ADA Tejas Mark-II/Medium Weight Fighter

[MonaLazy]

Era of Tejas (Tejas Mk1, Mk1A) is over. There will be no more order for Tejas other than the 83 jets. All future orders will be MWF (Tejas Mk2), TEDBF & AMCA which will have 110kN engines. Tejas is just a stop gap measure to maintain Indian industry, human expertise and supply chain logistics. No one is negotiating engines for Tejas.

Don't agree that Mk1 era is over when we have fishbeds flying and crashing literally all over the place. They are not talking about 404 because Kaveri can fill in, in due course.. probably at MLU. They are going to order an additional 50 Mk1As as Mk2 is delayed by 2-3 years.

#DRDO could uprate the Dry Kaveri Engine to 60 KN once the certification of the existing Dry Kaveri is completed. The uprated Dry Kaveri Engine will be mated with Afterburner so that it can produce upto 90 KN Thrust. This Engine can be retrofitted with Tejas MK1 & MK1A. #IADN

Tejas Mk2 will be vastly different as it will have 17.5Ton MToW which will be impossible with 56-58kN dry thrust. India is going for F414 only as a stop gap measure for the initial batch of MWF Mk1 and will likely have lower MToW to the tune of 15tons.

ASR is 17.5T MTOW if that was not possible with 98kN F414 it would have never passed PDR.

 

[MonaLazy]

Otherwise this is a pointless exercise.

Not at all. Other than IP we are getting everything pretty much. We won't have to deal with supply chains snaking all the way across the world. COVID and Russo-Ukraine war have shown what it means when these vital links are broken.

You may also recall a time when we used to pay ridiculous amounts for bits and bobs of imported stuff and also have to wait many months for those spares- consequently platform availability went down the drain.

IP is a whole different ball game. For that we have two paths - Kaveri & AMCA II engine- we will explore both those in full. The next decade should be the most fruitful, but it is only coming about because the last four were fruitless toil.

 

[SwordOfDarkness]

IPR is the only real value here because it means that no nation can sanction India or dictate India on what to do. If it is license production, then India needs to mass produce the heck out of it and build up a supply chain that will last over 40 years in the face of sanctions. Otherwise this is a pointless exercise.

Lol no
IPR is only a need for the 125kN new engine
For GE414, it is a fools errand. Why will GE give us the IPR of one of their best engines? And we will be needing ~400 GE414s even with a modest estimate of aircraft, that is good enough for us to learn how to make it.
As for sanctions, there is no need for us to play nice then. Once we have know how, if they sanction us, we can give them the middle finger and produce anyway.

 

[Blademaster]

Lol no
IPR is only a need for the 125kN new engine
For GE414, it is a fools errand. Why will GE give us the IPR of one of their best engines? And we will be needing ~400 GE414s even with a modest estimate of aircraft, that is good enough for us to learn how to make it.
As for sanctions, there is no need for us to play nice then. Once we have know how, if they sanction us, we can give them the middle finger and produce anyway.

How will you get the know how for the GE-414? They won’t give you the ceramic blade manufacturing designs/plans. They will only supply you the ceramic blades and you can build the rest of the components and assemble them. That ceramic blade is the crucial 5% part that makes everything else works. And no way is the US gonna give that know how. They will only supply the blades. If that’s the case then India needs to order 40 years worth of supplies that can last all the rebuilds, maintenance, and replacements in that 40 year span within the first year or first couple years in order to avoid sanctions.

 

[SwordOfDarkness]

How will you get the know how for the GE-414? They won’t give you the ceramic blade manufacturing designs/plans. They will only supply you the ceramic blades and you can build the rest of the components and assemble them. That ceramic blade is the crucial 5% part that makes everything else works. And no way is the US gonna give that know how. They will only supply the blades. If that’s the case then India needs to order 40 years worth of supplies that can last all the rebuilds, maintenance, and replacements in that 40 year span within the first year or first couple years in order to avoid sanctions.

Then it wont be full ToT for licence manufacture

Im not asking for just a production line, what we should aim for in GE414 is licence manufacture from raw material stage.

Again, its not certain how exactly the deal will play out, but if they try to screw us over I would think we could reverse engineer the thing as long as we know how to make 80-90% of it and dont care about the repercussions.

 

[Suryavanshi]

And we will be needing ~400 GE414s even with a modest estimate of aircraft, that is good enough for us to learn how to make it.

Do you think assembling 400+ Russian engines so far had a significant impact in helping the development of Kaveri engine?
Chinese outright ripped off evey Western tech they could find yet they could not make a half decent engine. Do you think us with a lot more restriction can just learn by producing 400 or so engines? Against West that has been rather unforgiving towards us.

 

[SwordOfDarkness]

assembling

See this post

Then it wont be full ToT for licence manufacture

Im not asking for just a production line, what we should aim for in GE414 is licence manufacture from raw material stage.

Again, its not certain how exactly the deal will play out, but if they try to screw us over I would think we could reverse engineer the thing as long as we know how to make 80-90% of it and dont care about the repercussions.

 

[jai jaganath]

Lmao no
License production is the best deal here, anyone trying to talk about IPR has no idea how companies operate (or what our requirements are)

For clarification I am speaking regarding ToT for assembling or license manufacturing not from raw material stage
I can bet usa won't give that permission atmost license manufacturing is the possibility
Infact no one is expecting ipr bcoz they won't give us
Why I said this TOT word as jumla was that could be ToT of manufacturing ToT of assembling ToT of this and that
We won't get know how
But yeah it's better than direct import bcoz we can have our spares license manufactured here so improving platforms serviceability

 

[MonaLazy]

They won’t give you the ceramic blade manufacturing designs/plans.

The purpose of this deal is to make everything in-house in India by GE in partnership with HAL. That's it! Probably GE India will make all the hot parts at their factory in Pune and HAL the cold parts. For the portion made at GE, the factory, workers, tooling, machinery and processes will be GE's & their global suppliers who will also set up shop in India. Think of it like Samsung/Apple making phones in India- and you buy it. You purchase it and you use it- but you can't make it by yourself because you don't have the wherewithal and even somebody as resourceful as GoI can't make copies of Samsung/Apple phones by law, because of IPR.

Let's wait on the fine print of the deal to emerge to settle these nagging issues- for now, Indian babudom take a bow- this deal is looking good for the country whichever way you look at it.

 

[Samej Jangir]

Cats warrior is basically additional flying weapon station for Tejas right?
Then why not make CFTs for tejas and it will help address the range issue plaging it.

CATS warrior can also act as suicide drone and a diversion for enemy AAMs. Also, Tejas has limited payload and high drag which will be exacerbated by CFT

Don't agree that Mk1 era is over when we have fishbeds flying and crashing literally all over the place. They are not talking about 404 because Kaveri can fill in, in due course.. probably at MLU. They are going to order an additional 50 Mk1As as Mk2 is delayed by 2-3 years.

#DRDO could uprate the Dry Kaveri Engine to 60 KN once the certification of the existing Dry Kaveri is completed. The uprated Dry Kaveri Engine will be mated with Afterburner so that it can produce upto 90 KN Thrust. This Engine can be retrofitted with Tejas MK1 & MK1A. #IADN



ASR is 17.5T MTOW if that was not possible with 98kN F414 it would have never passed PDR.

I have a theory that Kaveri will be used for Rafales, not tejas. Uprating engines is not easy as it will require complete redesign. However, 50/78kN engine is perfect for Rafales. Probably this is why India bought rafales in the first place. The additional Rafales will be made in india with Kaveri engines

 

[Samej Jangir]

Lol no
IPR is only a need for the 125kN new engine
For GE414, it is a fools errand. Why will GE give us the IPR of one of their best engines? And we will be needing ~400 GE414s even with a modest estimate of aircraft, that is good enough for us to learn how to make it.
As for sanctions, there is no need for us to play nice then. Once we have know how, if they sanction us, we can give them the middle finger and produce anyway.

No IPR means we won't be able to manufacture the critical parts and the FADEC codes will have to be sourced directly as India would not be knowing how to make them. In such cases, the TOT will simply be assembling of the critical parts while allowing manufacture of the simpler parts

 

[SwordOfDarkness]

No IPR means we won't be able to manufacture the critical parts and the FADEC codes will have to be sourced directly as India would not be knowing how to make them. In such cases, the TOT will simply be assembling of the critical parts while allowing manufacture of the simpler parts

Do you understand what IPR means?

Intellectual Property Right

It means that we become owners of the design, that has no relation with whether or not we get to manufacture it fully or we do screwdrivergiri.

IPR will not happen GE wont randomly hand over one of their most profitable engines for no reason.

TOT can be for complete manufacture, while still not giving IPR. Case in point AL-31F, we make it from raw material stage completely, but IPR is with Russians.

 

[NutCracker]

Do you understand what IPR means?

Intellectual Property Right

It means that we become owners of the design, that has no relation with whether or not we get to manufacture it fully or we do screwdrivergiri.

IPR will not happen GE wont randomly hand over one of their most profitable engines for no reason.

TOT can be for complete manufacture, while still not giving IPR. Case in point AL-31F, we make it from raw material stage completely, but IPR is with Russians.

No, we dont have complete ToT with AL-31F, otherwise we wont have been importing raw material (in form of slabs maybe) from the RUssia. Russia didn't provide metallurgical knowledge.

Rest what you said is correct. IPR means authorisation to sell without permission.
Cant expect GE to provide metallurgical knowhow because that will be like indirectly giving IPR .

 

[MonaLazy]

a theory that Kaveri will be used for Rafales, not tejas

M88 does 50/75kN while weighing only 897 kgs! Kaveri's dia is also a fair bit larger than M88 (90.9 vs 69.6 cms)- so won't be a drop fit. Only the K11/950 kgs version speculated above comes close in T/W- and it is at the moment talk only!

 

[Samej Jangir]

Do you understand what IPR means?

Intellectual Property Right

It means that we become owners of the design, that has no relation with whether or not we get to manufacture it fully or we do screwdrivergiri.

IPR will not happen GE wont randomly hand over one of their most profitable engines for no reason.

TOT can be for complete manufacture, while still not giving IPR. Case in point AL-31F, we make it from raw material stage completely, but IPR is with Russians.

That is not fully correct. IPR means you become the owner. But the IPR is enforced at international level by preventing the full TOT as no other means can be used to prevent break of IPR agreement. What if USA imposes sanctions on India but India having the full knowledge and expertise of making the engines continue to make them? So, IPR is enforced by not giving the full TOT and not merely by an agreement signed on paper and held on trust alone.

No, we dont have complete ToT with AL-31F, otherwise we wont have been importing raw material (in form of slabs maybe) from the RUssia. Russia didn't provide metallurgical knowledge.
Rest what you said is correct. IPR means authorisation to sell without permission.
Cant expect GE to provide metallurgical knowhow because that will be like indirectly giving IPR .

Actually, India did not get full TOT for AL31F and DRDO developed certain parts on its own to substitute Russian ones. So, currently Al31F is fully indigenous without any imported parts.

As for raw materials, india may import it due to lack of natural resources like low Titanium reserves. But there is no manufacturing and processing done in Russia. Buying Titanium blocks, Nickel blocks due to natural resource deficit does not make India lack the technology. India can import these from Africa instead of Russia tomorrow and still make Al31 engines.

View attachment 207841

M88 does 50/75kN while weighing only 897 kgs! Kaveri's dia is also a fair bit larger than M88 (90.9 vs 69.6 cms)- so won't be a drop fit. Only the K11/950 kgs version speculated above comes close in T/W- and it is at the moment talk only!

Rafales had initially used F404 engines for its flight testing in 1990-2 time. So, its engine bay is flexible enough to accommodate slightly larger engines by doing some adjustments to the engine holder, which is part of ISE - India specific enhancements. The plane is 3-4 meters wide in fuselage area and accommodating 40cm extra engine won't change much. Also, the previous integration of F404 shows that the airframe has sufficient tolerances. The increase in weight by 100x2 = 200kg won't be much of an issue either as Rafale has empty weight of 11tons and 2% increase won't affect much. Also, Kaveri engine has slightly higher AB thrust than M88 which will cover the minor increase in weight

 

[MonaLazy]

Rafales had initially used F404 engines for its flight testing in 1990-2 time. So, its engine bay is flexible enough to accommodate slightly larger engines by doing some adjustments to the engine holder, which is part of ISE - India specific enhancements. The plane is 3-4 meters wide in fuselage area and accommodating 40cm extra engine won't change much. Also, the previous integration of F404 shows that the airframe has sufficient tolerances. The increase in weight by 100x2 = 200kg won't be much of an issue either as Rafale has empty weight of 11tons and 2% increase won't affect much. Also, Kaveri engine has slightly higher AB thrust than M88 which will cover the minor increase in weight

200 kg wont be an issue.. really? Please cite some source for that claim. Every kg shaved off an engine (ANY engine) is a big achievement! & if you know anything about our forces they will not settle for anything less than the best- not when they are used to a certain kinematic performance from Rafale. You are counting 200kgs over the F404 which is not what the Rafale flies today. We have to shed 338kgs while retaining the current performance just to match paper features of M88- then there is also the question of durability.

Looking past weight onto airflow requirements

​

Engine​	Air Speed (kg/s)​
Kaveri​	78​
M88​	65​
F404​	66​
F414​	77.1​

When the hornet became Super Hornet they had to increase its air inlet size among other changes. It is easier to fit a kaveri into Mk2 (being designed around a larger F414) than into a Rafale, but wont pass muster with the forces because of weak performance.

 

[Vamsi]

@MonaLazy We have earlier manufactured RD-33, AL-31F engines,none of these helped us in development of Kaveri, thinking that screwdrivergiri of F414 will help us in future is foolishness, also quoting some media articles to prove that uncle Sam will give us 100% ToT is another level foolishness, uncle Sam will never give you this technology, the reason is very simple, giving India this complex technology is making India technologically independent, which means we will be threat to them in future, so they will NOT give us any technologies, it's just screwdrivergiri, everything else you see is poetry

 

[Vamsi]

Do you understand what IPR means?

Intellectual Property Right

It means that we become owners of the design, that has no relation with whether or not we get to manufacture it fully or we do screwdrivergiri.

IPR will not happen GE wont randomly hand over one of their most profitable engines for no reason.

TOT can be for complete manufacture, while still not giving IPR. Case in point AL-31F, we make it from raw material stage completely, but IPR is with Russians.

are you thinking that Americans will give us the complete TOT to manufacture even the hot section in India from raw material stage?? If yes, then stop thinking like that, they won't give us the tech, it's just glorified screwdrivergiri, only things I'm expecting in this deal are some test facilities

 

[Samej Jangir]

200 kg wont be an issue.. really? Please cite some source for that claim. Every kg shaved off an engine (ANY engine) is a big achievement! & if you know anything about our forces they will not settle for anything less than the best- not when they are used to a certain kinematic performance from Rafale. You are counting 200kgs over the F404 which is not what the Rafale flies today. We have to shed 338kgs while retaining the current performance just to match paper features of M88- then there is also the question of durability.

Looking past weight onto airflow requirements

​

Engine​	Air Speed (kg/s)​
Kaveri​	78​
M88​	65​
F404​	66​
F414​	77.1​

When the hornet became Super Hornet they had to increase its air inlet size among other changes. It is easier to fit a kaveri into Mk2 (being designed around a larger F414) than into a Rafale, but wont pass muster with the forces because of weak performance.

Are you saying that somehow that 200kg will be too high for a plane with MToW of 23tons and empty weight of 11tons? The engine is not a standalone part that will fly on its own. Also, the specifications for Kaveri are very old and hypothetical when it was not fully functional. The airflow of Kaveri being equal to F414 while producing 20% less thrust is suspicious. What is the extra air doing if not generating thrust? Is there air leakage in Kaveri?

Assuming that Kaveri will be a normal engine like any other, it should be able to replace M88 in Rafales similar to how Rafales used F404 for initial flight testing

 

[Samej Jangir]

are you thinking that Americans will give us the complete TOT to manufacture even the hot section in India from raw material stage?? If yes, then stop thinking like that, they won't give us the tech, it's just glorified screwdrivergiri, only things I'm expecting in this deal are some test facilities

You are right on target. Any article or comment that states USA to give full ToT to make core engine and the FADEC codes should be considered as "Satire" and must not be taken seriously