ADA Tejas (LCA) News and Discussions

[happy]

Someone was talking about dog fights with Mig-29, Mirage-2000 etc.

Sorry, I haven't read the previous posts.

 

[Kunal Biswas]

Flight Simulator are much important as Real flight ..

Military flight simulators are not Child games for adults, These Simulators cost same as a fighter aircraft ..

If some one baiting that Military simulators are same as video games, Is perhaps immature or just trolling in Tejas thread ..

=======================

Every modern Fighter comes with flight simulators, So does Tejas ..

13. Simulators. It is important that maintenance and flight simulators are available to train the customer ground crew and aircrew. Based on the contract between the IAF and HAL, ADA did develop maintenance simulators. With the flight simulators, however, it was a strange story. While the ASR did envisage the requirement of a simulator before deployment, no such development was undertaken. Along with the contract for supply of aircraft, funds were allocated by the Government of India for a simulator to be built by HAL on 'Build, Operate and Maintain' (BOM) basis. This was a new concept and years were lost in deciding whether funding would be on the capital route or on the revenue route. As a result there would be no representative flight simulator available for use by the customer aircrew. The situation will be aggravated by the non availability of a trainer variant of the aircraft in the required time frame.

Source : http://www.livefistdefence.com/2013/02/lca-tejas-flight-test-chiefs-candid.html

 

[Decklander]

Normally a rookie pilot is never converted to topline ac sqns. We have initial operational sqns which today happen to be Mig-21bisons. Most fighter pilots join either them or Jag/Mig-27 sqns initially and after learning most of the tactics of aircombat, they are reclassified for Multirole or specific role ac types. Multirole guys go to Su-30s or M2K, Interception guys stay put in bisons or move over to Mig-29s. The strike guys stay put in Jags or Mig-27s. LCA will probably get Mig-21bison guys initially. Now taking an aircraft into dogfight needs a pilot to gain some exp on the ac to exploit its full potential and also to reach a stage where the ac starts talking to the pilot. LCA being FBW will allow a pilot to reach that stage rather early. If you are fully operational on one type then converting to another type needs a very short syllabus. Like we went solo on SH in just 10 hrs of simulator and five hrs of dual instructions. Now SH is a very tough and difficult ac. But once we go solo on it, the tactics are already known to us, we just check out the ac behavior in different difficult profiles like high alpha low speed, high speed high alpha, high G loading, turning performance and speed decay and in SH another factor was VIFFing(vectoring in forward flight). We used to get shore ops status very quickly but the deck ops status was long drawn out affair as we needed to do about 30 vertical landings on shore before we cud go on deck for day ops status followed by night ops status. But deck ops clearance was more about deck landings rather than actual operations clearance as we already have it on shore. Once you are in air, it does not matter whether you are over sea or over water and whether you have taken off from shore or deck, the tactics for combat remain same. In fact IAF guys were very scared to fly over sea but we felt rather comfortable over sea than land as we didn't have to bother about birds, trees/obstacles and high tension wires.

 

[rvjpheonix]

Normally a rookie pilot is never converted to topline ac sqns. We have initial operational sqns which today happen to be Mig-21bisons. Most fighter pilots join either them or Jag/Mig-27 sqns initially and after learning most of the tactics of aircombat, they are reclassified for Multirole or specific role ac types. Multirole guys go to Su-30s or M2K, Interception guys stay put in bisons or move over to Mig-29s. The strike guys stay put in Jags or Mig-27s. LCA will probably get Mig-21bison guys initially. Now taking an aircraft into dogfight needs a pilot to gain some exp on the ac to exploit its full potential and also to reach a stage where the ac starts talking to the pilot. LCA being FBW will allow a pilot to reach that stage rather early. If you are fully operational on one type then converting to another type needs a very short syllabus. Like we went solo on SH in just 10 hrs of simulator and five hrs of dual instructions. Now SH is a very tough and difficult ac. But once we go solo on it, the tactics are already known to us, we just check out the ac behavior in different difficult profiles like high alpha low speed, high speed high alpha, high G loading, turning performance and speed decay and in SH another factor was VIFFing(vectoring in forward flight). We used to get shore ops status very quickly but the deck ops status was long drawn out affair as we needed to do about 30 vertical landings on shore before we cud go on deck for day ops status followed by night ops status. But deck ops clearance was more about deck landings rather than actual operations clearance as we already have it on shore. Once you are in air, it does not matter whether you are over sea or over water and whether you have taken off from shore or deck, the tactics for combat remain same. In fact IAF guys were very scared to fly over sea but we felt rather comfortable over sea than land as we didn't have to bother about birds, trees/obstacles and high tension wires.

Sir how much time according to you will an lca squadron take to be operational in its true sense considering the similarity with mig 21?

 

[Decklander]

Sir how much time according to you will an lca squadron take to be operational in its true sense considering the similarity with mig 21?

About two yrs but it can start making appearances in fire power demonstrations within one year.

 

[CuriousBen]

About two yrs but it can start making appearances in fire power demonstrations within one year.

To p2prada. Thus my 1.5 years estimate is close enough if not 20 (t)years.

To Decklander : Good to read about your posts, Sir. By any chance have you had a chance to fly tejas ? Its reported that when Indian Navy SH pilots flew the Tejas, they found it very good to handle and mentioned it's a worthy aircraft.
What are your view about the pros and cons of OUR tejas ?.

 

[CuriousBen]

But the above unmanned flight capacity was achieved by ADA in its first combat fighter program. The entire fly by wire development was fully indigenous without even an iota of external help.

According to Kota Harinarayana the control laws based on which the fly by wire software developed for Tejas was so good, When a US test pilot used in to fly a USAF F-16 , It flew better with the Tejas control laws.

When did this test happen .Was it anywhere between 1994 and 1999 ?

Are there any other parameters of the successful tests that are can be shared ?

How costly was this test ? If the american's did find it useful, were they ok with the prospectus of further evaluation this technology and receiving this technology from us Indian's ?

 

[Decklander]

To p2prada. Thus my 1.5 years estimate is close enough if not 20 (t)years.

To Decklander : Good to read about your posts, Sir. By any chance have you had a chance to fly tejas ? Its reported that when Indian Navy SH pilots flew the Tejas, they found it very good to handle and mentioned it's a worthy aircraft.
What are your view about the pros and cons of OUR tejas ?.

I have never flown this ac as I had left IN even before the first ac was made.

 

[ersakthivel]

When did this test happen .Was it anywhere between 1994 and 1999 ?

Are there any other parameters of the successful tests that are can be shared ?

How costly was this test ? If the american's did find it useful, were they ok with the prospectus of further evaluation this technology and receiving this technology from us Indian's ?

It hasn't been done yet on tejas. But with full digital fly by wire tech it can be done.

 

[Decklander]

I am going against my own decision here to make a comment for the post #1497.
Any person with very basics of ac design and wing profiles associated with CP & CG will make out that F-35 & F-22 are probably not RSS ac but stable design wherein the pitch axis moment has been boosted by TVC. A look at the 42* wing sweep tells me depending on the location and cutaway of these ac that they are stable designs.
F-16 till blk-30 was RSS after that it is stable design. FBW is now available even in a $500k DA-42 ac. You can have FBW even for stable ac. I have over 2500 hrs on A-320 and that is a stable FBW pax ac. But do you know what happens when the FBW fails in that ac? It goes into direct law wherein the FBW computer cuts out of the system and it becomes Power-by-wire design. The ac becomes extremely responsive and a pilot can easily overload the airframe by his control inputs. The huge tailplane of F-22 & F-35 also makes it abundantly clear that they are stable designs. I had vowed not to get into arguments with those who lack the very basic knowledge of aerodynamics and have no knowledge of things they consider themselves to be experts on.
I am not a test pilot but my flying carear has made me fly nearly every type of ac which flies in earth's atmosphere from helicopters to fighters to vstol ac to turboprops to boeing737s and Airbus320 including piston engine like cessna-152/172. I have not flown a space shuttle as that is the only kind of machine left out of this line up. members can argue that I have flown only stable designs but they must know that first ever RSS ac was Sea Harrier and it was non FBW design which changed its stability based on nozzle angle.
Now coming to FBW and RSS. FBW controls are not gods gift, they only add a computer which compares pilots inputs vs the ac kinetic ability and accordingly gives best inputs to the controls. It is like a max rate unit in a brake system which prevents wheel lock due to braking as the max braking is encountered when wheels are still spining and not when the wheels are jammed. Now what happens is that this FBW design has limits laid down and the dumb computer does not allow exceedence. The net result is that even if the ac has sufficient kinetic energy, the FBW will not let it surpass other limiting parameters as happenned in Delhi longback when Wg. Cdr Bakshi died in a M2K crash as the FBW did not allow him to exceed 9G loads. It was calculated during the COI that an additional 0.5G wud have saved him. What you see as override to 11G in Rafale is an offshoot of that accident inquiry.
F-20 was a stable design but it had two crashes as its pilots died of G-LOC during displays due to high rate of onset of G forces as it pitched up very rapidly. Now we have RSS ac which need similar high G onset limiters to prevent pilots from dying of G-LOC.
FBW does have an advantage as it offers a pilot hands free control of the ac during combat. What do we mean by Hands free control?
In earlier ac, the flaps and slats had to be operated by the pilot himself to extract best perf from the ac during combat and it was quite a pain. I have flown Hunters which had this problem and under very high G loads at times we were not able to operate our flaps to number two position to get best low speed handling from the ac. The FBW has software written into it which allows automatic selction of slats and flaps to best position based on ac kinematic perf. This function in the FBW is controlled by the data from DADC(Digital air data computer) which gets feed from various sensors and is then sent to FAC(Flight Augmentation Computer) and EHAs(Electro-hydraulic Actuators) or EHSAs(Electro-hydraulic static actuators) to position the controls in best possible manner as desired by the pilot and as decided by the control laws built into the FBW computer.
All this shit like RSS has now been thrown out and new thing has emerged for stable design ac with very low stability margins based on Power-By-Wire tech which has removed the need to to have relaxed static shit and rely only on DADC,FAC,EHA/EHSA and new thing called DFDC(digital flight data computer). This computer now gives hands off flying ability to a stable design by getting data from DADC and based on AOA, Speed automatically deploys flaps and slats but it does not have power to over rule the pilot command inputs like a FBW.

 

[ersakthivel]

For eons many bud heads in this thread and in mainstream media kept on arguing that the tejas mk-1 has excess drag and failed to meet the even diluted ASR IAF.

In reality it is exceeding the original ASR set by IAF as mentioned by retired Air marshal MSD Woolen ,in many parameters like top speed Max take off weight and with best in class radar detection and tracking range

Now here is the slap in the face rebuttals who continued to ridicule Tejas mk-1 as obsolete and ADA as an obnoxious organization that was pursuing a meaningless fighter program.

Making of Super Tejas (MK-2) | idrw.org

Tejas MK-2 was born when Indian navy wanted a carrier fighter aircraft based on Tejas MK-1 air force variant, Navy wanted more powerful engines to care out carrier take off, Navy also wanted changes in Airframe for carrier role,

and

IAF sensing an opportunity that a new and better variant of Tejas can be developed based on Indian navy requirements, was quick to grab this opportunity and pressed for development of new variant, even when Tejas MK-1 was able to fulfil ASR of IAF.

I hope now those crooks who kept on bluffing that a couple of Mig-21 upgraded bisons can wipe out a squadron of Tejas mk-1 can permanently cool their heels, without wasting their " invaluable" time in continuing to bluff that Tejas mk-1 is just a tech demo unable to meet even the diluted IAF ASR.

The truth is laid bare in the link.

The Tejas mk-1 itself fulfills the IAF ASR and there is no harming in replacing all the elephant RCS Mig-21, 23, 27, 29 with this completely modern low RCS 120 Km tracking and detection range Tejas mk-1 .

So Ajai Shukla is right when he said that IAF is wasting time by not giving more orders for tejas mk-1 as tejas a 60 or 80 fighter orders for tejas mk-1 will give a reason for HAL to set up 20 a year Tejas production capacity leading to faster replacement of ever crashing Mig-21s with tejas mk-1.

But IAF os refusing to do so even when faced with such depleted obsolete fleet of 400 Migs endangering the life of young pilots on every take off and landing while unfairly blaming all the troubles of poorly designed MIGs on HAL.

There is a five year time gap between production of Tejas mk-1 and MK-2. Just because IAF gave a small 40 numbers as Tejas mk-1 orders HAl is setting up a production line with just 8 fighters a year.

If IAF gave orders for 60 or so Tejas mk-1s definitely HAL will set up 20 tejas fighters production per annum capacity production line for Tejas so that the prototypes of Tejas mk-2 can be speedily produced on this bigger capacity line leading to faster execution of Tejas mk-2 program also.

. Since Navy wanted a more powerful engined tejas mk-2 to carry more load in carrier role the Tejas mk-2 program started.

So Karthik's post in BHARATH RAKSHK forum saying that it was Navy which wanted a more powerful tejas to compensate for higher empty weight of naval tejas and more exacting demands of carrier role which led to

Tejas mk-2 is hundred percent correct,

and the whining and moaning of many impersonators posing as experts and technocrats writing stupid articles like three legged cheetah on tejas mk-1 and claiming that it was so under powered that it can not even meet the diluted IAf ASR is just a white lie.

 

[ersakthivel]

Use the ignore option like everyone else does. Works like a charm.

http://idrw.org/?p=21468

Tejas MK-2 was born when Indian navy wanted a carrier fighter aircraft based on Tejas MK-1 air force variant, Navy wanted more powerful engines to care out carrier take off, Navy also wanted changes in Airframe for carrier role,

and

IAF sensing an opportunity that a new and better variant of Tejas can be developed based on Indian navy requirements, was quick to grab this opportunity and pressed for development of new variant, even when Tejas MK-1 was able to fulfil ASR of IAF.

IS Tejas mk-1 under powered?

Are you going to answer or going to use the ignore option to charm every one here?

 

[Decklander]

@ersakhivel,
I had asked you many questions earlier and except for garbage you dished out nothing. Let me ask those questions again and let us have a fair & healthy debate if you may please.
1. Why has cranked delta design not been applied to anyother fighter tilldate including the latest stealth designs?
2. I have searched the net and cud not find any mention of RSS for F-22 & F-35, can you post the true picture?
3. What do you have to say about F-20 which had two crashes due to very high onset of G resulting in G-LOC of pilots.
4. 42* sweepback gives a particular point of MAC which is generally about 25% chord, the look at F-22 & F-35 airframe clearly shows that they are most likely stable designs. Pls compare the position of F-16 wing w.r.t to these fighters and also of highly swept designs like F-16XL, M2K & Tejas and pls tell me in which flight conditions will they be stable and in which they will be unstable?
5. Does an RSS ac remain RSS thruout its flight envelope?
If you can maintain the dignity for a healthy debate, I promise, I will respond with grace.

 

[Kunal Biswas]

To all members, do not use provocative language, let it be civil thread ..

Thank you ..

 

[happy]

Flight Simulator are much important as Real flight ..

Military flight simulators are not Child games for adults, These Simulators cost same as a fighter aircraft ..

If some one baiting that Military simulators are same as video games, Is perhaps immature or just trolling in Tejas thread ..

Yes Sir. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[ersakthivel]

I hope you know the diff between an Unstable and RSS ac. Do you know it? I am still waiting for the replies to my questions reproduced below.

1. Why has cranked delta design not been applied to anyother fighter tilldate including the latest stealth designs?

The primary advantage of the delta wing is that, with a large enough angle of rearward sweep, the wing's leading edge will not contact the shock wave boundary formed at the nose of the fuselage as the speed of the aircraft approaches and exceeds transonic to supersonic speed.

The rearward sweep angle vastly lowers the airspeed normal to the leading edge of the wing, thereby allowing the aircraft to fly at high subsonic, transonic, or supersonic speed, while the over wing speed of the lifting air is kept to less than the speed of sound.

The delta plan form gives the largest total wing area (generating useful lift) for the wing shape, with very low wing per-unit loading, permitting high maneuverability in the airframe. As the delta's platform carries across the entire aircraft, it can be built much more strongly than a swept wing, where the spar meets the fuselage far in front of the center of gravity.

Generally a delta will be stronger than a similar swept wing, as well as having much more internal volume for fuel and other storage.


Another advantage is that as the angle of attack increases, the leading edge of the wing generates a vortex which energizes the flow, giving the delta a very high stall angle] A normal wing built for high speed use is typically dangerous at low speeds,

but in this regime the delta changes over to a mode of lift based on the vortex it generates.

The disadvantages, especially marked in the older tailless delta designs, are a loss of total available lift caused by turning up the wing trailing edge or the control surfaces (as required to achieve a sufficient stability) and the high induced drag of this low-aspect ratio type of wing.

This causes delta-winged aircraft to 'bleed off' energy very rapidly in turns, a disadvantage in aerial maneuver combat and dogfighting. It also causes a reduction in lift at takeoff and landing until the correct angle of attack is achieved, this means that the rear undercarriage must be more strongly built than with a conventional wing.

All new non canard deltas have two angles on their wing for their vortice generation needs to offset," bleeding off" energy by attaching flow energizing vortices ti the wing area and produce a better lift to drag ratio. and aldo for lowering the landing speed.

The less swept angled wing part delays the onset of stall .

This is what we call cranked delta on Tejas and diamond shapeg wing in F-22 , cranked arrow in F-16 Xl. In Tejas the less swept wing at the wing root enables lift inducing vortices to be generated so that it gets a better lift to drag ratio. Even FGFA will have the same two angles wing front shape of Tejas viewed from the top

2. I have searched the net and cud not find any mention of RSS for F-22 & F-35, can you post the true picture?

JUST HOW GOOD IS THE F-22 RAPTOR? Carlo Kopp interviews F-22 Chief Test Pilot, Paul Metz

Carlo Kopp interviews F-22 Chief Test Pilot, Paul Metz

Kopp:

You are on record as describing the F-22A to be 'as easy to fly as a Cessna 150'. Knowing how over-damped the 150 is in all axes, the tempting question here is what is the damping like in the various modes of the F-22A's fly-by-wire control system? Can you comment on FBW behaviour in different flight regimes, and how this appears to the pilot?

Metz:

Some days I wish I had never made that comment about the Cessna 150 and the ease of flying the F-22. I've had about a million applications since then so I need to get the word out through your publication. Here it is: "sorry folks, we're all sold out."

Seriously, the handling qualities are actually better than a light aircraft since we have an active control system that damps out unwanted disturbances to the flight path. Where a Cessna bounces in turbulence the Raptor rides smoothly. The sensation in the cockpit is of a more direct connection to the airplane - a very solid link between man and machine. Quantitatively, the F-22 is well damped in all axes (the technical term is 'heavily damped'). Since the Raptor is also an unstable airplane it requires very little control deflection to start it moving in a new direction. The combination of unstable airframe with a digital, fly-by-wire flight control system gives a cat-like quickness but very predictable and pleasant flying qualities.

3. What do you have to say about F-20 which had two crashes due to very high onset of G resulting in G-LOC of pilots.

Ask the program manager.

4. 42* sweepback gives a particular point of MAC which is generally about 25% chord, the look at F-22 & F-35 airframe clearly shows that they are most likely stable designs. Pls compare the position of F-16 wing w.r.t to these fighters and also of highly swept designs like F-16XL, M2K & Tejas and pls tell me in which flight conditions will they be stable and in which they will be unstable?

RSS is about the relative position of Center Of Gravity and Center of lift as far as I know, Please give link for your claims on link between sweep back angle and RSS.

F-22 is unstable read proof above

they remain RSS in the close combat trans sonic dog fight part of their flight profile only.

Once they go supersonic the center of flight goes back and they become stable and less agile than when they were in trans sonic close combat flight envelope

5. Does an RSS ac remain RSS thruout its flight envelope?

No. But they remain RSS in the close combat trans sonic dog fight part of their flight profile only.

Once they go supersonic the center of flight goes back and they become stable and less agile than when they were in trans sonic close combat flight envelope.

That's fair reply I hope.

 

[rvjpheonix]

@ersakhivel we are once again getting to the same point where we stopped last time. can you pls tell what is the relationship between wingloading, AOA, rate of turn and radius of turn. Once you do that, re-read what you have posted above.
Lastly RSS & Unstable for you maybe same, but for people who know aerodynamics, these are two very different kind of stabilities. Read anybook on aerodynamics and you will know how diff they are. An unstable ac can be controlled by conventional controls but RSS will need FBW.

Sir I understood what is a rss flight proflie but what is an unstable flight profile? And lastly what do you think about the lca and is it worth the effort. Do you believe in the approach of getting the best stuff out there and making tactics or making tactics from the best available to you? which is better? And according to you what numbers should we induct the tejas in?

 

[Decklander]

Sir I understood what is a rss flight proflie but what is an unstable flight profile? And lastly what do you think about the lca and is it worth the effort. Do you believe in the approach of getting the best stuff out there and making tactics or making tactics from the best available to you? which is better? And according to you what numbers should we induct the tejas in?

Unstable ac has its CG behind the CP in all phases of flight so it tends to pitch up always.
LCA is a great design which is under exploited due to the fixation of its designers. This ac can be made as good as Rafale or even better if ADA sheds its fixation with size. IMHO LCA will realise its true potential if its length is increased to say 14.5m which will create more space for avionics and fuel and it gets a 11ton engine (108KN). They must insert a section at the rear to make it unstable from RSS as that will give it outstanding takeoff perf and also even better combat agility. these shud be rather easy to include considering it is already a RSS FBW design.

I have a feeling that N-LCA will be one such Unstable design as the increase in weight due to tailhook and heavier landing gear will shift its CG further aft.

 

[CuriousBen]

Unstable ac has its CG behind the CP in all phases of flight so it tends to pitch up always.
LCA is a great design which is under exploited due to the fixation of its designers. This ac can be made as good as Rafale or even better if ADA sheds its fixation with size. IMHO LCA will realise its true potential if its length is increased to say 14.5m which will create more space for avionics and fuel and it gets a 11ton engine (108KN). They must insert a section at the rear to make it unstable from RSS as that will give it outstanding takeoff perf and also even better combat agility. these shud be rather easy to include considering it is already a RSS FBW design.

I have a feeling that N-LCA will be one such Unstable design as the increase in weight due to tailhook and heavier landing gear will shift its CG further aft.

Decklander Sir, what would you comment about the following.

(1) Is the LCA tejas good enough to substitute the entire fleet of MIG 21's ?
If yes , for mk-1, would you support the IAF decision to go with merely 40 aircrafts only ?
If no, why ?
What's the figure you have in your mind for number of lca tejas mk1 i.e. 0, 40, 80 , 150 , 200 ?
Design discussion apart, let us wait for the report card of its own benchmark , and then its comparative evaluation against multiple aircraft.
I wont mind if it has X design, Y design, as long as it can defend the
Skies from any type of enemy aircraft ( similar or dissimilar design), then the effort is worth it.

(2) Does Tejas Mk2 fullfill your desire of a better aircraft ?


(3) The 108 KN engine is dream as of now. I dont see it happening it this year or in 2014. Or maybe even in 2016. Whay would you be optimistic about it ?

If you were the program manager for the lca tejas, what would you do to ensure that the aircraft becomes
(a) true to all its expectation ( or surpasses) quicker
(b) plan for the next variants fast
(c) has a high indigenous contents
(d) get the kaveri engine
(e) economical
(f) protect it from internal as well as external enemies

 

[Decklander]

Decklander Sir, what would you comment about the following.

(1) Is the LCA tejas good enough to substitute the entire fleet of MIG 21's ?
If yes , for mk-1, would you support the IAF decision to go with merely 40 aircrafts only ?
If no, why ?
What's the figure you have in your mind for number of lca tejas mk1 i.e. 0, 40, 80 , 150 , 200 ?
Design discussion apart, let us wait for the report card of its own benchmark , and then its comparative evaluation against multiple aircraft.
I wont mind if it has X design, Y design, as long as it can defend the
Skies from any type of enemy aircraft ( similar or dissimilar design), then the effort is worth it.

(2) Does Tejas Mk2 fullfill your desire of a better aircraft ?


(3) The 108 KN engine is dream as of now. I dont see it happening it this year or in 2014. Or maybe even in 2016. Whay would you be optimistic about it ?

If you were the program manager for the lca tejas, what would you do to ensure that the aircraft becomes
(a) true to all its expectation ( or surpasses) quicker
(b) plan for the next variants fast
(c) has a high indigenous contents
(d) get the kaveri engine
(e) economical
(f) protect it from internal as well as external enemies

Ans-1, Yes LCA is far superior to Mig-21 which it will replace. IAF shud buy them in large numbers and I fail to understand the order of just 40 ac when IAF operates over 250 Mig-21s. Even if we count the 99 F414INS6 engines, the total is less than the fleet of Mig-21s which they plan to replace. Seems IAF plans to import some more ac and kill LCA somehow or the other. They wud have succeeded had it not been for IN which forced them to rethink.
Ans-2, Yes and I love it as It is Indian design.

Ans-3, The real rating of F414INS6 is 108Kn but for some reason HAL went for 98KN. IN wants 118KN from this engine.
Ans-4, I have already posted what I think is needed in LCA MK2 to make it better and surpass all expectations. IMHO even MK2 is not capable of fully exploiting of the potential of LCA design.

No one protect you if your own wife wants to kill you who sleeps in your bed. LCA needs to be saved from only IAF as they are ones who are going to fly it. So who will save LCA from IAF?