ADA Tejas (LCA) News and Discussions

[abirbec04]

Anybody can throw light on the status of the LSP 5 test flights? Are the avionics totally integrated along with night vision and competent radar systems? Are we on-time for IOC?

Gurus commenting would be helpful.

 

[Godless-Kafir]

Which aircraft will take the honor will be decided soon and Kaveri engine will fly on board a Tejas Air frame by early 2011 or some time later in the year

Note: Vinayak shetty is admin of

Will it not be better to test the engine on a twin engine aircraft, instead of a single engine airframe which is risky in case it fails? I thought using one of the decommissioned Mig-25s for tests would be a good idea. Mig-25 can fly at very high altitudes and incase the Kaveri has problems in mid air you still have one more engine to bring it down safely, considering that old russian engine can be still made to work well.

P.S. The link does not work.

 

[neo29]

Kaveri was rejected for the first lot of LCA coz it was underpowered. But so is Ge 404. IAF accepted it. We might as well fitted Kaveri instead of GE 404

 

[Godless-Kafir]

Does anyone know if we can use carbon fiber for engine blades in the kaveri instead of metals like single crystal technology? Carbon Fiber is used in race car brakes which seem to take a lot of heat and load. If not the compressor stage and exhaust spools atleast the 4 intake spools and the core can be made of Carbon fiber to reduce weight?

Any gurus can talk about this?

 

[Mustang]

Does anyone know if we can use carbon fiber for engine blades in the kaveri instead of metals like single crystal technology? Carbon Fiber is used in race car brakes which seem to take a lot of heat and load. If not the compressor stage and exhaust spools atleast the 4 intake spools and the core can be made of Carbon fiber to reduce weight?

Any gurus can talk about this?

Nice nick you have got there:happy_8:..I can think of 3 answers

1. From what I understand if i imagine a fan blade made of carbon composites, is how difficult it must be to manufacture it, that too it must be suitable for batch production. A jet engine fan blade is inclined / rotated in all the three axis (tri-axial inclination if you can call it) when you consider cartesian co-ordinate system. Manufacturing such a component with carbon composites must be difficult. In an aircraft like LCA, i think surface panels or components which do not possess complicate shapes have been made using composites.

2. Moreover, predicting the behavior of a single crystal blade or any metal at such high centrifugal loads as in jet engine is more easier when compared to carbon composite blade. Just because it is a known fact that carbon composites are more stronger than a metal, it cannot be used to make a jet engine without predicting how it is going to behave in such a harsh environment.

3. Composites 'delaminate' under the application of cyclic loads and impacts.

 

[Mustang]

Kaveri was rejected for the first lot of LCA coz it was underpowered. But so is Ge 404. IAF accepted it. We might as well fitted Kaveri instead of GE 404

As far as i recall, the issue lied with manufacturing single crystal blades for the engine. Making it in a lab is one thing, installing /importing / manufacturing machinery to manufacture those blades for production is different. Another reason being kaveri was not just underpowered, but a similar / same powered foreign engine weighed less.

 

[Godless-Kafir]

Nice nick you have got there:happy_8:..I can think of 3 answers

1. From what I understand if i imagine a fan blade made of carbon composites, is how difficult it must be to manufacture it, that too it must be suitable for batch production. A jet engine fan blade is inclined / rotated in all the three axis (tri-axial inclination if you can call it) when you consider cartesian co-ordinate system. Manufacturing such a component with carbon composites must be difficult. In an aircraft like LCA, i think surface panels or components which do not possess complicate shapes have been made using composites.

2. Moreover, predicting the behavior of a single crystal blade or any metal at such high centrifugal loads as in jet engine is more easier when compared to carbon composite blade. Just because it is a known fact that carbon composites are more stronger than a metal, it cannot be used to make a jet engine without predicting how it is going to behave in such a harsh environment.

3. Composites 'delaminate' under the application of cyclic loads and impacts.

1) I can understand the complexity of molding it that to most of it has to be done by hand but we can at least build the entry guide blades in carbon fiber along with the shell which seems to be in Aluminum alloy.

2) Formula one car brake discs which go through high strain do not seem to give way at high temperature and centrifugal force. Off course the Rpm in a jet engine would be far higher but it would be worth testing?

3) De-lamination occurs when the bonding process is done badly and the atoms do not fuse, once its has fused and becomes a mono structure then delamation is not possible?

 

[Mustang]

2) Formula one car brake discs which go through high strain do not seem to give way at high temperature and centrifugal force. Off course the Rpm in a jet engine would be far higher but it would be worth testing?

It is not just RPM. Any change in RPM will magnify the centrifugal force to the power of 2. Even mass and radius of a jet engine is way higher in case of jet engine. So higher mass, RPM and radius will magnify the centrifugal force / area. It must be like a single blade in a jet engine will experience tonnes of load.

3) De-lamination occurs when the bonding process is done badly and the atoms do not fuse, once its has fused and becomes a mono structure then delamation is not possible?

Dont know in depth about composites. But still considering the kind of load experienced by a blade, i am not sure whether the adhesive force in that bonding is sufficient to withstand it. Also, as i mentioned if loads are cyclic in nature composites delaminate and in impact loads like bird hit, composites are supposed to delaminate.

 

[rakesh]

When this bird(LSP-5) fly in Indian sky?

 

[nrj]

Why DRDO is even holding tender? ELTA will be clearly the only partner for Indian AESA. 2052 will be tailored with some other developments. EADS doesn't have any advanced AESA which can be incorporated in LCA post-2016.

What is more surprising is Thales & Selex were rejected in first shortlisting. Thales could have been competitive as per with Elta. Even Selex has more experience & resources than EADS IMO.

DRDO is unnecessarily delaying the entire process.

 

[Agantrope]

Why DRDO is even holding tender? ELTA will be clearly the only partner for Indian AESA. 2052 will be tailored with some other developments. EADS doesn't have any advanced AESA which can be incorporated in LCA post-2016.

What is more surprising is Thales & Selex were rejected in first shortlisting. Thales could have been competitive as per with Elta. Even Selex has more experience & resources than EADS IMO.

DRDO is unnecessarily delaying the entire process.

On Thales, They dont want the french to relly screw us yet again. Selex is simply a *ss h*le, too much commitment but no delivery (Gripen, EF). So only choice is the Elta

 

[Godless-Kafir]

Does anyone know what is the Radar that our ADA manufactured? Is it a PESA?

 

[nrj]

On Thales, They dont want the french to relly screw us yet again. Selex is simply a *ss h*le, too much commitment but no delivery (Gripen, EF). So only choice is the Elta

Sri can you please elaborate on bolded part?

Selex-Galileo is doing much better work than EADS at least. Non-delivery issues exist due to lack of funds at EFT & Saab.

 

[Tshering22]

Hasn't ELTA been chosen already to supply ELM3052 AESA radars for Tejas Mk-2? DRDO and their dodo laboratories are upto their sarkari delay games again to show the world how complex procedures they have. LOL. When will they learn that as long as they don't deliver, no one give them a jackhorse!? Israel has far superior electronics, radars and avionics technology than anything Europe has to offer right now. In fact, Israel already had a working AESA while Thales is still working on one for Rafale.

Why not just directly ask the Israelis to start the supply rather than waste time on Sarkari cr@p procedures? Guess transforming DRDO into a private organization with a government supervision is the only way to end its stupid bureaucratic procedures of doing things.:emot180:

 

[JHA]

If Israel starts supplying radars directly how will DRDO call it a JV...

 

[rocky2]

Can anyone post few pictures of LCA with fully armed. Also enlighten me about the maximum hardpoints it can takeoff with. Wat abt the external drop tanks/fuel storage, does it have more fuel storage capacity than JF17... Also advice which engine wud they go for the MK-II version, is it EJ200 or GE404. Does it have TVC capability like MKI, also heard that they have to reconfigure the airframe since the engine is bigger for the MK-II version.

 

[vijay jagannathan]

when is the LSP 5 due to be flightested? its going to comeout with a reconfigured cokpit and hopefully the entire flight envelope will be opened up. Tejas has only touched 1.1 mach as of date. will it be able to do mach 2? the wiki says so.

 

[vijay jagannathan]

which fighters are currently using the F404 engines around the world?

 

[Agantrope]

when is the LSP 5 due to be flightested? its going to comeout with a reconfigured cokpit and hopefully the entire flight envelope will be opened up. Tejas has only touched 1.1 mach as of date. will it be able to do mach 2? the wiki says so.

Mach 1.1 in the sea level

 

[luckyy]

which fighters are currently using the F404 engines around the world?

T-50 , the South Korean jet trainer..............