Rustom 2/TAPAS/BH-201 MALE UAV News Updates and Discussions

[Armand2REP]

This airframe is just too heavy. Someone needs to make the decision to scrap and start from scratch. The most important data is testing of the flight control systems so the most important work will be saved. This behemoth is never going to be good. Please have the courage and make the right decision. Maybe choose an existing airframe that can be license produced, it is the smallest of the cost. The value add is all in the control systems. The MALE requirement is too important to let this drag out when it will never work.

 

[Enquirer]

This airframe is just too heavy. Someone needs to make the decision to scrap and start from scratch. The most important data is testing of the flight control systems so the most important work will be saved. This behemoth is never going to be good. Please have the courage and make the right decision. Maybe choose an existing airframe that can be license produced, it is the smallest of the cost. The value add is all in the control systems. The MALE requirement is too important to let this drag out when it will never work.

The decision to scrap the current design has already been made. Tests are being conducted only for the data links, autonomous mode navigation etc.
Weight is not the only issue; the twin engines on wings is cause for much inefficiency. The new design will sport a single rear engine (like ALL successful drones in the world!). After having spent decades with the purchased Burt Ratan's design for Rustom I, it's inconceivable how some nutjobs in DRDO made the decision to build a bigger drone but with two engines!!

To put some specs in perspective:

Predator drone
- Powered by a single 115 hp engine!
- Empty weight of 0.5 tonne
- Armed with 2 Hellfire missiles

Rustom II will purportedly be
- Powered by 2x180hp engines. That's a whopping 360 hp thrust!
- Empty weight is close to 2 tonnes (may slim down a bit)
- Not sure if it'll can carry any missiles!

 

[darshan978]

The decision to scrap the current design has already been made. Tests are being conducted only for the data links, autonomous mode navigation etc.
Weight is not the only issue; the twin engines on wings is cause for much inefficiency. The new design will sport a single rear engine (like ALL successful drones in the world!). After having spent decades with the purchased Burt Ratan's design for Rustom I, it's inconceivable how some nutjobs in DRDO made the decision to build a bigger drone but with two engines!!

To put some specs in perspective:

Predator drone
- Powered by a single 115 hp engine!
- Empty weight of 0.5 tonne
- Armed with 2 Hellfire missiles

Rustom II will purportedly be
- Powered by 2x180hp engines. That's a whopping 360 hp thrust!
- Empty weight is close to 2 tonnes (may slim down a bit)
- Not sure if it'll can carry any missiles!

Predator drone powered by 900hp engine not 115 hp

 

[Raj Malhotra]

Rustom is a dead end design. Primarily because of absurd design decisions. Rustom has been designed to end in failure. It is well known that diesel engines or even aviation fuel Piston engine do not perform well at medium to high altitude. Therefore even if Rustom had met its specifications, it would always have been a failure for operational reasons. Piston engines do not perform well above 6000 M and diesel engines are even worse.
The standard International Trend is to use turboprop engines. India already manufactures turboprop engines of 750 HP. These engines can be used for Rustom UAV.
Rustom was intended to weigh around 1000 kgs with around 500 kg fuel and 300 kg payload totalling 1800 kgs. But the weight of empty Rustom overshot by 70% consequently Rustom itself weight around 1700 kg. Which means that the maximum takeoff weight increased to 2500 kg instead of only 1800 kg. Evidently at this weight it was difficult for Rustom to even take off. The solution was to go for most powerful diesel engines. Instead of 115 HP DRDO decided to use 180 HP engines. But more powerful diesel Piston engines weight more and consume more fuel. This is leading to snowballing weight increase. Theoretically now empty Rustom will weight 2000 kg, required 800 kg fuel and with payload of around 500kg it it will total around 3300 kg max takeoff weight defeating the benefit of more powerful engines. Even if Rustom can take off with some minimal fuel and basic payload even then it will continue to suffer the altitude problem. It will be useless above 5000-6000 m.
The only solution is to go for exponentially more powerful turboprop engines. HAL already manufactures 750 HP turboprop engines. The benefit of turboprop engines is that Rustom would be able to effectively perform at altitudes of more than 10,000 m.
Turboprop engines are more powerful without linear incremental weight increase suffered by more powerful diesel engines.
The main penalty would be higher fuel consumption and lower endurance. Endurance of Rustom may fall from 36 hours to 12 hours but the same can be slowly improved by increasing internal fuel garage as adequate amount of internal space & reserve engine power is available in the huge size of Rustom fitted with yurboprop engines.
The main problem with Rustom is absurd GSQRS of the military or as per my conspiracy theory the specifications given for Rustam are intentionally made so that it will fail and the imports of Israeli UAVs will continue.

 

[Prashant12]

India’s StandOff Anti-Tank Missile (SANT) made an appearance at #DefExpo18. A 12-km range version of the HELINA air to surface munition, the weapon is undergoing carriage trials on IAF Mi-35s. First launch likely next year. For the Rudra/LCH/Rustom-II UAS.

 

[Kshithij]

What benefit does India get? 80-90% of the cost of a P-17A for less than 70% of the capability.

Rustom is a dead end design. Primarily because of absurd design decisions. Rustom has been designed to end in failure. It is well known that diesel engines or even aviation fuel Piston engine do not perform well at medium to high altitude. Therefore even if Rustom had met its specifications, it would always have been a failure for operational reasons. Piston engines do not perform well above 6000 M and diesel engines are even worse.
The standard International Trend is to use turboprop engines. India already manufactures turboprop engines of 750 HP. These engines can be used for Rustom UAV.
Rustom was intended to weigh around 1000 kgs with around 500 kg fuel and 300 kg payload totalling 1800 kgs. But the weight of empty Rustom overshot by 70% consequently Rustom itself weight around 1700 kg. Which means that the maximum takeoff weight increased to 2500 kg instead of only 1800 kg. Evidently at this weight it was difficult for Rustom to even take off. The solution was to go for most powerful diesel engines. Instead of 115 HP DRDO decided to use 180 HP engines. But more powerful diesel Piston engines weight more and consume more fuel. This is leading to snowballing weight increase. Theoretically now empty Rustom will weight 2000 kg, required 800 kg fuel and with payload of around 500kg it it will total around 3300 kg max takeoff weight defeating the benefit of more powerful engines. Even if Rustom can take off with some minimal fuel and basic payload even then it will continue to suffer the altitude problem. It will be useless above 5000-6000 m.
The only solution is to go for exponentially more powerful turboprop engines. HAL already manufactures 750 HP turboprop engines. The benefit of turboprop engines is that Rustom would be able to effectively perform at altitudes of more than 10,000 m.
Turboprop engines are more powerful without linear incremental weight increase suffered by more powerful diesel engines.
The main penalty would be higher fuel consumption and lower endurance. Endurance of Rustom may fall from 36 hours to 12 hours but the same can be slowly improved by increasing internal fuel garage as adequate amount of internal space & reserve engine power is available in the huge size of Rustom fitted with yurboprop engines.
The main problem with Rustom is absurd GSQRS of the military or as per my conspiracy theory the specifications given for Rustam are intentionally made so that it will fail and the imports of Israeli UAVs will continue.

I don't think it is possible to have Tapas at 1000kg empty weight. Tapas is similar in size to MQ9 reaper and hence the size is also expected to be higher. The piston diesel engines flew at 65000feet in WW2. The technology is called Turbocharge.

The fuel consumption being higher for higher powered engine is correct. But, unlike petrol engines, diesel engine fuel consumption reduces per HP power. So, if the fuel container increases in size proportionally to increase in size of the weight of the drone, the endurance will more or less remain the same or increase. The turbocharged piston engine is also more fuel efficient than a turboprop.

The decision to scrap the current design has already been made. Tests are being conducted only for the data links, autonomous mode navigation etc.
Weight is not the only issue; the twin engines on wings is cause for much inefficiency. The new design will sport a single rear engine (like ALL successful drones in the world!). After having spent decades with the purchased Burt Ratan's design for Rustom I, it's inconceivable how some nutjobs in DRDO made the decision to build a bigger drone but with two engines!!

To put some specs in perspective:

Predator drone
- Powered by a single 115 hp engine!
- Empty weight of 0.5 tonne
- Armed with 2 Hellfire missiles

Rustom II will purportedly be
- Powered by 2x180hp engines. That's a whopping 360 hp thrust!
- Empty weight is close to 2 tonnes (may slim down a bit)
- Not sure if it'll can carry any missiles!

FIrstly, 2 engines don't cause inefficiency. If that was the case, all civil airliners would have engine behind the tail, either single or twin engine just like fighter planes.

This is Rustom-1

This is Rustom 2:

Do you see drastic difference between the two?

Why do you think DRDO developed Rustom 2 when Rustom 1 was working fine with single engine and was able to carry a load of 100kg (2 Helina)? MQ1 predator also does the same job. Israeli Heron is even worse and can't carry ammunition.

India has the design of Israeli Heron but yet chose to make this design and in enlarged manner. If lightweight was the criteria, there was no reason to give up on the Rustom 1 itself.

 

[Enquirer]

[QUOTE="Kshithij, post: 1422479, member: 24241"
FIrstly, 2 engines don't cause inefficiency. If that was the case, all civil airliners would have engine behind the tail, either single or twin engine just like fighter planes.

This is Rustom-1

This is Rustom 2:

Do you see drastic difference between the two?

Why do you think DRDO developed Rustom 2 when Rustom 1 was working fine with single engine and was able to carry a load of 100kg (2 Helina)? MQ1 predator also does the same job. Israeli Heron is even worse and can't carry ammunition.

India has the design of Israeli Heron but yet chose to make this design and in enlarged manner. If lightweight was the criteria, there was no reason to give up on the Rustom 1 itself.[/QUOTE]

Dude! There are things that you definitely don't know. It would best if you stopped commenting on those topics. You seem to be hell bent on spreading misinformation (based on your ignorant speculations) and continually embarrassing yourself!

Civil airlines and surveillance drones operate at very different speeds & optimize different things!
Surveillance drones are required to loiter for long hours at low speeds!

I am not going to be arguing with you on physics which you don't seem to understand - as you continually keep making inane comments!

 

[Rahul Singh]

This airframe is just too heavy. Someone needs to make the decision to scrap and start from scratch.

TAPAS design is not final. Right now ADE is experimenting with various designs. Weight optimisation will be carried out in progression. What we know for sure that in total 10 test vehicles will be produced. The last batch will be of production standards and those will feature twin-boom design.

 

[G10]

This rustam 2 design, engine takes up space for hard points. They could have done something like saras where engines are mounted on rear. Don’t know why would they do this unless they just had just recon in mind.

 

[Enquirer]

Predator drone powered by 900hp engine not 115 hp

I was clearly referring to Predator MQ1 not MQ9 Reaper (which is rarely called Predator!)
Also, MQ9 has a payload of 1.7 tonnes!!! (even LCH cannot carry that much!)

 

[patriots]

according to latest report DRDO is going to handover army rustom2 in 2019 for user trial .....

they are using different payload s with rustom2.....and all payload s are available with them
and there are 3 pv s till now ....

hope we will see some weapons too

 

[patriots]

sometimes I feel hale ucav s are better than attack helis

isn't it......

in future stealth ucav s will take place of attack helis
.............................................................

 

[Steven Rogers]

I was clearly referring to Predator MQ1 not MQ9 Reaper (which is rarely called Predator!)
Also, MQ9 has a payload of 1.7 tonnes!!! (even LCH cannot carry that much!)

In terms of payload in drones, that payload is also being shared by sensors. LCH has dry weight of 2250 kgees, and MTOW of 5800 kgees .

Sent from my Aqua Ace II using Tapatalk

 

[Enquirer]

In terms of payload in drones, that payload is also being shared by sensors. LCH has dry weight of 2250 kgees, and MTOW of 5800 kgees .

Sent from my Aqua Ace II using Tapatalk

US drones, when their empty weight is quoted INCLUDES the sensors! It's only the fuel/weapons that are quoted in payload or (MTOW minus Empty weight).

MQ9 has 1 900 hp engine, a range of 1800+kms & endurance of 14hrs (fully loaded)
LCH has 2x1382 hp engines, range of 550kms & endurance of 3hrs!!!!

 

[darshan978]

US drones, when their empty weight is quoted INCLUDES the sensors! It's only the fuel/weapons that are quoted in payload or (MTOW minus Empty weight).

MQ9 has 1 900 hp engine, a range of 1800+kms & endurance of 14hrs (fully loaded)
LCH has 2x1382 hp engines, range of 550kms & endurance of 3hrs!!!!

hey dumb u are comparing our lch with Armored plates on it, with your flying tin can mq-9 reaper don't fry my mind idiot think twice before commenting shit here

 

[Enquirer]

hey dumb u are comparing our lch with Armored plates on it, with your flying tin can mq-9 reaper don't fry my mind idiot think twice before commenting shit here

Hey a'hole! you were the one doing nonsensical comparisons - didn't even know the difference between MQ1 & MQ9!! Go go jrk off somewhere else!

 

[darshan978]

Hey a'hole! you were the one doing nonsensical comparisons - didn't even know the difference between MQ1 & MQ9!! Go go jrk off somewhere else!

oh really?? who dragged shitty us drones here ? with 0.5 ton mentioning wow was it me? and later dragging me to compare drone scroll back few pages shole now gtfo porki from here false flagger troll dowplaying every achivements of india

 

[darshan978]

US drones, when their empty weight is quoted INCLUDES the sensors! It's only the fuel/weapons that are quoted in payload or (MTOW minus Empty weight).

MQ9 has 1 900 hp engine, a range of 1800+kms & endurance of 14hrs (fully loaded)
LCH has 2x1382 hp engines, range of 550kms & endurance of 3hrs!!!!

what is this??.....................who is comparing lch with drone?? idiot

 

[Enquirer]

oh really?? who dragged shitty us drones here ? with 0.5 ton mentioning wow was it me? and later dragging me to compare drone scroll back few pages shole now gtfo porki from here false flagger troll dowplaying every achivements of india

If one doesn't compare an Indian drone with the most successful drone in the world, what else should one compare it against? You block head??

 

[darshan978]

If one doesn't compare an Indian drone with the most successful drone in the world, what else should one compare it against? You block head??

ohhhh most successful!!!!!!! according to u only.
its not proven at all its used against only terrorist with no air defence lol