ADA Tejas (LCA) News and Discussions

[Suryavanshi]

Mk2 will be much more similar to NLCA to have greater aerodynamic effect an stability.
Hence to design it with IAF specifications it takes more time to freeze the design.

Any info about AESA radar for MK2, I heard somewhere that it was close to completion.

 

[TPFscopes]

Any info about AESA radar for MK2, I heard somewhere that it was close to completion.

UTTAM AESA integration is underway that will be followed with airborne test in coming months....
Lab tests are already completed with decent results....

 

[Vijyes]

UTTAM AESA integration is underway that will be followed with airborne test in coming months....
Lab tests are already completed with decent results....

Does UTTAM have air to ground too? I have heard that they are working with Israel about that. Is it complete?

 

[TPFscopes]

Does UTTAM have air to ground too? I have heard that they are working with Israel about that. Is it complete?

let me summarize UTTAM project for all members..

Specifications and Progress as of now:

• Technical Specification:
  • To have around 700 TRMs
  • 150Kms detection range for a 2sqm target
  • Search upto 100 targets, track 20 and target 6.
  • Weight of radar unit to be around 110Kgs (fianl weight)
  • To be GaAs based
• Three prototypes operational as of now, three more to be added by the end of this year.
• Software coding for all modes including A2A, A2G and SAR completed.
• Ground tests completed.
• Has also been flight tested on a helicopter test bed using a smaller TD
• Cooling requirement of 3.6KW.
• GaN for next gen successfully inititated
• LCA LSP 2 is being readied to LRDE for testing UTTAM radar.
• Airborne testing will commenced in further months of 2017 and final tests & approval are expected within first quarter of 2018.
• You guys may track the flights of LSP-2, visit http://www.tejas.gov.in

 

[IndianHawk]

let me summarize UTTAM project for all members..

Specifications and Progress as of now:

• Technical Specification:
  • To have around 700 TRMs
  • 150Kms detection range for a 2sqm target
  • Search upto 100 targets, track 20 and target 6.
  • Weight of radar unit to be around 110Kgs (fianl weight)
  • To be GaAs based
• Three prototypes operational as of now, three more to be added by the end of this year.
• Software coding for all modes including A2A, A2G and SAR completed.
• Ground tests completed.
• Has also been flight tested on a helicopter test bed using a smaller TD
• Cooling requirement of 3.6KW.
• GaN for next gen successfully inititated
• LCA LSP 2 is being readied to LRDE for testing UTTAM radar.
• Airborne testing will commenced in further months of 2017 and final tests & approval are expected within first quarter of 2018.
• You guys may track the flights of LSP-2, visit http://www.tejas.gov.in

Thanks bro! You are doing a wonderful job at provide with progress report wrt LCA .

 

[Filtercoffee]

let me summarize UTTAM project for all members..

Specifications and Progress as of now:

• Technical Specification:
  • To have around 700 TRMs
  • 150Kms detection range for a 2sqm target
  • Search upto 100 targets, track 20 and target 6.
  • Weight of radar unit to be around 110Kgs (fianl weight)
  • To be GaAs based
• Three prototypes operational as of now, three more to be added by the end of this year.
• Software coding for all modes including A2A, A2G and SAR completed.
• Ground tests completed.
• Has also been flight tested on a helicopter test bed using a smaller TD
• Cooling requirement of 3.6KW.
• GaN for next gen successfully inititated
• LCA LSP 2 is being readied to LRDE for testing UTTAM radar.
• Airborne testing will commenced in further months of 2017 and final tests & approval are expected within first quarter of 2018.
• You guys may track the flights of LSP-2, visit http://www.tejas.gov.in

Thank you brother for the information.

 

[S.Balaji]

While browsing through the thread i read a lot of negativity surrounding Tejas despite a lot of favourable status updates by people in the know of things like @TPFscopes.
The most common detraction is Tejas will die a natural death due to another single engine fighter. Reason - an off the cuff remark by parrikar in Feb 2016. It has been an year and a half with no RFI issued.Only noise is being made by MSM. We all know about paid journalism business. But ground reality is our own Tejas is in production even before it got its aesa radar, EW suite, IFR, BVR, WVR, a lot of capability. This flies right in the face of the argument that IAF would kill it citing lack of tech.

Another contention is the HAL's low order book figure of 123 till 2024. IAF has invested in 2.5 assembly lines for Tejas . Assembly line and jigs are massive investments. ROI on these assembly lines would be realized only if they churn out birds for more than a decade. To gauge the seriousness of IAF, use assembly lines as yardstick. The fact that we have 2.5 assembly lines talks volumes of efficacy of Tejas from iafs point of view....remember as of now the assembly lines r under utilised as @abingdonboy rightly pointed out each assembly line production capacity is currently curtailed awaiting Mark 1A. In FY19-20 v will have 16 birds off the lines Does anyone know how many MKIs we churn out of assembly line of Nashik per year? It is15 per Year. HAL will match those numbers in soon n commensurately ramp up with increase in order for tejas from IAF...one can get an idea of how IAF places its order by looking at its procurement pattern of another indigenous product Dhruv, it orders in batches every two years, probably to spread it's procurement cost across different fiscal capex budget.

Tejas will be out bread and butter single engine fighter period.Tech realized out of Tejas/Naval tejas would be a spring board for shrinking time line of AMCA and its naval variant and creating a Aero-MIC ecosystem.

Now coming to naval Tejas, reason for gloom was the new naval chief's comments dat navy will not fund development....for dat i had quoted an ADA guy at the recent DRDO expo saying navy wanted Ada n Hal take up funding n naval chief comments were pure internal posturing to browbeat ada into bankrolling naval PVs. he also said Naval Tejas 3rd prototype is on n funding is taken up by ADA, expect engine testing in dec,n we already in receipt of 5 f414. Even Naval Tejas LSPs are budgeted by ADA with Navy keen on 50 systems. I would be happy if @TPFscopes could confirm this piece of news reg Naval LCA .....
However our MSM which by the way dosent know mi35 from Apache is angling for foreign fighters for this order.

Credit should be accorded when it is due. ADA/HAL have leap frogged from assembling knocked down kits to creating an 4.5 gen fighter MIC ecosystem with hundreds of associated tech like aesa, ew, rwr, IFR, astra, on board oxy gen etc, no other country in the world had climbed with determination such a steep learning curve as India's PSUs. Our Tejas zero accident record is an affirmation of quality of work done by a country with no experience in fighter production (not including 60s Maruti knowledge as it was irretrievably lost).

 

[TPFscopes]

Now coming to naval Tejas, reason for gloom was the new naval chief's comments dat navy will not fund development....for dat i had quoted an ADA guy at the recent DRDO expo saying navy wanted Ada n Hal take up funding n naval chief comments were pure internal posturing to browbeat ada into bankrolling naval PVs. he also said Naval Tejas 3rd prototype is on n funding is taken up by ADA, expect engine testing in dec,n we already in receipt of 5 f414. Even Naval Tejas LSPs are budgeted by ADA with Navy keen on 50 systems. I would be happy if @TPFscopes could confirm this piece of news reg Naval LCA .

Yes, NCLA development is still moving snail's speed. As of now there is not wow crunch to make others happy.
NLCA is facing bureaucracy problem that is why ADA want to move steadily and quietly. NLCA is a tech learning project for ADA and they are gaining the knowledge about carrier borne fighter which will be utilized to make N-AMCA. The news which are hovering on social media are nothing more than a paid propaganda. So don't believe on it..
As soon as, I got some firm news, I will post it here.
stay tuned for updates.

 

[soikot banerjee]

What happened to the DRDO's "Mayavi" EW suite? Last I heard about was in 2015.
What are the existing EW suite configuration if not the indigenous one is used?

 

[TPFscopes]

What happened to the DRDO's "Mayavi" EW suite? Last I heard about was in 2015.
What are the existing EW suite configuration if not the indigenous one is used?

Along with UTTAM AESA intergration & testing , DARE's EW suite will also be tested parallely....
Final results of testing will decide the fate of it..

 

[soikot banerjee]

So what is it using in current SP as of now?

Along with UTTAM AESA intergration & testing , DARE's EW suite will also be tested parallely....
Final results of testing will decide the fate of it..

 

[cannonfodder]

I take all good news with bucket of salt after Arjun. This is not because of lack of tech but the well oiled propaganda system in place.

Airforces do take IOC config for user trails etc . You can simply see number of F35 made in IOC config. There is nothing special in IAF taking 20-40 odd IOC config LCA's as you are claiming. Why IAF cannot put orders of MK1 FOC config to keep production rolling if its serious? There is no need to wait for MK1A configuration ( it can start replacing Mig 21). Thanks to slow bureaucracy & disagreement( in what to get) we don't have any concrete steps to SE fighter.

The most common detraction is Tejas will die a natural death due to another single engine fighter. Reason - an off the cuff remark by parrikar in Feb 2016. It has been an year and a half with no RFI issued.Only noise is being made by MSM. We all know about paid journalism business. But ground reality is our own Tejas is in production even before it got its aesa radar, EW suite, IFR, BVR, WVR, a lot of capability. This flies right in the face of the argument that IAF would kill it citing lack of tech.

 

[varun9509]

Guys, what happened to SP5, hasn't it taken a bit too long?

Sent from my YU5510 using Tapatalk

 

[su30mki2017]

translation plz into English

 

[Shashwat]

^^ Used Russian language on Swiftkey and Google translate for some rough translation .

1. Saab lookalike- Translate as - "One of the variants of the product, executed according to the scheme of the duck"? Doesn't make any sense.

2. Submission LCA.

3. First Plane Demonstrator.

4. Third Experimental Aircraft

5. The fourth experienced aircraft

6. Double Combat Trainer

7. Deck Fighter

 

[abingdonboy]

Yes, NCLA development is still moving snail's speed. As of now there is not wow crunch to make others happy.
NLCA is facing bureaucracy problem that is why ADA want to move steadily and quietly. NLCA is a tech learning project for ADA and they are gaining the knowledge about carrier borne fighter which will be utilized to make N-AMCA. The news which are hovering on social media are nothing more than a paid propaganda. So don't believe on it..
As soon as, I got some firm news, I will post it here.
stay tuned for updates.

Arrested trails will be the next big milestone for N-LCA but sadly we are still waiting....

 

[TPFscopes]

He said "45 Squadron has five aircraft and by the end of this year it will have 11. HAL is investing Rs 1,200 crore to enhance capacity of LCA production from eight per year to 16." "In addition we have adopted a concept of contracting higher modules of the aircraft to the Indian Industry. If the industry starts delivering these modules like front fuselage, center fuselage and rear fuselage, it adds to the capacity of HAL of 16 aeroplanes per year, plus 8 so that we could deliver 24 LCA aircraft per year to the Indian Air Force," he added.

Raju also said HAL is parallely working on other variants along with Aeronautical Development Agency and particular developments that are required by the customer- ease of maintenance modifications- refuelling probe and AESA radars.

"We are working on it... in the next 18 to 24 months we will be able to demonstrate to our customer on LCA and the product would be delivered in numbers," he added.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...eronautical-industry/articleshow/60440303.cms

HAL chief claims that HAL will produce 6 more LCAs by end of 2017 and it will be a great news (if achieved).

 

[IndianHawk]

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...eronautical-industry/articleshow/60440303.cms

HAL chief claims that HAL will produce 6 more LCAs by end of 2017 and it will be a great news (if achieved).

Was he maybe talking about fiscal year.
Anyway it is still positive.

 

[abingdonboy]

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...eronautical-industry/articleshow/60440303.cms

HAL chief claims that HAL will produce 6 more LCAs by end of 2017 and it will be a great news (if achieved).

Biggest news from this article is confirmation of what I have been saying for a while now- HAL is installing capacity to churn out 24 LCA/year as we speak but are capping this at 16/year because the IAF have only commited to 83 MK.1As.

IF GoI/MoD are serioust about tackling the depleting SQN strength of the IAF they should place another 40-80 unit MK.1A order ASAP and allow HAL to start signing long term outsourcing contracts for their tier 1/2/3 suppliers. It won't do any good to give a follow-on order in 2021, these things have HUGE lead-in times and there cannot be any delays in expanding the orders. Long term vision and sustained commitment is what is needed now, not this $hit that we see in the media trying to constantly get the LCA project capped/killed off.


This foreign SE jet deal should also be entirely axed without delay, every dollar spent on those uneeded jets would do FAR more good if spent on the LCA project

IAF can have 120 MK.1As (ie 2 ADDITIONAL SQNs) in the same time they can have 83 MK.1As at current commited orders, without effecting the timelines for the LCA MK.2 AT ALL- this really is a no-brainer. I will lose a LOT of faith in this GoI if they don't at least exercise this option.

 

[soikot banerjee]

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...eronautical-industry/articleshow/60440303.cms

HAL chief claims that HAL will produce 6 more LCAs by end of 2017 and it will be a great news (if achieved).

There are several challenges ahead as of now :
1. As per the article as soon as present LCA Mk-1 production is done, the 2.5 LCA assembly line of LCA goes vacant, The 83 Mk1a is only a AoN as of now and not a contract. A contract must be signed ASAP. We can't let let the factories sit idle at a time we are in utter need of modernisation.
2.Tejas Mk1a and Tejas Mk2 timeline are almost coinciding (regardind prototype or first flight) i.e 2019-20, Officially IAF is interested in MK-2 and hence a Financial investor in the same. Therefore it's Now a Tejas Vs Tejas or even more precisely ADA vs HAL. Since there hasn't been any official contract so far I won't be surprised if IAF banks with Mk2 over Mk1a, and Mk2 order potentially going over or near 150-180.

Anyways GoI needs to two things:
1. Don't let any aircraft manufacturing line idle.
2. Provide a clear roadmap of how much and in what specification(Mk1a/Mk2) are they going to buy in a timeframe of next 8-10 years.