Potential Trailblazer For Defence Indigenisation

cobra commando

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May 13 has a special significance in India’s contemporary history, as on this day in 1998 India tested the last two nuclear devices as part of Pokhran II. They propelled India into the select league possessing a nuclear deterrent, but deep down Indian military power lacked the strategic depth afforded by an indigenous defence industry. May 13 of this year added another bookmark to this date; India took the first real step in its drive to address this void when the Defence Acquisition Council accepted the single vendor Tata-Airbus offer of manufacturing, in-country, the C-295 as an Avro replacement aircraft for the Indian Air Force (IAF). It is just the catalyst required for defence indigenisation as also an indicator of the government’s determination to get a home- grown defence industrial base going, with the private sector being an equal partner to the defence public sector undertakings (DPSUs). It has been repeated ad nauseum that our defence ministry has gone through a long Arctic winter these past ten years during which, among many things, the Army got depleted of its artillery guns, the Navy of its submarines and the IAF of its strike squadron strength. So, how does acquisition of a transport aircraft become a game-changer? The answer lies in understanding the environment of fear and trepidation that has prevailed in the ministry of defence these past years, with decision makers looking for any straw in the wind to avoid recommending a purchase— anonymous letters, protests from rejected vendors, from MPs and even pressures from the DPSUs! As per South Block folklore, there was this defence secretary, who, on retirement, proudly announced that he did not sign a single contract in his term!


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Potential Trailblazer for Defence Indigenisation
 

blueblood

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Excellent article.

This acquisition is a far bigger deal than most realize. This deal will be this generation's Dornier Do 228. Only this time, it is a far more capable and versatile platform. Order of 56 is merely an start.

Also, finally someone mentioned RTA. Though NAL/HAL would love to beat the dead horse just like their "too stupid to be true" Saras.
 

Khagesh

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Also, finally someone mentioned RTA. Though NAL/HAL would love to beat the dead horse just like their "too stupid to be true" Saras.
Following is from the, google english translation of what is said by Russians who have actually designed airplane (reported via Interfax, not some Radia-Media looking for some forum eyeballs).
Wonder what you have designed lately.

Russian experts in October will continue the modernization of the Indian aircraft Saras
10.09.2010 Interfax-AVN

Moscow. September 8th. Interfax-AVN - Lightweight 14-seat aircraft Saras, built in India, is being upgraded and the completion of the comments and proposals made by specialists of the Experimental Machine-Building Plant (EMZ) named Myasishcheva, "Interfax-AVN" in the military-industrial complex.

"To date, part of the work has already been completed. In particular, an examination of what has been done by Indian experts and formed a package of proposals for the modernization," - a spokesman said.

"The second phase of work is scheduled to start in October and run throughout the year, although we can not rule out the extension work on the stage of the contract", - says the source.

"This will be the concrete work on the final design of the aircraft, including aircraft ground tests only," - he said.

"The airframe will not be much change, but questions remain on the aircraft handling, security, that is, on those issues that have not been able to solve the Indians themselves," - said the expert.

He said that "finalizing undergo plane Saras -1" "The plane split №2, but in parallel with the finalization of the aircraft will be manufactured №1 and Saras -3", - said the official.

Saras established in India on the basis of the development of the project EMR Myasishchev aircraft M-102 "Duet," "but to develop its version of the aircraft Saras Indian specialists faced a number of problems," the source said.

Saras is equipped with two engines RT6A-66 rated at 850 hp Maximum take-off weight - 6100 kg.

According to media reports, the Indian Air Force plan to buy up to 45 aircraft, and Navy representatives stated that acquire a minimum of 15 such machines. Saras should replace similar obsolete planes An-2, de Havilland Twin Otter and others.


08.09.2010
The rights to this material belong to the Interfax-AVN .
The material was placed in the public domain at the JSC "Rosoboronexport" .
Do the following words make any sense to you.

"The airframe will not be much change, but questions remain on the aircraft handling, security, that is, on those issues that have not been able to solve the Indians themselves," - said the expert.


And yes people have mentioned RTA lately, one AVCM Manmohan Bahadur who keeps company with ACM Tyagi and Sanjay Baru types. A man whose commanded a helo formation with a large number of gallantry related awards but who himself has an Air Force Medal (no citiation no reason given) for his contribution in the IAF. I am sure he has designed aircrafts from behind the several desks he worked on.
 

blueblood

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Following is from the, google english translation of what is said by Russians who have actually designed airplane (reported via Interfax, not some Radia-Media looking for some forum eyeballs).
Why should I give a fvck if Russia designed it or not? Russia mera chacha lagta hai kya?

If you can't make a pathetic 14 seater in fvcking 24 years, you are perfect candidates for mass suicides. Contact Dalai Lama so he can send you to the occupied Tibet.

Do the following words make any sense to you.

"The airframe will not be much change, but questions remain on the aircraft handling, security, that is, on those issues that have not been able to solve the Indians themselves," - said the expert.
No should it? Stop wasting taxpayer's money because some assholes want a cushy govt. job.

It was established by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) at Delhi in 1959 and its headquarters was later moved to Bangalore in 1960.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the organization that puts every other organization to shame in terms of sheer ingenuity. They have managed to produce a dozen or so two seaters in 55 years.

You read it right, one working design in motherfvcking 55 years. You are right kid. I am so indebted to them that I am selling my house and give them the money for their exemplary service to this country and the world.
And then, some genius will provide me with the number of subsystems and technologies they produced in 55 long years. As I said, I am selling my house.

And yes people have mentioned RTA lately, one AVCM Manmohan Bahadur who keeps company with ACM Tyagi and Sanjay Baru types. A man whose commanded a helo formation with a large number of gallantry related awards but who himself has an Air Force Medal (no citiation no reason given) for his contribution in the IAF. I am sure he has designed aircrafts from behind the several desks he worked on.
I for the life of me, cannot fathom the depth of your stupidity. Let me explain it you like someone would explain a retard:

RTA - Indian design, foreign parts, made in India.

C-295 - Foreign design, foreign parts?, made in India.
---------------------------------------------------
RTA - Will be built by incompetent "sarkari mofo".

C-295 - Will be built by the highly competent and professional to the core Tata advanced systems.
----------------------------------------------------
RTA - Civilian design with limited military applications if any.

C-295 - Highly versatile and proven military design with civilian applications.
----------------------------------------------------
RTA - Not a rugged platform.

C-295 - Rugged platform. Can be used on less developed airstrips. Will provide better connectivity to the far flung areas.
-------------------------------------------------------

The best part of it all.

RTA- As real as my relationship with Emma Stone, i.e. very very real.

C-295 - As real as the sky over your head so not so real.

Wonder what you have designed lately.
Were you paying me for the past 24 years to do so? If no, then shut the fvck up.

Or should I send you my account number to jump start the process?

You are now being awarded to the lifetime membership of my ignore list. You are the only one who made it in the five years I have been on this forum and a couple of more years on others.

Cheers.
 

sob

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Following is from the, google english translation of what is said by Russians who have actually designed airplane (reported via Interfax, not some Radia-Media looking for some forum eyeballs).
Wonder what you have designed lately.



Do the following words make any sense to you.

"The airframe will not be much change, but questions remain on the aircraft handling, security, that is, on those issues that have not been able to solve the Indians themselves," - said the expert.


And yes people have mentioned RTA lately, one AVCM Manmohan Bahadur who keeps company with ACM Tyagi and Sanjay Baru types. A man whose commanded a helo formation with a large number of gallantry related awards but who himself has an Air Force Medal (no citiation no reason given) for his contribution in the IAF. I am sure he has designed aircrafts from behind the several desks he worked on.
This is an article from 2010 nearly 5 years back where the Russian expert is talking about a 12 month time frame with some extension and is putting the onus of the delays on the Indians. Wonder what is the status today and what does this expert have to say on the new deadlines. I am very interested to hear about that.
 

Srinivas_K

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India needs its own brands !

.......................................
 

blueblood

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"Srinivas_K, post: 1041472, member: 410"]India needs its own brands !

.......................................
India right now needs weapon systems that work and agencies that can produce them in a timely fashion. As I have mentioned earlier, 24 years and counting and no end in sight.

Also, a Russian design with Canadian engines is as Indian as C-295 or maybe less since we don't know the extent of TOT wrt Airbus deal.
 

Illusive

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India needs its own brands !

.......................................
If you mean pvt weapon manufacturer then yes, companies can work with universities and institutes like IIT and even fund researches there, considering India's requirement for defence equipments the growth in this market would be huge, plus the requirement for internal security is huge, things like surveillance drones would sell like hot cakes.

If Indian companies dont seize this opportunity, the market(internal security) would be captured by chinese companies.

Imagine a pet drone with AI.
 

Khagesh

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Yes I know, jiska chacha sam hoga, uska chacha koi rooski kaise ho sakta hai.

Regards the progress, you can connect the dots and inputs yourself, everything is already there on google:
Rumours say LTA Saras must have costed around Rs. 1000 crore by 2013.
The development of LTA Saras coincided with the development work on LCA Tejas.
LTA Saras 35% composites and LCA Tejas 45% composites with all the composites structural work being done by NAL for both.
Fund crunch for LTA Saras and fund crunch for LCA Tejas coincided.
Fund release for LTA Saras and fund release for LCA Tejas also almost coincided.

In such a situation if the NAL contribution in LCA gets through but the less demanding LTA does not, then what do you think happened?

So what was happening inside NAL? How were the finances being managed for the strategic goals :rofl:that were forever targeted by certain and uncertain quarters?

LTA-Saras too is a strategic goal. Even the US recognized it as such when they shackled this program after the Shakti tests. So much for pragmatic national interest and worlds greatest democracy.

Anyhow
1) the fund release for LTA Saras came in late 1999. Prior to this NAL had to beg even the Civil Aviation Ministry for some seed money. The early leadership naively believed that they would be able to rope in private players. A person in private sector would mostly be a pauper sell out than a patriot with lots of money.
2) Roll out of first prototype in early 2003.
3) First flight of first prototype in mid 2004. Only 4 years not the Paki-rona of 24 saal.

After 2004 NAL went through some very bad period when they were working overtime on LCA and then later on after 2009 fixing the LTA which they did by 2013 and since then the Saras PT1 has been upgraded to Saras-PT2 standards and renamed Saras PTN. This has been handed over to ASTE for CEMILAC certifications around 2013. Probably around this time they realized that their still are some control issues remaining and some talk was there in the media of changing the engine also.

NAL would start the Saras PT-3 which will have 500 kg lesser weight, but I guess that would happen only after the CEMILAC gives the all clear for safety issues. NAL is a money poor organization and this PT-3 is supposed to be production standard. They cannot mess up. In any case its not like LTA market would dry up tomorrow. They can afford some Dheeraj. Dheeraj Dharam Mitr aru Naari, apud kaal parakhiye chari.

Even prior to 1999 when the funding was not there its not like NAL was sitting idle. Some amount of CFD work for even LCA was done on their Flosolver computing division which they were busy setting up and working on. They were in the early stages and were just designing the smaller aircrafts to gain experience and doing CFD. Much like ISRO had Dr. Kalam squating and watching the oldies assemble the sounding rockets or like the early DRDO years when they came out of Indian Army and stepped right into failed projects like Project Valiant and Project Devil.

CSIR, DRDO and ISRO are the three bodies which will keep working away and eventually just as ISRO and DRDO have acquired a strategic footprint, so will CSIR-NAL. Its not like only import-pasand-kala-angrez can play this game.

Here is how NAL leadership had to fend for itself when nobody understood a word of what they wanted to do:
http://www.nal.res.in/pdf/The Narasimha Years1-5.pdf
Till Prof Narasimha came along, NAL Scientists were not particularly inclined, or encouraged, to consign their technical outpourings to print. Prof Narasimha changed all this by declaring that he would consider a R&D project unfinished unless its documentation was complete in every way (thereby forcing additional documentation).
&
Prof Narasimha bounced the problem back to Dr Sinha and his colleagues: “if you are unhappy with Univac, why don’t you build your own fast Parallel computer? They’ve built one at Caltech and I am sure we could put together one within a year ourselves”.
&
Prof Narasimha faced his stemest test at this stage. And I thought he reacted with unlimited optimism. He set up, for example, an advisory board (CAPAB) which included individuals who possessed the very skills (in marketing or finance) which NAL’s repertory lacked. He organized seminars on civil aviation at NAL to spread the good word around. He even dropped by at the North Block to meet the Finance Minister!
Flosolvers were among the first Indian parallel super computing facilities.

LTA Saras did come from the Duet but Duet makers were one of the smallest design houses of Russia. In any case NAL could not have selected Mig or Sukhoi. And even if they had been that daring they would not have learnt anything. Moreover they would never have been taken taken seriously. Today due in part to smaller starts the contributions of NAL in the CFC based manufacturing of aircrafts will be nothing short of seminal. NAL was putting the kind of percentages of CFC into aircrafts that even the developed countries were not doing. Rooskis were so out of cash that we Indians had to support them.

And now it seems like even at that time they were offering to help us with some very high flying crafts (70000 ft) for surveillance needs in exchange for 150 million USD. We could not get that cash. Today the altitudes of that types are flown by the highest flying drones of US and U-2s. Seems like missed that bus. Had we done that perhaps we would have gotten a HALE Rustom-4 or 5 in the works by now. Turns out Myasishchev M-102 'Duet' had to be stopped by the Rooskis and now I learn that Duet never went beyond the Mock up stage and a significant production drawing effort, for reasons of fund crunch. That mock up was around 1996. NAL truly started work on LTA Saras in 2000. In any case it turned out to be overweight or probably Myasishchev would have used a bigger more powerful engine (fuel guzzler rooskie engine). And probably both are true. At least it seems so. Now that NAL has shaved off 500 kg at the design stage itself and there are also some rumours of finding a more powerful engine for Duet/Saras. Myasishchev it seems never recovered and there last real work seems to be the M-101 which was a single engine 7 passenger business turboprop (around 7 units made till date). They have one good design though of very old lineage, which also was made in very small numbers and deployed for scientific research only.

Just came to know that Myasishchev has since been taken over with its sole factory-cum-design-cum-testing facility by the Ilyushin.
 
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