ADA Tejas (LCA) News and Discussions

[dumdumdum]

Long awaited LA-5005 (SP-05) flew for the first time yesterday. After couple of regular production sorties, she will be with flying daggers.
Jai Hind.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1657839167643858&id=103329156428208

There are moments in history of all major battles and projects when people in retrospect say "and the tide turned". I would like to believe 5 years from now we will look at this event and say the same thing.

 

[Sancho]

Confidence and safety is equivalent to capabilities and performance because of the faith in the machine being safe enough and capable enough hat such flights do not cause concern.

No it's not, it's as you said yourself "faith"! You have to keep in mind that these are not civil aircrafts, but fighters meant for war, but without capability you can't fight a war, no matter how safe the aircraft is.

The Mig 21s got reputation in India for 2 things, being "unsafe", but at the same time also being "capable", because of performance, BVR and EW capabilities of that time.

So it's good to have a safe fighter and have faith in the reliability of the engine, but the capability of the fighter is based on war fighting abilities and that's were we still are working on.

IAF is fully happy with the capabilities and performance of the aircraft despite what presstitutes "quoting" "an unnamed senior airforce official" have to say.

Not really, otherwise we would have seen far higher orders of LCA already, but the fact is, that LCA still doesn't meet the basic operational requirement so far. FOC was planned by ADA for 2015 and we hope to get it done this year. So don't confuse the feel good statements of LCA pilots, as the only truth. Of course they are proud and happy about flying an indigenous fighter, who wouldn't? But that doesn't translate into the fighter being capable to the operational needs of IAF in war times. Some of the LCA pilots are new once, who flew Hawks and Mig 21s, so is it surprising that they are amazed by the techs and systems of LCA? But do you think an MKI pilot would be as impressed by the performance and systems?

The recent report of Anantha Krishnan, was an excellent piece that focused on the IAF pilots, portrait their personal lifes and feelings (which was very interesting and well deserved, because the IAF pilots don't get enough credit for their work), but didn't gave much credible new infos on the fighter. So one has to distinguish between feelings for the fighter and the ground realities about it's capabilities here.

Tejas will be inducted into the IAF in increasing numbers and that's the way it should be. Once the infra is established, these initial planes will be replaced by MK1A and MKII and hopefully more iterations.

It's not the lack of infrastructure that is holding LCA back, but the slow development and FOC pace.

FOC => leads to approval for MK1A => which will be further developed into MK2.

"You cannot Make in India if you do not Invent in India."

That's factually wrong, since Make in India doesn't mean Make for India!
Tata producing fuselage for S92 helicopters is Make in India, Dhruv or LCA are Make for India.

 

[Sancho]

In the current version or MK1A (not MKII) will IAF increase orders?

Probably not, because MK1A was just a stop gap give away for HAL, to keep the production line going after FOC is delivered and just includes minor modernisations and fixes. The real issue of lack of flight performance still remains and can only be fixed with a higher thrust engine => MK2 and that's what IAF is waiting for.

Based on HAL ADA history will MK1A or MKII be on time ?

HAL is waiting for IAF approval of MK1A, IAF is waiting for ADA, to get LCA to FOC stage, which is the base for the MK1A upgrade. So we still keep waiting for ADA again and only then can see how HAL performs in setting up the MK1A upgrade and produce it.

 

[Sancho]

SJha did tweet that the dalals will go into overdrive with the new developments. It is happening indeed.

This is not to say that Tejas is a finished product. Far from it. But we'll never get to the next stage in innovation and development with imported maal.

SJha is a good journalists, when it comes to researched and written articles. Sadly as many in his field, he moved to 140 character opinion spreading on Twitter, which doesn't need research or sources.

Indian airpower: go big on Tejas, or go home
By Saurav Jha Jan 1 2018

...The MK-1A variant of the Tejas is a step up from the baseline MK-1 (of which a total of 40 are on order) in terms of its avionics fit, maintainability and the fact that it will have in-flight refuelling capability. However, both the active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar and the self-protection suite that the MK-1A will sport are expected to be of imported origin...
...The company has decided to do so because indigenous alternatives to these items, such as the Defence Research and Development Organisations Uttam AESA radar and unified electronic warfare suite (UEWS) are both still under development.

Clearly, HAL wishes to reduce the risk to the overall Tejas build programme by first firming up supplies from abroad and then
undertaking license-production of the same, while creating another value stream for itself in the process...

http://m.deccanherald.com/?name=htt...tent/651310/indian-airpower-go-big-tejas.html

(P.S. production agency in charge, risk reduction by not waiting for indigenous subsystems..., is exactly what I suggested some weeks ago, as the base for any future aircraft development too)

Imports and ToT are vital for India, because in many fields we are still too far behind, to deliver what the forces need to defend the country. But it's important that we improve the quality of ToT, which means not only know how of airframe production, or integration and maintenance of subsystems, but getting critical techs that helps the industry to improve themselves. Sadly cancelling MMRCA and the bad Rafale deal gave us the exact opposite, but at least for LCA we might be able to get more know how through the radar and EW competition, or the Chobham nose.

 

[Pulkit]

Bhai I m not an expert but iaf chief also said that they are hoping to induct mk2 in 2027

Talking about 2027 in 2018 is nice

again no doubt they have maximum capacity of 16 but now hal is outsourcing parts ...so it is achievable....

you need numbers to achieve max capacity which is not there....

and u must not forget that America is also using 4 th generation fighter s

OMG I didnt knew that .... there are no ideal 5th gen aircraft yet

as it is cost effective

Cost effective in comparison to 5th ....

and Russia will only induct some su57

source plz where they say some. Some will not make it cost effective not even manufacturing and maintaining

so I see more tejas ... please correct me if I am wrong....

Sorry even this didnot justify your statement of more tejas

 

[patriots]

SP7 is with squadron.
source indranil ...

now we have 6 aircrafts

soon sp5 will follow ....

 

[Shashwat]

^^ You don't need to plagiarise everything from Indranil@brf. It was previously discussed here that Sp7 had its first flight and was inducted.

The next plane from the second line should be ready by now given Sp5 was supposed to have its first flight almost 3-4 months back.

 

[kamaal]

Now that SP-5 is done with everything, can we expected updates on SP-8,9, 10 &11 ?

HAL chief promised 11 SPs before June 2018, will HAL be ready to deliver the numbers promised ?

 

[Rahul Singh]

We are going around in circles here.

If you could scroll back enough in page and time you will see many such circles.

Anyway, "Tejas lacks-this lacks-that" type of posts don't even attract much attention now a days. Tejas is much ahead for the people with common sense and knowledge of some history especially of initial versions of many Fighter Jets be it Gripen A/B or Rafale or even F-35s. Against these examples Tejas entered service as a swing role fighter. Something it has demonstrated in Live firing exercise called Iron Fist two times so far.

As for FOC outcry. Little that these people know that every time a fighter gets a weapon upgrade and now a days software upgrade it needs to gets through a test cycle and get certified. In other words FOC is a moving goal post and won't be complete till very long time in service. For example Tejas could be called FOC fighter when it is certified for Derby, A2A gun, FCS upgrades for full flight envelope etc. But when ASTRA MK-1 gets introduced it will again have to be certified which includes FCS.

For Tejas a far more important milestone is full operationalization within IAF. Which requires a good bunch of trained Pilots including instructors, maintainance personals, creation of ground infrastructure, evolution of combat tactics and its inclusion into doctrine. And this takes good 5 plus years for any fighter.

 

[abingdonboy]

SP7 is with squadron.
source indranil ...

now we have 6 aircrafts

soon sp5 will follow ....

This was already known no?

SP8+9 will follow very soon.

If not for the snall niggles at the aircraft division (converted Kiran hanger) with Sp5 HAL could easily have met the 11 SP target by April 1 2018. As it stands they will get close with either 9 or 10.

 

[abingdonboy]

Now that SP-5 is done with everything, can we expected updates on SP-8,9, 10 &11 ?

HAL chief promised 11 SPs before June 2018, will HAL be ready to deliver the numbers promised ?

Believe the target was 11 by March-end 2018. 11 SPs by June 2018 is certain.

 

[mayfair]

Imports and ToT are vital for India, because in many fields we are still too far behind, to deliver what the forces need to defend the country. But it's important that we improve the quality of ToT, which means not only know how of airframe production, or integration and maintenance of subsystems, but getting critical techs that helps the industry to improve themselves. Sadly cancelling MMRCA and the bad Rafale deal gave us the exact opposite, but at least for LCA we might be able to get more know how through the radar and EW competition, or the Chobham nose.

I agree that imports are vital to plug the gaps and not just in defence, sometimes there is no alternative to import. This is why for our Metro projects the tunnel boring machines are still all imported and until we have firms such as BHEL, L&T and others making them here in India, the imports will continue.

ToT is a different beast altogether, no one will transfer the really critical technologies in any field and we have no choice but master them in house. Much of the so-called ToT has been nothing but licensed assembly or license manufacture. In the case of airframe parts for instance, critical metallurgy and alloy technology was by and large denied to us, though they were "manufactured and assembled" here.

Sometimes even that is not permitted and the parts have to be imported piece meal as a black box. Seekers and engines are but one example, where Russians and Israelis or for that matter anyone refused to share the knowhow. Recently, this was made quite clear by the LM American official. Russians also refused to transfer the know how for making tank barrels and armour and we need to import them for T-90s. What this kind of ToT does is push up the local manufacturing costs, since the critical sub-systems are still being imported. Today, a HAL made Su 30MKI costs more than Su 30 MKI imported from Russia.

And this is not confined to sensitive military tech. Till recently, even the auto biggies from Japan, Korea and other countries were importing key sub-systems such as gear transmission systems from their own countries. They never transferred that tech to us despite being here for decades. Most of the diesel engines in India are still supplied by FIAT.

There are numerous such examples.

We should get out this mindset that someone will transfer their painstakingly developed tech to us under any agreement. We have no choice but to ramp up our own in house knowledge-base, R&D and industrial set-up. Cheenis achieved all that with a very judicious mix of ramping up their own infrastructure, promoting R&D at a huge scale, industrial espionage, IP violation and reverse engineering. While we may question their methods, the results are there for all to see.

 

[WolfPack86]

Tejas fighter aircraft is the best single engine Indian airforce got it is better order it in huge numbers.

 

[Rahul Singh]

This was already known no?

SP8+9 will follow very soon.

If not for the snall niggles at the aircraft division (converted Kiran hanger) with Sp5 HAL could easily have met the 11 SP target by April 1 2018. As it stands they will get close with either 9 or 10.

If I remember correctly outfitting of SP-8,9,10 is complete.

 

[abingdonboy]

If I remember correctly outfitting of SP-8,9,10 is complete.

Yes, and SP-11 isn't far behind, it was put on the jig at the same time as SP-19 and 10. SP-5's delays are unfortunate as it delayed SP-8 (second LCA from aircraft divison) by a number of months. 11 SP target was very much doable (even though many said it was not).

 

[soikot banerjee]

Every new LCA is a step ahead in a more robust Completely INDIGENOUS aerospace sector!

 

[Rahul Singh]

Pictures speaks for themselves ....

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Finally, we are telling the world that despite designing our first FCS controlled unstable fighter and flying it for over 3000 hrs and 4000 plus sorties why there has been no incident let alone a 'Crash' like in case of Gripen which was using a proven FCS of F-16.

One more thing that Team Tejas needs to do. Pick a couple of Tejas from LSP line, prepare them especially for aerobatics and send them to every possible Air Show. FB admin of Tejas LCA confirms that such thing is on cards and are waiting for IFR certification.

 

[abingdonboy]

Finally, we are telling the world that despite designing our first FCS controlled unstable fighter and flying it for over 3000 hrs and 4000 plus sorties why there has been no incident let alone a 'Crash' like in case of Gripen which was using a proven FCS of F-16.

One more thing that Team Tejas needs to do. Pick a couple of Tejas from LSP line, prepare them specifically for aerobatics and send them to every possible Air Show. FB admin of Tejas LCA confirms that such thing is on cards and are waiting for IFR certification.

In the future the IAF will form a LCA display team just as they have for every other type.

Would've been great if they had ordered the LCA for the re-formed SKAT and not Hawks, supersonic unstable LCA would put on a mind blowing performance in their hands.

 

[Kay]

I won't directly blame IAF as some of the Competitors got their asses burned due to US and French chiefs flying in Tejas.

Paid stooges were asked to write articles criticize Tejas was happening from almost a decade.

These articles mean that Tejas is working fine and giving sleepless nights for it's competitors.

As for IAF, it is praising Tejas for it's ease of maintenance, flight characteristics.

They have tried every trick in the book - lobbying IAF, planting nagative paid articles to planting paid members in defence forums and celebrity photo-ops and rides.
Good thing is none of this will matter.
GOI will do nothing till 2019 elections and by that time we will have 20+ Tejas giving it enough momentum to fight off these sniping.

 

[abingdonboy]

They have tried every trick in the book - lobbying IAF, planting nagative paid articles to planting paid members in defence forums and celebrity photo-ops and rides.
Good thing is none of this will matter.
GOI will do nothing till 2019 elections and by that time we will have 20+ Tejas giving it enough momentum to fight off these sniping.

It's funny that so many are focusing on 2019, that is onyl when the RFI will be issued (if it even is), after that is when the real hard work begins- trails, evaluations, price bids, talks, agreements, production, offsets etc. This is easily, by Indian standards, a decade plus worth of work and just look at the issues MMRCA ran into.

Even if RFI is issued in 2019, first SEF won't come before 2026-7, by then 100+ LCA are in service, Mk.2 is ready, Kaveri has been proven on LCA as has Uttam AESA.

Any govt that actually signs a foreign SEF deal deserves to have their heads bashed in.