Defence forces to induct 1,000 helicopters by 2020

[youngindian]

Armed forces to induct 800 choppers in next few years

6 August 2009

NEW DELHI: Supersonic fighter jets may grab all the eyeballs. But it's also raining helicopters for armed forces,who want to induct as many as 800 "rotary-wing birds" over the next few years at a cost of well over Rs 20,000
crore.

Yet another helicopter deal was approved by the Cabinet Committee on Security on Tuesday evening, with the around Rs 950 crore acquisition of five Russian Kamov-31 early-warning helicopters getting the final nod, said sources.

The contract for Ka-31s, which will bolster Navy's long-range capability to detect airborne and surface ship threats, is to be inked in a month or so.

With the E-801M Oko (Eye) airborne electronic warfare radar mounted beneath the fuselage, a Ka-31 can simultaneously track up to 40 airborne and surface threats, with a 360 degree coverage, from 100 to 200 km away depending on the target's size.

Navy already has nine Ka-31 helicopters, inducted in 2003-2004, which operate from its solitary aircraft carrier INS Viraat and three Talwar-class "stealthy" guided-missile frigates as well as shore-based air stations.

Of the 800 new choppers, around half will come from foreign aviation majors. The different projects are:

VVIP: The multi-million dollar deal to acquire 12 VVIP helicopters, with self-protection suites to tackle hostile missiles and other threats, has been finalised with Italian aviation major AgustaWestland for its three-engine AW-101 choppers.

Multi-Role: Navy is hunting for multi-role helicopters (MRHs), armed with cruise missiles and lightweight torpedoes for advanced anti-ship and anti-submarine warfare capabilities.

Though the tender has been floated for only 16 choppers as of now, Navy wants around 60 MRHs eventually. Capable of ferrying 15 soldiers and being refuelled in mid-air, each such 10-tonne helicopter will come for around Rs 110 crore.

Light Utility: India has sought bids from six foreign firms to supply 197 `light utility and observation' helicopters (LUHs), in a Rs 3,000 crore project, to service Siachen, Kargil and other high-altitude areas.

Another 187 such choppers will be manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd by 2016-2017 to fulfil overall requirement of 384 LUHs for Army (259) and IAF (125) to replace the ageing Cheetah and Chetak fleets.

Attack Helicopters: IAF has re-launched its hunt for 22 lethal attack helicopters to add to its feet of Mi-35 gunships. It wants these gunships to be highly-agile, have good armour protection and a 20mm calibre turret gun, as also be capable of firing 70mm rockets with a 1.2-km range and missiles with at least 7-km range.

Medium-Lift: IAF will induct 80 Russian Mi-17 V-5 helicopters during 2010-2014 under a $1.2 billion deal already inked in December 2008. Weaponised for combat operations, the Mi-17s will ferry troops and supplies to even high-altitude areas.

ALH: HAL is already manufacturing `Dhruv' Advanced Light Helicopters, with 168 of them to be inducted into Army and IAF by 2013-2014. Incidentally, the 145 Army ALHs came for Rs 11,237 crore, with CAG criticising the deals since the choppers have "technological gaps".

LCH: HAL is also developing the 5.5-tonne twin-engine Light Combat Helicopter. IAF has projected an initial requirement for 65 LCHs, armed with a 20mm turret twin-barrel gun, cluster bombs, rocket pods as well as missiles.

Armed forces to induct 800 choppers in next few years - India - NEWS - The Times of India

 

[Tamil]

Nice to hear this news. we desperatly need more and more advance choppers to the defence force.

 

[mig-29]

We need the LUH urgently , cheetahs and chetaks have served the country well for all this year and now it is time to replace the fleet , i hope the procurement process is fast tracked.

 

[natarajan]

800 for iaf,navy and army so its not a huge procurement

 

[SATISH]

yeah...but 800 is a huge number in any terms as many new choppers are already inducted...the count may go upto 1000 choppers. The Army is also expanding it's aviation wing...This might be a reason.

 

[venom]

Choppers are the best weapons to be used in the mountains.....They provide a huge logistic & support as well attack capability where the fighters cannot ..

 

[IBRIS]

Armed forces to induct 800 choppers in next few years

NEW DELHI: Supersonic fighter jets may grab all the eyeballs. But it's also raining helicopters for armed forces, who want to induct as many as 800
"rotary-wing birds" over the next few years at a cost of well over Rs 20,000 crore.

Yet another helicopter deal was approved by the Cabinet Committee on Security on Tuesday evening, with the around Rs 950 crore acquisition of five Russian Kamov-31 early-warning helicopters getting the final nod, said sources.

The contract for Ka-31s, which will bolster Navy's long-range capability to detect airborne and surface ship threats, is to be inked in a month or so.

With the E-801M Oko (Eye) airborne electronic warfare radar mounted beneath the fuselage, a Ka-31 can simultaneously track up to 40 airborne and surface threats, with a 360 degree coverage, from 100 to 200 km away depending on the target's size.

Navy already has nine Ka-31 helicopters, inducted in 2003-2004, which operate from its solitary aircraft carrier INS Viraat and three Talwar-class "stealthy" guided-missile frigates as well as shore-based air stations.

Of the 800 new choppers, around half will come from foreign aviation majors. The different projects are:

VVIP: The multi-million dollar deal to acquire 12 VVIP helicopters, with self-protection suites to tackle hostile missiles and other threats, has been finalised with Italian aviation major AgustaWestland for its three-engine AW-101 choppers.

Multi-Role: Navy is hunting for multi-role helicopters (MRHs), armed with cruise missiles and lightweight torpedoes for advanced anti-ship and anti-submarine warfare capabilities.

Though the tender has been floated for only 16 choppers as of now, Navy wants around 60 MRHs eventually. Capable of ferrying 15 soldiers and being refuelled in mid-air, each such 10-tonne helicopter will come for around Rs 110 crore.

Light Utility: India has sought bids from six foreign firms to supply 197 `light utility and observation' helicopters (LUHs), in a Rs 3,000 crore project, to service Siachen, Kargil and other high-altitude areas.

Another 187 such choppers will be manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd by 2016-2017 to fulfil overall requirement of 384 LUHs for Army (259) and IAF (125) to replace the ageing Cheetah and Chetak fleets.

Attack Helicopters: IAF has re-launched its hunt for 22 lethal attack helicopters to add to its feet of Mi-35 gunships. It wants these gunships to be highly-agile, have good armour protection and a 20mm calibre turret gun, as also be capable of firing 70mm rockets with a 1.2-km range and missiles with at least 7-km range.

Medium-Lift: IAF will induct 80 Russian Mi-17 V-5 helicopters during 2010-2014 under a $1.2 billion deal already inked in December 2008. Weaponised for combat operations, the Mi-17s will ferry troops and supplies to even high-altitude areas.

ALH: HAL is already manufacturing `Dhruv' Advanced Light Helicopters, with 168 of them to be inducted into Army and IAF by 2013-2014. Incidentally, the 145 Army ALHs came for Rs 11,237 crore, with CAG criticising the deals since the choppers have "technological gaps".

LCH: HAL is also developing the 5.5-tonne twin-engine Light Combat Helicopter. IAF has projected an initial requirement for 65 LCHs, armed with a 20mm turret twin-barrel gun, cluster bombs, rocket pods as well as missiles.

:d_training:



http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...ers-in-next-few-years/articleshow/4860953.cms

 

[IBRIS]

The contract for Ka-31s, which will bolster Navy's long-range capability to detect airborne and surface ship threats, is to be inked in a month or so.

 

[Pintu]

Great article IBRIS, very good one for first post, but can you please edit and provide link of the article on your post.

Regards

 

[A.V.]

Of the 800 new choppers, around half will come from foreign aviation majors.

now this assumes significance almost half are not by indian companies why is this still hal is making very advanced helicopters of late yet why go for such huge numbers from foreign companies can the problem be solved by getting the private sector to invest jointly with the goverment to produce these in coming years

also i dont like the idea of buys weapons why not enter into a JV with one of the foreign majors to develop new ones this way will make india self-dependent in the long run.

one more point when we talk about aircrafts of different make we point out how it will be difficult to maintain different makes and products isnt it the same case with the choppers will the maintenance prove to be a headache with so many different makes

the idea is not to buy left,right centre to fill the requirements but think of a long tern policy that will serve better

 

[jackprince]

There are some good Political Parties like Communist... who will put obstacles in all the way to country's Development.

They are against Privatization....

When the Communist parties are not something to think bi about, imo blaming this dilemma on them is wrong. It probably has more to do with hAl's bureaucratic mentality than any parties involvement. Also, none of the private companies in india has any experience in making aircrafts.

But probably the day is not far when the private companies will take up a huge part. As we see there's a number of projects where TATA, L&T etc have taken up the job - eg. Pinaka MBRLs, Arihant, FINSAS etc.

 

[A.V.]

There are some good Political Parties like Communist... who will put obstacles in all the way to country's Development.

They are against Privatization....

i am not going for privatization but into jv with private companies the centre can retain the majority shares if they start doing that it will a great step also jv,s with small foreign companies might also be fruitful if they start now the results will show in the coming years
just think about the success of the brahmos project cant that be done with other cases also

 

[AJSINGH]

well for IAF i would like them to have KA50 black shark hell of attack helicopter ( t features Kamov's characteristic contra-rotating co-axial rotor system, which removes the need for the entire tail-rotor assembly and improves the aircraft's aerobatic qualities - it can perform loops, rolls, and “the funnel” (circle-strafing) where the aircraft maintains a line-of-sight to the target while flying circles of varying altitude, elevation, and airspeed around it. Using two rotors means that a smaller rotor with slower-moving rotor tips can be used compared to a single rotor design. Since the speed of the advancing rotor tip is a primary limitation to the maximum speed of a helicopter, this allows a faster maximum speed than helicopters such as the AH-64. The elimination of the tail rotor is a qualitative advantage because the torque-countering tail rotor can use up to 30% of engine power. Furthermore, the vulnerable boom and rear gearbox are fairly common causes of helicopter losses in combat; the Black Shark's entire transmission presents a comparatively small target to ground fire. Kamov maintains that the co-axial drive assembly is built to survive hits from 23 mm ammunition like the other vital parts of the helicopter.[citation needed] The zero native torque also allows the aircraft to be fairly immune to wind strength and direction, and to have an unsurpassed turn rate in all travel speed envelopes.) also for indian army i would like them to buy Mi 35 for simple reason because it also carry troop and as well as support army on the ground heavy lift capability nothing can beat the Mi 26 halo it can carry armoued personal carrier think of that plus once when a USAF chinook was shot down it fuselage of the chinnok was carried inside of mi 26 halo beast of a machine for recon purpose we need to refine the engine of our very own dhruv

The Erdogan beat the Eurocopter Tiger, AH-64 Apache and A-129 Mangusta helicopters, confirmed by israelis

by that is KA 50-2

 

[F-14]

the KA-50-2 is a highly modified variant of the alligator but still there are many problems with it mostly logsitical problems thats all apart from that its a good attack helicopter

 

[John]

The Apache goes higher, can deploy brand new laser guided hydra 70mm rockets with range of 12km, now a typical Hydra launcher has 19 rockets and it can carry 4 of such launchers, that's 76 laser guided missiles it can carry in a full combat load. the new block 3 can control upto 3 UAVs, its not a chopper, its a bird from hell. Also sidewinder, Stingers, Hellfires and in the near future Joint air to ground missiles which will replace the Maverick with a range of 20 km+ and used against a host load of targets including patrol boats, tanks, buildings etc. This missile will go board the SH as well.

http://www.raytheon.com/media/ausa07/docs/factsheets/jagm.pdf

Ka-52 will be shot down, flying a Helo is already one of the most difficult thing to do on the planet, now do it alone in combat while every ground target is firing at u, will easily lead to pilot overload and he will end up getting shot or going to faint due to stress.

 

[AJSINGH]

The Apache goes higher, can deploy brand new laser guided hydra 70mm rockets with range of 12km, now a typical Hydra launcher has 19 rockets and it can carry 4 of such launchers, that's 76 laser guided missiles it can carry in a full combat load. the new block 3 can control upto 3 UAVs, its not a chopper, its a bird from hell. Also sidewinder, Stingers, Hellfires and in the near future Joint air to ground missiles which will replace the Maverick with a range of 20 km+ and used against a host load of targets including patrol boats, tanks, buildings etc. This missile will go board the SH as well.

http://www.raytheon.com/media/ausa07/docs/factsheets/jagm.pdf

Ka-52 will be shot down, flying a Helo is already one of the most difficult thing to do on the planet, now do it alone in combat while every ground target is firing at u, will easily lead to pilot overload and he will end up getting shot or going to faint due to stress.

read this story
In 1997, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) in cooperation with the Kamov bureau entered the Ka-50-2 Erdogan in a Turkish design competition for a $4 billion contract for 145 (later changed to 50) combat helicopters. Erdogan is Turkish for "Born Warrior"; incidentally, this is also the name of Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was at that time a rising political star in Turkey).[citation needed]

The Ka-50-2 is a tandem cockpit twin-seater variant of the Ka-50 that featured a modern, Israeli-made "glass cockpit" avionics and a turret-mounted side-folding (for landing clearance) 30 mm cannon as opposed to the fixed cannon of the Ka-50. (A similar Italian turret is also offered as a modification to the Ka-50.)

The Ka-50-2, with its combat proven avionics and advanced anti-tank guided missiles, offers a high level of combat effectiveness. Moreover, the helicopter features superior flight performance, safe and easy piloting and high combat survivability due to its unique coaxial rotor technology and sound aeronautical engineering. It is equipped with IAI's flexible modular avionics suite, which can be readily tailored to meet the TLF's operational requirements and provides extensive growth potential.

IAI and Kamov conducted successful demonstration flights of the Russian helicopter with IAI's Core Avionics. These demonstration flights demonstrated the helicopter's "glass cockpit" with multifunctional displays and Control & Display Unit (CDU) driven by centralized Mission and Display computers, flight navigation and the operation of the Helicopter Multi-Mission Optronic Stabilized Payload (HMOSP) targeting system. The demonstration flights included night mission capability demonstrations, utilizing Night Vision Goggles (NVG) and the day/night targeting system.

The Erdogan beat the Eurocopter Tiger, AH-64 Apache and A-129 Mangusta helicopters, but lost to an improved version of AH-1 SuperCobra. In the end the contract went to the A-129 Mangusta.[2] This outcome was due to several technical and contractual problems with the proposals.[3]

...now i would like to ask at what price are u getting the appache with technology that IAF dose not need ...what is the use of helicopter to carry AIM 9 sidewinder when its primary role is anti tank and ground support ...plus did u knwo that the speed of KA 52 is greter than the Appache yes service selling is a problem but with upgraded engine it no longer is ....

 

[LETHALFORCE]

Boeing submits bids for $2bln India defence projects

Boeing submits bids for $2bln India defence projects | Markets | Markets News | Reuters

Boeing submits bids for $2bln India defence projects

NEW DELHI, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Boeing Co (BA.N) has submitted two proposals to the Indian Air Force, offering the AH-64D Apache and the CH-47F Chinook in a deal potentially worth $2 billion, Boeing's country head and Indian officials said on Friday.

India invited bids in May for 22 attack helicopters and at least 15 heavy-lift helicopters as it plans to replace its ageing Soviet-era fleet with modern weapon systems.

"The Apache will be a capable and lethal defender of India's troops and assets, while the Chinook will answer many of the country's military and humanitarian needs," Vivek Lall, vice president and India country head for Boeing Integrated Defense Systems, said on Friday.

"We have no idea of the timeline and how long will it take as we have just submitted our proposals," Lall told Reuters.

The company has already signed a $2.1 billion contract for supplying eight P-8I warfare planes to the Indian Navy.

The Indian government says it will prioritise defence and push forward pending projects to modernise its armed forces especially after the Mumbai attacks in November revealed security loopholes.

It is looking to spend more than $30 billion over the next five years to modernise its defence systems. (Editing by Nick Macfie)

 

[AJSINGH]

AH 64d is very expensive ,rather take KA 52 ( equally effective and you can get 2 for the price of 1 AH 64D)
for heavy lifting nothing comes close to MI 26 halo

 

[tarunraju]

Boeing Offers Apache and Chinook Helicopters to India

Boeing has submitted two procurement proposals to the Indian Air Force (IAF), offering its AH-64D Apache and the CH-47F Chinook for the country's attack and heavy-lift helicopter competitions, it announced on 23 October.

India is seeking 22 attack helicopters and 15 heavy-lift transport helicopters worth approximately USD1.3 billion. The Indian Ministry of Defence (MoD) has not set a date for when it will announce the winning proposals, nor announced suggested production rates and delivery schedules.

Boeing's offer is the latest development in the IAF's protracted helicopter procurement programmes.

On 6 February 2008 the head of the IAF, Air Chief Marshal F H Major, announced that the air force was to acquire two new squadrons of attack helicopters and a competition was launched shortly afterwards.

In October that year Boeing withdrew from the bidding as the company felt that it was unable to address India's requirements and formulate a proposal in the time allowed by the MoD.

Bell Helicopters pulled out at about the same time as the AH-1Z Cobra it was offering was only available for export through the US Government's Foreign Military Sales programme. The MoD had previously stated that it did not want to purchase its helicopters through FMS but by direct sale from the manufacturer.

In March of this year the competition was cancelled as, according to the MoD, the companies bidding were unable to meet some of the IAF's key requirements.

Chinook:

Apache:

Source

:twizt:

 

[Quickgun Murugan]

YouTube - Future Weapons: Apache Longbow