ADA Tejas Mark-II/Medium Weight Fighter

[THESIS THORON]

Add actuators to the list of imported components. They have developed indigenous actuators for the AMCA, but it may eventually replace the imported ones on the Mk2 going forward. Titanium ingots will also very likely be imported.

is percentage of indegeneous content calculated w.r.t cost of each parts to the cost of total plane ?

 

[Aditya Ballal]

Add actuators to the list of imported components. They have developed indigenous actuators for the AMCA, but it may eventually replace the imported ones on the Mk2 going forward. Titanium ingots will also very likely be imported.

According to this DDR article the flight control actuators are indigenous.
“Over the years, flight control actuators have been successfully indigenized. MWF will feature these Indian actuators, which is another significant achievement”.

Tracking The Tejas: How The Tejas Mk2 Design Became The Medium Weight Fighter | Delhi Defence Review

delhidefencereview.com

 

[Okabe Rintarou]

Add actuators to the list of imported components. They have developed indigenous actuators for the AMCA, but it may eventually replace the imported ones on the Mk2 going forward. Titanium ingots will also very likely be imported.

Soon, space programmes will use indigenously made titanium sponge

Aerospace, defence sectors extensively use alloys of titanium because of their high strength and non-corrosive quality

www.thehindu.com

Titanium ingots are produced in India from raw material stage. Further alloys are also made in India. Especially for AMCA. Maybe they will require capacity expansion though. They had planned for doubling capacity.

 

[IndianHawk]

For some reason Strategic Front forums links don’t work here.

SDR, ejection seat, IFR probe.
EDIT: Cannon as well.

SDR could be indian. Iirc BEL has developed SDR .

 

[Aditya Ballal]

SDR, ejection seat, IFR probe.
EDIT: Cannon as well.

Cannon is made by OFB by ToT

 

[Okabe Rintarou]

SDR could be indian. Iirc BEL has developed SDR .

Nope. Tejas uses Israeli BNET-AR SDR, as does the rest of the IAF fleet. Its superior to Link 16. The SDR is manufactured in India in joint partnership with Astra Microwave Products Pvt. Ltd.
BEL SDRs are used by Navy though.

 

[THESIS THORON]

what happend to the giant press for titanium alloy(amca) that we were searching ??

hydraulic press

 

[IndianHawk]

When is a large production order likely to be placed? The later that is likely to be, the more IAF can argue that 114 foreign fighters are needed. I read on this forum or elsewhere that IAF does not want more Mk1A to make up its fighter shortfall. If 114 foreign fighters are ordered to do roughly what Mk2 should do, how will that affect Mk2 order numbers?

Once mk2 is declared foc. Which should be around 2028.

IAF will keep demanding 114 foreign jets regardless of how mk2 comes along.

By early 2000s IAF has 4 programs proposed for modernization/ maintaining numbers.
1. Lca to replace all MiG-21.
2. Mmrca to replace all mig27 and later Jaguars / mirages.
3. Fgfa with Russia for 5th gen
4 later amca indian 5th gen.

Fast forward now. Fgfa is dead.
Amca will only come post 2030 and replace jaguars/ mirage ( whose life is extended with upgrades)
Su30mki numbers exploded to 272.

So in the meantime Rafale takes over the numbers of fgfa and helps retiring early Jaguars. Mig27 already gone.
Lca mk1/mk1a numbers 123 ( half of original MiG-21 numbers). Rest will be done by mk2. Hence around 140 -200 mk2 is talked about.

Now numbers of MWF depend upon how much more Rafale we get. If we get only 36 more rafales ( which is inevitable) than 200 MWF will come but if we get 90 Rafale more than 140 MWF may come.

Now delays in amca may push for more MWF / Rafale .

But rest assured IAF needs both MWF and Rafale in this decade.

 

[IndianHawk]

Nope. Tejas uses Israeli BNET-AR SDR, as does the rest of the IAF fleet. Its superior to Link 16. The SDR is manufactured in India in joint partnership with Astra Microwave Products Pvt. Ltd.
BEL SDRs are used by Navy though.

Couldn't those me miniaturised by the time MWF reaches serial production by2028-29.

Mk1a also started with elta radar and now later batches will get uttam too since it's ready .

Similarly we could see lot more indian equipment in later batches of MWF which are good 10 years away from production now. That's a whole decade.

 

[Okabe Rintarou]

Couldn't those me miniaturised by the time MWF reaches serial production by2028-29.

Mk1a also started with elta radar and now later batches will get uttam too since it's ready .

Similarly we could see lot more indian equipment in later batches of MWF which are good 10 years away from production now. That's a whole decade.

Maybe, but there is that thing about proprietary waveforms. IAF is standardizing on BNET-AR.
But you're right. If we think about it, Army, Navy and Air Force need to use the same waveforms for seamless encrypted comms. So maybe they'll make an Indian SDR for all platforms a few years down the line and retrofit it into all platforms of Navy, Air Force and Army. Or maybe Israelis will sell us a few proprietary waveforms to implement in our own BEL SDRs in the future (not sure if SDRs even work that way).

what happend to the giant press for titanium alloy(amca) that we were searching ??

hydraulic press

Not sure if we were even looking for that press. Right now, plan seems to be to do a workaround. We have 10,000 ton capacity press in a private company in Belgaum that is the largest one in India. Instead of making the bulkhead one-piece, we'll use that smaller press to make it in parts and fasten them. Bit of a compromise.

 

[Kalkioftoday]

I am surprised it is only 70%. F414 should cost <$10 million. UTTAM will replace ELTA radar. Cobham parts will be replaced by indigenous. Apart from the engine, where is the high cost foreign content?

Yes my question exactly. Even if we add IFR, SDR, Radome, Engine even than 30% is a lot

 

[Kalkioftoday]

Add actuators to the list of imported components. They have developed indigenous actuators for the AMCA, but it may eventually replace the imported ones on the Mk2 going forward. Titanium ingots will also very likely be imported.

No. Not anymore. Godrej is making LCA actuator now. I've also heard Dr. Kota saying that Godrej is now making indigenous actuator https://idrw.org/godrej-aerospace-manufactured-actuators-for-lca-tejas-cleared-for-production/

 

[G10]

Heard mk 2 needs separate iron bird facikity and HAL yet to build it.

 

[Trololo]

Heard mk 2 needs separate iron bird facikity and HAL yet to build it.

yeah. I don't think the main structure will take time to setup given that it will be a slight scale up of the existing frame. But mounting, testing, and validating the FCS on this will be time consuming.

 

[MirageBlue]

Soon, space programmes will use indigenously made titanium sponge

Aerospace, defence sectors extensively use alloys of titanium because of their high strength and non-corrosive quality

www.thehindu.com

Titanium ingots are produced in India from raw material stage. Further alloys are also made in India. Especially for AMCA. Maybe they will require capacity expansion though. They had planned for doubling capacity.

The link you gave is for titanium sponge. Airplane parts are not built using Ti sponge, but rather by machining Ti ingots. Source for your claim that Ti ingots are produced in India from raw material stage?

 

[Okabe Rintarou]

The link you gave is for titanium sponge. Airplane parts are not built using Ti sponge, but rather by machining Ti ingots. Source for your claim that Ti ingots are produced in India from raw material stage?

There is a line in that article that says the alloy is made at Midhani.

Here is the entire process after the Sponge is made:-

Source: https://midhani-india.in/WordPress-content/uploads/2020/08/MIDHANI Titanium Alloys Brochure.pdf

So in short, in the last few years, India has managed to indigenize the entire process of titanium in aerospace products, starting from mining (India has world's 3rd largest Titanium reserves) to Kroll process to further processing at Midhani and the alloy designs talking place at DMRL. India is only the sixth country to do so. Before this we used to send our mined titanium to China and then buy the refined products from them. First titanium alloy batch for AMCA bulkhead have already been made at Midhani.

 

[no smoking]

Not sure if we were even looking for that press. Right now, plan seems to be to do a workaround. We have 10,000 ton capacity press in a private company in Belgaum that is the largest one in India. Instead of making the bulkhead one-piece, we'll use that smaller press to make it in parts and fasten them. Bit of a compromise.

Not sure if that will work out.
US managed to do that on their F-22, but even their press machine was 40,000 ton (if my memory is right) capacity.
And don't forget, their metal and wielding technologies have been far ahead of anyone else.

 

[BON PLAN]

Turkey has access to GE's blueprints for parts of jet engine because of 49% ownership in TEI as explained by @rodeo & has tech transfer from GE for blisks.

To be able to produce the whole parts of an engine don't give you the keys to study and fine tune a brand new one.
See China exemple : they produced parts of russian engine copy for years but face major problem to developp their brand new one.
And Turkey is one or two leagues behind China....

 

[Okabe Rintarou]

Not sure if that will work out.
US managed to do that on their F-22, but even their press machine was 40,000 ton (if my memory is right) capacity.
And don't forget, their metal and wielding technologies have been far ahead of anyone else.

F-35's titanium bulkhead is one-piece near-net forged on a 50,000 ton ALCOA. F-22's titanium bulkhead is similarly done and is 4 meters wide and 1.7 meters high. India doesn't have that luxury of a heavy press program or an aerospace industry constantly requiring large forgings so we have to make do with what we have. What we have is a 10,000 ton press built by French Albert and Duval and operated in a JV with Indian Aequs Aerospace in Belgaum:-

With this machine, we can make the bulkhead in two/three parts and fasten them together. That results in weight penalties, but we got no choice unless Government of India decides to blow the equivalent of the entire budget of the AMCA's Design Phase on a new 65,000 ton monster similar to the one Albert and Duval built in France. Technically, if we wanted to, we could do it.


BTW, I just noticed:-

(Source: https://midhani-india.in/WordPress-content/uploads/2018/11/Annual Report (FY 2020-21).pdf )

Forget the AMCA forging on the right, look at the forging they made for Gaganyaan. Look at its size: 1.5m X 2m. (Compare that to F-22 bulkhead which is 1.7mX4m). Granted its just a slab right now, but it does look feasible that we can make a bulkhead in maybe even two pieces and fasten them together. Now get this: We built that not in the 10,000 ton press pictured above but in the 6000 ton press pictured below:-

If this smaller 6,000 ton Danieli Breda press at Midhani proves insufficient for some larger part of the bulkhead in the future, they can still go to the larger 10,000 ton press.

 

[THESIS THORON]

H

F-35's titanium bulkhead is one-piece near-net forged on a 50,000 ton ALCOA. F-22's titanium bulkhead is similarly done and is 4 meters wide and 1.7 meters high. India doesn't have that luxury of a heavy press program or an aerospace industry constantly requiring large forgings so we have to make do with what we have. What we have is a 10,000 ton press built by French Albert and Duval and operated in a JV with Indian Aequs Aerospace in Belgaum:-

View attachment 121668

With this machine, we can make the bulkhead in two/three parts and fasten them together. That results in weight penalties, but we got no choice unless Government of India decides to blow the equivalent of the entire budget of the AMCA's Design Phase on a new 65,000 ton monster similar to the one Albert and Duval built in France. Technically, if we wanted to, we could do it.


BTW, I just noticed:-

View attachment 121589
(Source: https://midhani-india.in/WordPress-content/uploads/2018/11/Annual Report (FY 2020-21).pdf )

Forget the AMCA forging on the right, look at the forging they made for Gaganyaan. Look at its size: 1.5m X 2m. (Compare that to F-22 bulkhead which is 1.7mX4m). Granted its just a slab right now, but it does look feasible that we can make a bulkhead in maybe even two pieces and fasten them together. Now get this: We built that not in the 10,000 ton press pictured above but in the 6000 ton press pictured below:-

If this smaller 6,000 ton Danieli Breda press at Midhani proves insufficient for some larger part of the bulkhead in the future, they can still go to the larger 10,000 ton press.

how koreans are doing this thing?? any idea?