ADA Tejas (LCA) News and Discussions

[Kunal Biswas]

Prototypes here at question not production variants, If prototypes would`nt cleared of basic parameters wont be seeing production variants now ..

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Its better to keep national pride at home, Get you basics and facts right before knee jerking ..

Tejas is a multi-role light fighter where as EF-2000 is a medium class multi-role fighter, There are class of aircraft that has to be taken on first place before starting a piss measuring competitions ..

And this thread is not for that purpose, Its meant for only news and discussion of Tejas and just Tejas ..

A practical modern fighter has life of 6000 hours or more. An aircraft can easily do 200 hours or more in one year.

I feel it will be mostly used as an attack aircraft with su30 or mig29 in air superiority roles. The secondary role is air defence for less strategic areas where more capable fighters are not needed.

I second the idea. Any light combat aircraft like Tejas or BAE HAWK 200 are good for quick interception or reconnaissance missions.

Sent from my SM-G920I using Tapatalk

If my english don't pleased to you, you know where you can put it, my english??? .....

With the record of HAL, don't expect to match eurofighter.
Even if I'm convinced Rafale globally much better than EF, it remains EF is a good AtoA fighter. And Airbus engineers are far from being noobs. Just see Airbus success....

Give me just one top HAL product? Tejas is on the drawing board for how many times ? the answer is cruel.... but it's a fact.

 

[Kunal Biswas]

Full testing mode this month,

Shared by @Abhishek Shrivastava

 

[Chinmoy]

Your calculations pit the GE 404 47kn as the cruise consumption where as thrust is needed only during acceleration, the thrust consumption numbers shared above are the after burner numbers the actual average consumption numbers change based on the type of mission.

1 hour total thrust as you mentioned is more likely the case of interceptor role where you have to be quick to intercept and destroy, but this could very well be extended to 90-120 mins if the mission is air support for other bombers.

Note: I am a newbie here, so if you feel what I am saying is off the target please bear with me and guide me with your understanding.

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@SilverSabre , thanks for this sane point which you have raised. What ever fuel consumption rate I've posted is regarding GE-F404-402 engine. Tejas does have a higher thrust IN20 version. Now lets see the comparison in between these two engine.

http://www.geaviation.com/engines/docs/military/datasheet-F404-Family.pdf

As you could see that the physical measurement wise, both the engines are same. The only difference is the higher air intake in IN20. Higher air intake means higher pressure buildup and higher thrust, but it doesn't mean that the fuel consumption would go down. Now in the link which I posted earlier the consumption during Dry Thrust has been given as ......

F404-GE-402: 82,6 kg/kN h = 4.039 kg/h.

Now offcourse the thrust produced during take off would be much more then that during cruise. But then too it would have to provide the minimum static thrust, which for 404 is 47 kN.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Electric_F404

Now all these calculation does stand only during a normal clean configuration flight i.e. without any drop tanks or ammunition.

 

[Chinmoy]

@Chinmoy you are reading some blog and reaching wrong conclusions.

You keep on pressing your points despite not having good knowledge.

Please lose your attitude.

A practical modern fighter has life of 6000 hours or more. An aircraft can easily do 200 hours or more in one year.

@garg_bharat I presume that you are too busy and don't have enough time to go through what has been posted and what had been written. I seriously want to believe that you keep yourself too busy because if its not so, then you do have some serious blockade and you know where.

What ever I've written, I've posted the relative link for support. Kindly take out time from you busy schedule to do the same.

Moreover if you could take out some few minutes from your too much busy schedule please go through the quote against which I've posted my thoughts. And for your kind information, no where I denied that an aircraft can't do 200 hrs of flight time in a year. For gods sake, we have 8760 hrs in one year and it could do 6000 hrs in one single year itself.

Moreover no where I denied that it can't do more then 1000 hrs of flight time in its service life. I only said that if the service life of Tejas is limited to 1000 hrs, then too it would remain in service for next 10 yrs.

 

[Chinmoy]

I have a trick question here. India made 147 Maruts with 18 trainers. Aerodynamically it was said Marut's frame could bear the stress of high speeds, but due to availability of only limited performance Orpheus engines it used to limit to the transonic speeds of 1,100 km/s. Can't we retrofit the remaining Maruts with GE 404 and upgrade avionics and other equipments which we make for Tejas and get them up again.

We have the frames with us even if 20 survived till date, it will give some cushion till we build the required Tejas numbers??

Note : Orpheus had only 25 KN thrust and GE 404 has almost double of that.

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A novel thought. But the thing here is perspective and need. India needs a forth gen fighter and by developing tejas it had stepped into forth+ arena. But by retro fitting Marut, it would step where it was in Mig-21 era. Moreover up hauling Marut with all the basic modern avionics and system computer would be another time and resource consuming practice with nothing significant outcome.

 

[SilverSabre]

I beg to differ, or at least I can provide one of the pilot testimonial about the relative performance of HF 24. Yes in 1971 war the results shown by Marut were mediocre, but that's because of the engines supplied to it. I have come across a few testimonials by pilots where they have highlighted that twin engine design did helped quite a few pilots to return to the base safe and in some cases even with Orpheus the plane gave the performance of more than 600 Kn at low altitudes, means the airframe was very much ahead of it's time.

Below is the link of one of then pilots giving a feedback as recently as 2011 while commemorating 50 years of first flight of Marut.


Where as MiG 21 airframe can't handle too powerful engines. Kurt Tank's design was among the ones to compete with other market operators for that Mach 2 craze in late 1950s. So He did designed a frame that could stand the stress.

Now let's come to comparison with Tejas. MK1.
Marut - http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=366
Tejas - http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=861

There are 4 major drivers for any aircraft's performance

1. Airframe endurance (This includes stress tolerance which defines the max speed for that air frame, and stealth features)
2. Engine Endurance
3. Avionics (Including Radar and other Electronics)
4. Weapon's Scalability

I agree Airframe stealth wise Marut was inferior as it was a metal body as compared to Tejas's enforced Carbon Fiber, which adds inherent stealth feature to Tejas which will be lacking in Marut, but max speed and aerodynamics wise Marut is pretty much the first Light Combat aircraft India made (Check above structural stats). But rest 3 points are all upgradable, adaptable and scalable for HAL after their experience in Tejas.

Now It will always be better than MiG 21 if retrofitted with New engines and newer radars and avionics, that software is Indian adaptation of Israeli software, we can scale it the way we want.

Point I am making is Marut's frames are available and Tejas's frames would be developed. It can reduce the cycle time of time to production. The best example of such upgrades is Hawker Hunter, though it came in 1950s but Swiss Air flew it as recent as 2007 with upgrades done in 1990s.

Why not add Marut to Make in India story?

Note: Apologies admin for the long post here but I didn't find any topic on Marut and don't have point to start a separate topic for it.

 

[garg_bharat]

@Chinmoy, it is not only me alone who have pointed the flaws in your posts. But you still continue on the same line.

Your calculation of flight time is flawed. No aircraft flies with max thrust all the time. The flight time and fuel consumption of a fighter are highly variable and depend on flight profile. One variable you missed completely is use of afterburners which is common in even training flights.

LCA can fly for about two hours in a simple airliner type flight, that is fly at cruise height.

But an intercept mission or low level attack mission will severely curtail flight time.

A typical training flight may be about 40 minutes and it may include maneuvers needed for a specific task

 

[Chinmoy]

I beg to differ, or at least I can provide one of the pilot testimonial about the relative performance of HF 24. Yes in 1971 war the results shown by Marut were mediocre, but that's because of the engines supplied to it. I have come across a few testimonials by pilots where they have highlighted that twin engine design did helped quite a few pilots to return to the base safe and in some cases even with Orpheus the plane gave the performance of more than 600 Kn at low altitudes, means the airframe was very much ahead of it's time.

Below is the link of one of then pilots giving a feedback as recently as 2011 while commemorating 50 years of first flight of Marut.


Where as MiG 21 airframe can't handle too powerful engines. Kurt Tank's design was among the ones to compete with other market operators for that Mach 2 craze in late 1950s. So He did designed a frame that could stand the stress.

Now let's come to comparison with Tejas. MK1.
Marut - http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=366
Tejas - http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=861

There are 4 major drivers for any aircraft's performance

1. Airframe endurance (This includes stress tolerance which defines the max speed for that air frame, and stealth features)
2. Engine Endurance
3. Avionics (Including Radar and other Electronics)
4. Weapon's Scalability

I agree Airframe stealth wise Marut was inferior as it was a metal body as compared to Tejas's enforced Carbon Fiber, which adds inherent stealth feature to Tejas which will be lacking in Marut, but max speed and aerodynamics wise Marut is pretty much the first Light Combat aircraft India made (Check above structural stats). But rest 3 points are all upgradable, adaptable and scalable for HAL after their experience in Tejas.

Now It will always be better than MiG 21 if retrofitted with New engines and newer radars and avionics, that software is Indian adaptation of Israeli software, we can scale it the way we want.

Point I am making is Marut's frames are available and Tejas's frames would be developed. It can reduce the cycle time of time to production. The best example of such upgrades is Hawker Hunter, though it came in 1950s but Swiss Air flew it as recent as 2007 with upgrades done in 1990s.

Why not add Marut to Make in India story?

Note: Apologies admin for the long post here but I didn't find any topic on Marut and don't have point to start a separate topic for it.

Ofcourse you are right regarding the Airframe and Endurance. But think about the over hauling you have to go through in avionics and flight control alone. Do you think its scalable economically for India? Moreover if Marut could be considered for it, then why not Mig-21's? Structure wise they are superior to any of its contemporaries.
In case of Hawker Hunter, it has been a gradual and consistent effort. Moreover Hunter has been used extensively during 1971 instead of Marut. For survivality of any aircraft you would have to look into the preference of user also. And preference of IAF and Swiss are ofcourse world apart.

 

[Chinmoy]

@Chinmoy, it is not only me alone who have pointed the flaws in your posts. But you still continue on the same line.

Your calculation of flight time is flawed. No aircraft flies with max thrust all the time. The flight time and fuel consumption of a fighter are highly variable and depend on flight profile. One variable you missed completely is use of afterburners which is common in even training flights.

LCA can fly for about two hours in a simple airliner type flight, that is fly at cruise height.

But an intercept mission or low level attack mission will severely curtail flight time.

A typical training flight may be about 40 minutes and it may include maneuvers needed for a specific task

Please take a note of what I've written....

Now all these calculation does stand only during a normal clean configuration flight i.e. without any drop tanks or ammunition.

My calculation is of producing 47kN which is the static thrust produced by the engine not the max thrust.
F404-GE-402: 82,6 kg/kN h = 4.039 kg/h.
http://www.geaviation.com/engines/docs/military/datasheet-F404-Family.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Electric_F404

 

[Rahul Singh]

Full testing mode this month,

Shared by @Abhishek Shrivastava

This is the time when Naval prototypes were in goa. So that means one thing and one thing only; a lot of tests at SBTF.

Launches or ski jumps for sure. Not sure if they undertook wire trapping.

 

[tejas warrior]

Full testing mode this month,

Shared by @Abhishek Shrivastava

Why we are not hearing on BVR missile integration and refueling probe integration.

 

[SilverSabre]

Why we are not hearing on BVR missile integration and refueling probe integration.

@tejas warrior the Air to air refuelling probe is now in progress of being added to Tejas. Please refer below link for your reference.

http://english.mathrubhumi.com/news...efueling-probe-on-tejas-english-news-1.924537

 

[garg_bharat]

Why we are not hearing on BVR missile integration and refueling probe integration.

Isn't Israeli Derby missile selected already?

This integration may be part of 1a. I think first block of 20 aircrafts is built to IOC-2 standard. It may have only WVR missile.

They are modifying one or more aircraft to 1a standard which should be used to prove additional capability.

 

[Rahul Singh]

Why we are not hearing on BVR missile integration and refueling probe integration.

See there is complete cool down in IAF's category. Which at this point only means, a lot of ground work.

BTW at present in test vehicles for IAF version are LSP-4,7,8. While LSP-4 has just received new radome. LSP-8 has been reported to be undergoing IFR integration, LSP-7 must be undergoing rearrangemt of avionics and electronics.

 

[tejas warrior]

Please tell me this is Bullshit..

Will India surrender its LCA-Tejas to Swedish firm SAAB

Ministry of defence (MoD) has set a deadline of 2018 for state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in developing Upgraded Tejas MK-1A which will come with new Active Electrically Scanned Array (AESA) Radar, Unified Electronic Warfare (EW) Suite, mid-air refuelling capacity and beyond the vision range missiles and easy on Maintenance . HAL on other hand wants to rope in Makers of Gripen fighter jet Swedish company “SAAB” to help in develop new upgraded LCA-Tejas in less than two years for which Indian Air Force has a requirement for 80 + aircraft . Swedish company SAAB for long has been insisting on a government-to-government (G2G) deal for their assistance with India in developing and manufacturing a light fighter. SAAB in the previous negotiation had informed India that it wants to set up a Joint venture with HAL for which it has asked for majority shareholding over 50% making it Major Partner in the Company . India in past has rejected such demand but HAL for long has been asking Government of India to work out a Government 2 Government deal to allow it to set up a JV in India . Any JV with SAAB with them specified has a major partner will mean India’s LCA Tejas will become their product and with India’s plans to manufacture nearly 300 LCA-Tejas aircraft to replace Mig-21s , SAAB will be ensured of a steady supply of Royalties and Income from LCA-Tejas Production line in India . HAL also has failed to disclose why it needs SAAB’s Help in the development of Tejas MK-1A and what area of work will be awarded to SAAB in the development of upgraded LCA-Tejas . IAF has asked for over 40 modifications in Tejas MK-1A but many of them can be done in house but it seems deadline for less than 2 years is allowing SAAB to get a favorable deal on its side .

http://idrw.org/will-india-surrender-its-lca-tejas-to-swedish-firm-saab/#more-93820

 

[tsunami]

^^^ You are right it is pure bullshit.

 

[garg_bharat]

Will India surrender its LCA-Tejas to Swedish firm SAAB

There is nothing wrong in taking help. It is likely buying some components of Gripen and some consultancy.

 

[Zebra]

Please tell me this is Bullshit..

Will India surrender its LCA-Tejas to Swedish firm SAAB
.......................

Doesn't makes sense.

They should keep SAAB work on its own or let them make some JV with private company.

And keep HAL as PSU and divide it as separate company based on products .
Like helicopters , trainer aircrafts , fighter and big passenger aircrafts.

My two cents.

 

[rohit b3]

Please tell me this is Bullshit..

Will India surrender its LCA-Tejas to Swedish firm SAAB

Ministry of defence (MoD) has set a deadline of 2018 for state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in developing Upgraded Tejas MK-1A which will come with new Active Electrically Scanned Array (AESA) Radar, Unified Electronic Warfare (EW) Suite, mid-air refuelling capacity and beyond the vision range missiles and easy on Maintenance . HAL on other hand wants to rope in Makers of Gripen fighter jet Swedish company “SAAB” to help in develop new upgraded LCA-Tejas in less than two years for which Indian Air Force has a requirement for 80 + aircraft . Swedish company SAAB for long has been insisting on a government-to-government (G2G) deal for their assistance with India in developing and manufacturing a light fighter. SAAB in the previous negotiation had informed India that it wants to set up a Joint venture with HAL for which it has asked for majority shareholding over 50% making it Major Partner in the Company . India in past has rejected such demand but HAL for long has been asking Government of India to work out a Government 2 Government deal to allow it to set up a JV in India . Any JV with SAAB with them specified has a major partner will mean India’s LCA Tejas will become their product and with India’s plans to manufacture nearly 300 LCA-Tejas aircraft to replace Mig-21s , SAAB will be ensured of a steady supply of Royalties and Income from LCA-Tejas Production line in India . HAL also has failed to disclose why it needs SAAB’s Help in the development of Tejas MK-1A and what area of work will be awarded to SAAB in the development of upgraded LCA-Tejas . IAF has asked for over 40 modifications in Tejas MK-1A but many of them can be done in house but it seems deadline for less than 2 years is allowing SAAB to get a favorable deal on its side .

http://idrw.org/will-india-surrender-its-lca-tejas-to-swedish-firm-saab/#more-93820

I remember when Saurav Jha tweeted "Gripen Lobby is getting active again, expect Tejas bashing articles soon"

 

[Zebra]

I remember when Saurav Jha tweeted "Gripen Lobby is getting active again, expect Tejas bashing articles soon"

Friggin idiots, now they find Gripen lobby in it.

And ask that SJha, what he says about IAF's Su-30 scam.......!


__________________________________________________________

Btw Sir, please do me a favour, I supported Gripen since I joined this forum. :biggrin2:

Kindly tell me where the hell those "Gripen Lobby" guys are, tell me their contact number too, if you can.

I may try to contact them and get my share.

Trust me I won't let it go as it is.