HF-24 Marut

[roma]

......... We are same as we were . You can see we dont have best hospital, police, market, saftey to women, etc we ar follwoing our lazy attitude.

good news is that it can be changed ! ....... and we should sing that MANTRA instead .......

 

[datguy79]

Here in Canada as well they had one of the most advanced jets in the 50s (Avro Arrow) but it was scrapped...at least India still has indigenous programs. We can't find anything to replace the F-18s.

 

[t_co]

Here in Canada as well they had one of the most advanced jets in the 50s (Avro Arrow) but it was scrapped...at least India still has indigenous programs. We can't find anything to replace the F-18s.

This is because aircraft development costs have risen at about 6% per year for over 40 years now. It's simply not affordable for smaller nations to develop their own jets. Even Russia's PAK FA and the US F-35 program have to spread their development costs over several partner nations. The only 5th gen fighter programs which are single-country are the F-22, J-20, and J-31.

 

[p2prada]

egypt made engines ?????????

Yes, they tried. An Austrian engineer headed their research.

Google E-300 and HA-300.

 

[Dinesh_Kumar]

Kunal Dada,

You have hit the nail on the head with that comment.

It is exactly what happened. Options were available at that time (the 1980s) for better engines, but were not encouraged.

At least, Air Force Technical people could have re-engined 1-2 examples and tested it , for purpose of Design Information, Database, etc.

Forget about making jet engines like Kaveri, the danger here is that we may forget even to design small arms.

If user, Army, doesn't want INSAS Mk-ii, that's their call, but at least make a Prototype 7.62 mm Rifle , with all information like Design Notes, Detail Drawings, FMEAs, etc. and send for evaluation, and file the info for future reference.

It did not retired but forced to retired..

There were many engine options were available that time but none were taken just what is happening now with INSAS..

 

[Dinesh_Kumar]

The book on Kurt Tank says that he determined that fitment of a Rolls Royce RB 199 engine would meet the requirement of HF-24 Marut.

Soon afterwards, his work in India had come to a close, he was pining to see Germany again and landed a consultants' role in MBB.

But, he died shortly after that.

A Marut HF-24 was donated to a German Museum in honor of his service to India.

Yeah. But we don't know why he left India.

He left just after the HF-24 flew with Egyptian engines and the engine was found to have design problems. Even the Egyptians canceled their own plane project after that. So, this seems to be related to his leaving the country.

 

[Yusuf]

A blog on the Marut by an IAF Veteran who tweeted me the link

http://marutfans.wordpress.com/page/10/

 

[Ray]

HF 24 airframe was way ahead of the times.

Kurt Tank, the Focke Wulf designer had designed the aircraft.

Too bad that India could not design or procure a matching engine!

 

[Dinesh_Kumar]

Ray Sir,

Its true we have not produced a competent engine for fighters so far. I have read about development efforts for the Kaveri, and issues still remain.

Even Japan hasn't been able to build a fighter jet engine for their versions of F-15 and F-16, though they have proud engineering heritage, are very dedicated and painstaking, etc.

They also had Western Consultants freely available, and no problem of money. But still license building continues.

France were luckier, and able to field ATAR jet, after many years of struggle.

I wonder how the Chinese did it.

They have equivalent to RD-33 and AL-31 in service, I think. Mere Industrial espionage might not be the answer.

HF 24 airframe was way ahead of the times.

Kurt Tank, the Focke Wulf designer had designed the aircraft.

Too bad that India could not design or procure a matching engine!

 

[bose]

Reading the article makes me very upset... we should have continued with other consultant after Kurt Tank has left the country for a logical closure to the HF – 24 Marut project... We made the beginning at the right time at around 60's, had we continued the process of indigenization and development of aerospace industries, we would have had LCA by now... We simple lacked the vision to produce the military hardware within our country... maybe we lacked someone like Scientist Homi Bhabha as we had for Nuclear energy or Scientist Satish Dhawan for space agency

 

[p2prada]

The book on Kurt Tank says that he determined that fitment of a Rolls Royce RB 199 engine would meet the requirement of HF-24 Marut.

Soon afterwards, his work in India had come to a close, he was pining to see Germany again and landed a consultants' role in MBB.

But, he died shortly after that.

A Marut HF-24 was donated to a German Museum in honor of his service to India.

I know that, but that's what I mean. His departure matched with the Egyptian engine failure. Normally an engine failure in a development program is the death knell for the program. Meaning there can be no further modifications or upgrades possible.

This pining to see Germany again could only be something for the media to consume.

EDIT: Meaning, the reason is too simple for that important a man.

 

[sesha_maruthi27]

Why can't we restart the program and get to test the kauveri engine with MARUT?

 

[Kunal Biswas]

She is a old design, We have Tejas to test Kaveri..

Why can't we restart the program and get to test the kauveri engine with MARUT?

 

[Jagdish58]

HF-73 - which was abandoned for Jaguar

HF-25 - Powered by R-36 engine

ASF-300

GAF - Ground attack fighter

HAC-33

Early concept of LCA with HF-73

 

[pmaitra]

@Jagdish58,

Excellent thread. How did you find this? Thanks for sharing.

 

[Jagdish58]

@Jagdish58,

Excellent thread. How did you find this? Thanks for sharing.

Welcome mate i got this pics while browsing , felt very sad as well if HAL , IAF and DRDO had worked together & got good aero engine atleast one project from above would have clicked & we could have had platform and industry base which could have LCA a lot & we would have never ended up in MMRCA or FGFA we could have had our own strong aerospace base in country if is not HAL lost opportunity it is India's lost opportunity:fp:

 

[Jagdish58]

Future projects hanging in balance

HJT-36 - IAF is not happy with stall and spin and delay hence they have floated RFI to import

HAL ADA LCAMk2 - I have put this here becuase not sure on engine procurement yet & when will the prototype will fly is still project in drawing board no timeline , again you never know when IAF will pull out suggesting induction of more Rafale , MKI or FGFA suggesting scrapping MK2

HAL ADA AMCA - Still under drawing room or under developement rough timeline 2030 ???? IAF might change there mind any time putting project under jeopardy if there is any substatial delay

Three major projects hanging in balance

 

[Jagdish58]

HAL-NAL Missed one more hardly any news on the changes & new prototype of SARAS to be tested intented to replace Dornier DO-228

 

[venkat]

SARAS is not HAL product..its NAL's baby......

 

[Jagdish58]

Favour Tejas to Meet IAF Needs | idrw.org

Winston Churchill, as the First Lord of Admiralty in 1911, is credited with "technological prescience" by British commentators for building the 12-inch gunned Dreadnought-class battleships. When the First World War began, the Royal Navy's Grand Fleet was the British force to keep Kaiser Wilhelm II's seaward ambitions in check even as an unprepared army was mowed down by the German juggernaut, in the opening phase.
Remarkably, the Churchillian kind of prescience was manifest in Jawaharlal Nehru's nursing a weapons-capable nuclear energy programme because he believed India could not afford to miss out on the "nuclear revolution" as it had done the "gun-powder revolution" consequenting in its enslavement. And, in the conventional military field, it was evident in his seeding an indigenous defence industry with combat aircraft design and development at its core. Nehru imported, not combat aircraft but, a leading combat aircraft designer—the redoubtable Kurt Tank, progenitor of the Focke-Wulfe warplanes for Hitler's Luftwaffe. Tank succeeded in putting an HF-24 Marut prototype in the air by 1961 and in training a talented group of Indian designers at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL).

By the time the Tank-trained Raj Mahindra-led team designed the successor Marut Mark-II, Nehru was gone and neither Lal Bahadur Shastri nor his successor, Indira Gandhi, unfortunately had the strategic vision or technological prescience to provide political support for it. Indira permitted the purchase of the British Jaguar aircraft for low-level attack, leading to the termination of the Marut Mk-II optimised for the same mission. It ended the chance of India emerging early as an independent aerospace power in the manner Brazil and Israel have done in recent years. The inglorious era of importing military hardware was on. The resulting vendor-driven procurement system has decanted enormous wealth from India to arms supplier states—Russia, UK, France, the United States, Israel and Italy.

Arun Jaitley, the BJP finance minister-cum-defence minister, is saddled with the familiar problem of too many high-cost government programmes and too little money. He has an opportunity to reduce the huge hard currency expenditure involved in buying foreign armaments and reverse the policy of ignoring indigenous options and private sector defence industrial capability. He can give the lead to the Indian military as the British Treasury had done to the Admiralty in 1918-1938 by pushing for the development of aircraft carriers when the Royal Navy was stuck on the Dreadnought.

There are two far-seeing decisions he can take. With the US bid of $840 million for 150 M-777 light howitzers (without technology transfer) rejected as cost prohibitive, Jaitley can instruct the army to test and induct the modern, ultra-light heliportable gun, to outfit the new offensive mountain corps, produced jointly by a private sector company and an American firm, Rock Island Arsenal, that'll cost less than half as much. And he could terminate the Rafale contract and, importantly, restore responsibility for the Tejas programme to the IAF, which was kept out of it by the science adviser—SA—to defence minister V S Arunachalam in the 1980s. It will mean IAF funding further developments in the Tejas programme from its own R&D budget which, according to an ex-senior defence technologist, can be increased to any amount, and was the course of action recommended by the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) and SA. It will render IAF accountable to Parliament.

The choices before the BJP government are stark. Is it pragmatic to channel in excess of $30 billion to Paris that'll keep the French aerospace sector in clover and help amortise the multi-billion Euro investment in developing the Rafale, which has no customers other than IAF? Or, use the present difficulties as an opportunity to fundamentally restructure the Indian military aviation sector? This last will involve getting (1) HAL to produce the low-cost (`26 crore by HAL's reckoning) Tejas Mk-1 for air defence with 4.5 generation avionics, low detection, and other features, for squadron service, and to export it in line with prime minister Narendra Modi's thinking and to defray some of the plane's development costs, and (2) ADA and the Aircraft Research & Design Centre at HAL to redesign Tejas Mark-2 as a genuine MMRCA with the originally conceived canard-delta wing configuration (whose absence has made the Mk-1 incapable of meeting onerous operational requirements, like acceleration and sustained turn rates in dogfights) and having it ready for production by 2019—the dateline for Rafale induction.

With the Rafale potentially out of the picture and IAF left with only a limited-capability Tejas for air defence, security needs for the next 15 years until the Russian Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft enters IAF in strength, can be met by buying additional Su-30s and MiG-29s off-the-shelf and/or contracting for larger numbers of the Su-30s to be built by HAL with a deal to get the private sector to manufacture the required spares in-country, all for a fraction of the cost of Rafale. Some Service brass do not care for Russian aircraft but Su-30MKI and MiG-29 are already in IAF's employ, and are rated the two best warplanes available anywhere (barring the discontinued American F-22) for combat and air defence respectively. A new Su-30MKI, moreover, costs $65 million, which is slightly more than what India forks out for upgrading the 30-year-old Mirage 2000.

Had the design-wise more challenging canard-delta winged Tejas, recommended by four of the six international aviation majors hired as consultants, not been discarded and international best practices followed from when the Light Combat Aircraft programme was initiated in 1982, ADA (design bureau), HAL and IAF would have worked together. IAF would have inputted ideas at the design and prototype stages, HAL produced the prototypes, and IAF pilots flown them. The design validation and rectification, certification, pre-production, and production processes would then have been in sync and progressed apace. The Tejas air defence variant will have entered squadron service and the larger Mk-2, close behind, occupied the MMRCA slot. The lessons are that indigenous weapons projects demand integrated effort, weapons designers need to be less diffident and Indian military ought to helm indigenous armaments projects. Jaitley can ensure these things happen.