the Gnat platform to build an AJT. The Gnat itself was a trainer and the Gant trainer which HAL built should have been fully developed and inducted. There would have been no "training crisis" we saw in the IAF later and the need for Hawks from BAE. In fact the turbo trainer and the AJT Gnat were projects which should never have been scrapped and the IAF did not firmly back those projects with the govt. If anything the "training crisis" in the IAF was a huge self goal brought on by some incredibly stupid decision making.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by chackojoseph »

The prof is technically right. We need to create a mother ship which will control smaller crafts which just one type of mission requirement. Its definitely cheaper if employed in larger numbers. 8)
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by Telang »

vina wrote: One thing I can tell is that it was criminal not to use the Gnat platform to build an AJT. The Gnat itself was a trainer and the Gant trainer which HAL built should have been fully developed and inducted. There would have been no "training crisis" we saw in the IAF later and the need for Hawks from BAE. In fact the turbo trainer and the AJT Gnat were projects which should never have been scrapped and the IAF did not firmly back those projects with the govt. If anything the "training crisis" in the IAF was a huge self goal brought on by some incredibly stupid decision making.
Unlike the Naval Chiefs, the Army and Air Force Chiefs, and their immediate aspirants to succession, in the past, constistently had been concerned only about their tenure periods; just took care of the immediate needs and never thought of what the Army and IAF would need 20 years hence. Highly selfish and short sighted attitude. The Navy on the other hand had integrated the development and production establishments as part of their ranks, with no chance to throw the blame on a third party, say, DRDO. When they required the help of DRDO, they actively funded them and cooperated with assured orders. The Navy also has the advantage of roaming vastly in the area that it is expected to see action in, and thus has been keeping itself up-to-date with the ground realities and the needs of the future.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by Rahul M »

precisely, I'm sorry but the mass attack scenario is no longer that appealing. below a certain tech level, swarm attack would have all the effectiveness of a swarm of flies hit by bug spray, we saw that very well when israel went against syria in 1982 and again during GW.

there is a minimum tech level that is necessary and IMO the LCA constitutes the lower end, in a good way, since it is affordable. it is by no means certain that a good aeronautical engineer is a good military theorist as well.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by vina »

it is by no means certain that a good aeronautical engineer is a good military theorist as well
Very true and also vice versa. A good military theorist may not be a good engineer!.

Examples of a small technologically superior force wiping the floor with a much larger force with obsolete technology is legion. Why take the case of India itself!.

Part of the reason why the native kingdoms of India couldn't hold off against the Mughals and the other invaders from the northwest was the weakness in artillery. It was something the Indian's never invested in/ got knowledge of / actively developed.. Maybe we were too insulated from what was going on in Central Asia/ Europe to know what was going on, but the Turks and Central Asians brought that to India and won over the natives. (Is that something genetic ? With the Indian Army's continued fiasco with Artillery selection and induction, I wonder).

If anyone visits Turkey and you hang around near Istanbul, you can find out how the Ottomans took the city from behind using massive cannons that they got via a European mercenary called Urban, who offered his services to the Byzantines, but when spurned went over to the Ottomans who used his invention! The Central Asians got cannon know how from the Europeans, while we were insulated.

Also later consider what the British did to the Mughals and the other Islamic kingdoms in India. Same story repeated again. The Brits brought in modern European style rifles / muskets and drilled the native SDRE rice eating Thambis and Pandeys (Madras and Bengal regiments), not really the TFTA "martial" races (and their equivalents all over the world) in modern infantry style warfare and wiped the floor with forces employing Mughal style cavalry and set piece artillery.

In S.A, the Zulu war , in which some 50 odd Brits held off against some 5000 Zulu warriors attacking in swarms with spears and knifes is another example. The Dutch did that in Bali against Ngruh Rai (the airport in Bali is named after him).
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by Vivek K »

vina if we can think of up-engining the Ajeet then why did we never bring in an improved Mig-21 - kind of like the bandar as an interim development fighter to ease the transition from Mig-21 to the LCA. The bison is useful - why only 125? Why not mess with the Airframe and work on fuel capacity and payload as well?
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by negi »

^ Boss even if feasibility and economics of such an initiative were attractive it would have made sense to go down that route in late 70's or latest by 80's. Today LCA baiters are whining about the AC being too late in the game or even alleging it to be 'outdated' one can only imagine what would have happened if DRDO and HAL combine would have actually gone down that route.Lastly IAF does not share Soviet era RuAF's philosophy with regards to fighter ACs i.e. airframe longevity, maintenance and operational costs and growth potential of the platform are key drivers which was not the case with the Soviets during the height of cold war.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by shiv »

It is only in the last 10-15 years that Indians, with a string of tech successes are now feeling more confident of Indian capabilities. I am not making this statement for the heck of it.

For most of my own boyhood and as a young man I grew up in an India full of people with a deep technological inferiority complex. "We are useless. We are incapable" was the most commonly accepted mantra. Even on BRF (in the late 1990s) we had members who pointed out that India's major industrial product was the Ambassador car.

Anything that came from abroad was not only a million light years ahead in technology (in Indian eyes) but it was better and more reliable. This was the mindset of an entire generation - my generation.

That generation would never have accepted an Ajeet upgrade no matter how sensible it may sound like 40 years down the line. Such an upgrade would have only made us beat our heads in dismay and add to the deep sense of inferiority. That inferiority complex and the belief in the superiority of all foreign things has not yet gone. It is still visible today even among younger people on this forum.

A confident nation would do an Ajeet upgrade with confidence knowing that a good job would be done. That was impossible in the 70s and 80s. In fact the impossible goals set for the LCA in the 80s was, in retrospect, an indicator of how bad we felt about ourselves and where we thought we needed to be in order to appear respectable.

So while I am in agreement with Prof Prodyut Das's earlier article that I uploaded I am less sanguine about his latest article. He talks eminent sense - I will give him that. But you cannot take a nation of down and out people who lack self esteem and make them aim for second best and make them gain confidence. they already know they are second best or worse and will not put their heart into doing a second best job.

Best and second best are in fact expressions that Prof Das uses in his article. he argues that if you aim for best you will not even reach second best in the time it takes to reach the best. He says aim for second best and we will get there. This is all very well but that would only be possible by motivating Indians to not feel bad about themselves in a nation that has been looked down upon and spat upon for over a century. We find it easy to talk of morale and self esteem in sports teams and in the forces. But the same humans make up engineering and research teams and the same feelings apply.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by vina »

It is only in the last 10-15 years that Indians, with a string of tech successes are now feeling more confident of Indian capabilities. I am not making this statement for the heck of it.

For most of my own boyhood and as a young man I grew up in an India full of people with a deep technological inferiority complex. "We are useless. We are incapable" was the most commonly accepted mantra. Even on BRF (in the late 1990s) we had members who pointed out was that India's major industrial product was the Ambassador car.
Have to agree with you . What you are talking about are the generations that were born in the 20s/30s, experienced Brit rule as a teen and saw India becoming independent and came into decision making in around the 60s.

It is that generation's mentality as exemplified by the Kangress/Nehru admiration for all things Brit (lets face it Nehru wanted Kangress to be an imitation Labour Party.. aka the Labour Party of India, implementing Harold Laski's Fabian Socialism, why is Kangress Trade Union called INTUC , not very original eh, just adding IN before the old TUC ?) and maybe the generation immediately after that. I call those the "slave" generation

Point is, as the memories of Brit rule faded, the generations that came after that had a catharsis and don't have those "slave" memories any more. For the folks like me born in the 60s and 70s and later, and now getting into key decision making positions with a record of accomplishment in the global stage under their belts, it is a totally different mindset and attitude.

It is a generational change thing. The cobwebs of the Nehurvian Socialist / beholden to Brittania slave mentality are remnants still hang in the stultified DPSU and Armed Forces world (for some reason the Armed Forced, changed the object of their adulation to Russia and I have heard of army men gossip as a kid that so and so General goes to Russia for treatment etc.. which I know you as a doctor will roll on your stomach in laughter when you hear of the "superiority" of Russian medicine/ treatment over what you get or got in India ever). Those cobwebs were swept away in the civilian world by forces of history and the economic reforms it engendered and because it was untenable for those cobwebs to hold on any further.

If you notice, the DPSU world were insulated from reforms of any sort . It is happening now and gradually. So maybe in a generation from now (20 years) you will see a different and vastly better industry.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by Rahul M »

Vivek K wrote:vina if we can think of up-engining the Ajeet then why did we never bring in an improved Mig-21 - kind of like the bandar as an interim development fighter to ease the transition from Mig-21 to the LCA.
to add to shiv ji's post, when the LCA project was being envisaged, we had either of two roads in front of us (pursuing both was not an option given our precarious financial condition back then. funding even one project was a considerable stretch)

a) a low-risk option to develop a mig-21 derivative with a better radar(if available) and more fuel or a similar ajeet derivative. India's aerospace industry was at the time a full 2 generations behind russia and the west, a gap of roughly 20-25 years. to put it in another way, HF-24 marut was still our sole capability in 1980 which was equivalent to mid to late 1950's fighters from elsewhere. going this way would still keep the aerospace industry about 20 years behind the rest, since the proposed design was barely a 3rd generation. in comparison, all major aerospace powers had 4-gen fighters flying for some years at that time.
there was also the doubt whether this fighter would be useful 20-30 years in the future

b) the other route was to take the risky step to try and skip a generation in developing a 4gen straight from 2gen capabilities. that meant setting up new infrastructure, develop competencies in subjects we knew little about as a country, like FBW systems, composites, advanced avionics and so on. IOW, the LCA project was much more than a mere aircraft project, it was a project to develop a state-of-the-art aerospace sector.
if we do a little stock-taking, we can say that even if the LCA project is cancelled tomorrow morning, it is still a success. it is because of the LCA project that we are able to upgrade all our legacy aircrafts like mig-27's, that we can confidently approach the PAKFA as a contributor and even think of developing a 5gen fighter.

in hindsight, IMHO, we chose correctly, even if the project management wasn't always as expected.if we chose the other route we would now be testing a 3.5 gen fighter and dreaming of making a 4gen next, not a 5gen.
The bison is useful - why only 125? Why not mess with the Airframe and work on fuel capacity and payload as well?
bison is an upg of a version of mig21 called bis, whose production ended in the 80's and the assembly line moved on to mig-27's. the IAF can't upgrade more aircrafts than it has airframes or ones that don't have much life left in them.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by vina »

All the same, despite everything HAL DID come up with a Turbo Trainer and an AJT based on the Ajeet. There were really no "critical" roadblocks on that technology wise or anything wise. We DID have the engines for that. Either we could have continued with the Orpheus based Ajeet for the trainer or done what the Brits did with their Gnat (aka Ajeet in India ) trainers (the Gnat served only as trainers in the RAF!) . The Brits replaced the Gant trainer with the Hawk in the early 80s, around the same time that HAL proposed a Gnat based trainer.Think of it, the Brits took the Adour engine from the Jaguar and put in an airframe around it and came with a similar to Gnat like performance , but with better systems aircraft.

We got the Jag in 77, we were making the Adour engines at HAL in the early 80s. What stopped us from taking the Adour from the Jag, removing the afterburner and putting it in an evolved Ajeet with a raised tandem cockpit and having an indigenous AJT ?. Why TF did we waste 20+ years to do that and in the end go and buy the Hawk, with which the IAF doesn't seem very happy. We had BOTH the Orpheus and Adour made at HAL as engine options!. There is no need for a radar as well ! Thirty years later we are doing the exact same thing. Using the Adour engine from the Jag line and putting it in an airframe not very much more "advanced" than the Ajeet and it is now called the BAE Hawk made in India!.

The Hawk has sold close to a 1000 copies over the years , we could have probably sold 100 to 200 AJT's if we had come up with one in the early 80s!.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by Rahul M »

the HAL ajeet based AJT was loudly derided by the IAF as one more proposal to wring juice out of a dead horse. they wanted furrin onlee.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by chackojoseph »

vina wrote:All the same, despite everything HAL DID come up with a Turbo Trainer and an AJT based on the Ajeet. There were really no "critical" roadblocks on.....ame thing. Using the Adour engine from the Jag line and putting it in an airframe not very much more "advanced" than the Ajeet and it is now called the BAE Hawk made in India!.

The Hawk has sold close to a 1000 copies over the years , we could have probably sold 100 to 200 AJT's if we had come up with one in the early 80s!.
Firangi Maal + Firangi Maal + made in India = Indian product? No firangi will approve it. JMT.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by Lalmohan »

vina-ji, thanks for the OT piece on Rorke's Drift - a truly remarkable place and battle, on which I can't resist my own OT piece...

the advantage the 100 British there had against the 4000 Zulus was to be sitting on the main supply depot for the invasion of zululand in a strongly built church and farmhouse, barricaded with sacks of maize meal and metal containers of hard tack biscuits to close the gaps between stone walls. the Zulus here were on an 'unauthorised' raid, the attack being done by regiments who had missed out on the earlier victory at Isandhlwana (in the morning) and came to get an H&D fix in the evening, in direct contradiction of the King's orders.

The british 'garrison' was made up of the usual rear echelons plus sick and wounded, but they had powerful rifles and HUGE amounts of ammunition (basically all the invasion reserves!). It is debatable if all 14 Victoria Crosses were deserved (although many were) and if all the right people got them (e.g. the sergeant who probably organised the defence, instead of the two officers who were "too stupid" to be taken on the advance, but got the credit afterwards), but despite the Zulus pressing in fierce attacks, the huge volume of fire with heavy caliber rounds took their toll in the desperate night fighting - where neither side knew what the bigger picture was of the battlespace (isandhlwana where the main british camp of 2,500 men lay slaughtered was 11 miles away beneath a moonless pitch black night, and lord chelmsford with the main column of another 2,000 odd infantry, cavalry and artillery, another 25 miles away on a wild goose chase where he had been lured by the Zulu general and his false camp fires).

By the end of the fighting at dawn, soldiers had dislocated shoulders and broken bones from the continuous firing and burns too from the hot barrels, but they managed to hold on long enough for the 'disobedient' Zulu general to realise that not only had he not got his H&D increment but he was about to get his musharraf kicked by the King for crossing the Buffalo river (and breaking the treaty he still hoped the british would honour) and disobeying him, who then ordered a withdrawal after losing several hundred men on an unncessary attack. it turns out that zulu soldiers could only marry if the king authorised them, and they only did if they had been in battle - and most of this regiment apparently were looking forward to getting married!

it wasn't until a year later and the deployment of gatling guns (for the first time in battle) were the Zulu's defeated outside their capital at Ulundi with massive casualties. a truly brave and noble warrior race.

anyway, OT off
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by Katare »

Again Shiv/Vina may have some truth but I think the generation (slave or not) was saying what it was seeing. India of 60s and 70s was like that with hardly any worthwhile achievement to show after ~40 years of independence. It was true that all we could produce was Bullet motorcycle and Amby car, had 5 year waiting line for phone lines, no roads no infra, misrey and poverty all around and hardly any income for even sucessfull and capable folks. We aspired to compete with a puny state like Pakistan. It is obvious that people of that era would feel like the way they did.

Those feelings were probably reality of that time and that's why we changed our system by opening up our economy. Now the new generation sees world beating, globe toting well respected Indian techy, nuclear bombs, 100s of billions of $$ in forex and ton of latest gizmos no wonder they feel differently than the lost generation of Indians.

Incidentally old Chinese folks used to think exactly the same way about China although their thinking was more vindictive/jingoistic. Today's Pakistani feels the way the "lost" generation of Indians felt although for entirely different reasons.

Anyhow all these posts need to be moved from here.....
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by putnanja »

Cobham Looks At LCA Fueling Probe
U.K.-based Cobham is in discussions with Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. and India’s Aeronautical Development Agency about retrofitting a retractable refueling probe on the current model of the Light Combat Aircraft as well as the Mk2 version.
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“We will develop and design a retractable refueling probe,” Griffiths says. “LCA is a tightly packed aircraft ... Unfortunately, we’re later in the design period. We will roll out the retractable [version] by 2013-14.”

Cobham has already provided to the Indian air force 20 Buddy Refueling Pods for its Su-30s - Mark 754. Its main features include a fueldraulic hose rewind and response, digital control systems, easy installation via a pylon bolted under the fuselage and up to 75-ft. hose length.

The recent joint air combat exercise that India held with the French air force in June included a Su-30 tanker.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by Telang »

vina wrote: Also later consider what the British did to the Mughals and the other Islamic kingdoms in India. Same story repeated again. The Brits brought in modern European style rifles / muskets and drilled the native SDRE rice eating Thambis and Pandeys (Madras and Bengal regiments), not really the TFTA "martial" races (and their equivalents all over the world) in modern infantry style warfare and wiped the floor with forces employing Mughal style cavalry and set piece artillery.
One rice eating Thambi was an exception, he for the first time in the world used rockets in a battle field and was also called "Tiger". His successors, or other Indians rulers could not take his lead and failed in following the development of rocket as a potent weapon of war. May be the genetic disorder relapsed into the nation's chromosomes after the demise of the tiger, and the rocket as weapon also seems to have died in India with him, only to be revived elsewhere.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by Rahul M »

that's enough people, this is the LCA thread.
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Re: LCA News and Discussions

Post by enqyoob »

Despite it being on the LCA thread, that is probably one of the best set of posts I have read in a very long time.

The trouble with the "new reality" is that the oldies whether in India or China faced up to the harsh reality of the time: That one cannot buy freedom or security. The LCA program is one hardy but very embattled remnant of the determination that built the Gnat/Ajeet and the MiG-21 and Centurion tank factories, and went to war in those against the F-104s, Sabre Jets, Mirages, Patton tanks and AK-47s, without which we would all now be part of Pakistan/ China now or the Former Hindustani Banana Republics.

So I hope that anyone who sees what is wrong with the clueless bureaucratic drift in the propulsion research, development and field/operational testing programs and their disastrous implications for Indian independence, will please continue to post here.
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