IAF's sourcing spares for MIG planes from outside Russia "wrong": Envoy

[JAYRAM]

Press Trust Of India
New Delhi, March 26, 2012

Indian Air Force's efforts to procure spare parts for its Soviet-era aircraft from global market were "wrong" and after using these "fake" equipment, the service should not be surprised if its fighter jets meet with accidents, Russia said on Monday.
"It is wrong as all those spare parts are fake. For MiG and other planes, you need authentic parts, And then you are surprised why your planes fall because spare parts are bought from unauthorised sources," Russian Ambassador to India Alexander Kadakin told reporters in New Delhi.

He was asked to comment on India's efforts to procure spares for Russian-origin equipment from global vendors.

Commenting on induction of Russian-origin nuclear submarine 'Nerpa' in Indian Navy, Kadakin said "India is the one and first country to be leased a nuclear submarine. We have not and shall not give to any other country."

Asked if more such vessels could be provided to India, he said it will depend on the requirements put forward by Indian government.

On the issue of delay in delivery of Talwar class-follow-on frigates to the Navy, the Russian diplomat said "better ask about the Scorpene (submarine) delay."

On defence ties between India and Russia, he said "altogether our bag of orders is worth $20 billion. This is very good prospect and we will continue this cooperation.

"We are not against India buying from somewhere else if they get better things. We are not going to be in competition with anyone. We have our own niche in cooperating with India and we shall do what our Indian friends ask us to do."


IAF's sourcing spares for MIG planes from outside Russia "wrong": Envoy - Hindustan Times

 

[JAYRAM]

Russia dont you know.. we are a govt that buy anything, fake or not for twice the amount to be filled in various pockets..

 

[sob]

This is absolutely correct. After the breakup of USSR, the single window procurement had stopped and MOD babus have had a field day procuring from all over the world.

 

[Armand2REP]

Russia gives one lame excuse after another. You make Talwar in your OWN yards so don't bring up Scorpene. It is YOUR failure to meet spare requests so don't blame India for your failures.

 

[GUNS-N- ROSES]

This is absolutely correct. After the breakup of USSR, the single window procurement had stopped and MOD babus have had a field day procuring from all over the world.

surely, this was a necessity and not choice. after the dis integration of Soviet Union, we faced so many difficulties. i wish Russia had provided a betetr support but they themselves were struggling. the russian mafia had taken control and had firmly entrenched themselves as middlemen. without them nothing would move.

 

[sob]

Purchases were made from middle men in Dubai for Russian spares. The list is quite long. Knowingly and unknowingly purchases of dubious quality standards were made.

In their defence I can only add that the Russians had a system where most of the std. interchangeable parts never had any markings or paperwork to make it difficult to re-engineer spares.

 

[venkat]

Russia arm twisted India by telling that MIg-21 is their design and we cant go to Israelis for mig-21 modernization!!!! so we ended up with shit !!! If reports are true , The new Russian KOPYO Radar for the upgraded mig-21 doesn't work properly with poor reliability !!! ROSBORONEXPORT arm twists India in to buying spares at exorbitant costs. I read some where that Russian themselves cannibalize Mig-21 parts from their old scrapped MIG-21 a/c and other CIS states. Russians themselves can not sell genuine and brand new spares to INDIA as most of MIG_21 spares are made in erst while soviet union ,which is outside of RUSSIA now!!! Then How genuine are the spares supplied by Russia?

 

[Kunal Biswas]

Russia arm twisted India by telling that MIg-21 is their design and we cant go to Israelis for mig-21 modernization!!!! so we ended up with shit !!! If reports are true , The new Russian KOPYO Radar for the upgraded mig-21 doesn't work properly with poor reliability !!!

I dont think it was the dicision of Russian but Indian MOD for MIG-21 upgrades..

As for the radar any links ?..



There are MIG-21 in other Airforces but its IAF Mig-21 crashes..

Logic is simple to many types of engines, And the Engine on BIS & Bison are imported and there parts are also imported so does other type of MIG-21 engines..

 

[venkat]

^^^ Israel IAI and AEROSTAR of Romania have upgraded the avionics of MIG-21 with latest EL/M2032(at that time) Radar and other avionics some where during the late ninties and India wanted the same .Russians stepped in stating that MIG-21 is their proprietary design and nobody has rights to upgrade them and its their baby!!! This was reported in Flight and AWST at that time...As far as Radar is concerned you can ask your friends....no links..
not only MIG-21s even MIrage 2000 with impeccable fleet service record for more than 25 years have crashed twice in a fortnight and as per reports airforce is yet to ascertain the reason and have taken the help of snecma!!! why indian mig21s are only crashing thats a point to ponder!!!!

 

[p2prada]

^^^ Israel IAI and AEROSTAR of Romania have upgraded the avionics of MIG-21 with latest EL/M2032(at that time) Radar and other avionics some where during the late ninties and India wanted the same .Russians stepped in stating that MIG-21 is their proprietary design and nobody has rights to upgrade them and its their baby!!! This was reported in Flight and AWST at that time...As far as Radar is concerned you can ask your friends....no links..
not only MIG-21s even MIrage 2000 with impeccable fleet service record for more than 25 years have crashed twice in a fortnight and as per reports airforce is yet to ascertain the reason and have taken the help of snecma!!! why indian mig21s are only crashing thats a point to ponder!!!!

Russian quality in the 90s being used in 2012. That's a major point of failure. We had issues with the first batch of MKIs as well, the ones from Russia. How many old generation radars can really survive 15 years of usage, especially in our conditions? It is obvious the Bisons are nearing the end of their life. So a greater dependence on maintenance is not uncalled for. The APG-65 gave 106 hours MTBF. Kopyo is giving 120 hours MTBF. Now today's radars like Bars give over 400 hours MTBF. AESAs give more than twice that and will only increase further on the Caesar and RBE-2 AA. So, we can't expect an old radar to live up to the standards of a modern radar.

The Mig-29 crash record is even more impeccable than the Migare's. So, we can't simply blame the Russians for all problems. The PAF F-16s have a worse crash record than IAF's Mirage and Mig-29 fleets. I am sure the F-16s are more service friendly than even Mirage-2000s whose engines need maintenance every 75 hours as compared to AL-31FPs 200 hours.

The Mig-21 had many serious issues, with the last major one corrected on the Mig-21bis in the late 80s, something to do with fuel lines. The last aircraft was made in 1985 and the Bison upgrade was always a stop gap measure for the great LCA, ADA's Golden Goose. It is a wonder that an aircraft that was certified for 2400 hours in 1985 is still flying 27 years later, in 2012 and will continue to do so even in 2015. Give the IAF newer plans dammit.

 

[p2prada]

@venkat

I found out the reason for why Israel wasn't chosen for the Mig-21 upgrade. The same happened with the Mirage-2000 upgrade. I went around questioning people and found out that MoD does not allow anybody except the OEM to upgrade the imports. We are speculating this is because cost negotiations are much cheaper when the contract is first signed because the vendor is guaranteed that when their stuff comes up for MLUs they will be chosen for sure.

Also, we don't know if this would be changed in DPP 2012.

 

[Armand2REP]

It isn't India that decides to go with the OEM, it is written in the contract that any outside changes negate the standing agreement. How would you like it to have your equipment assembled in another country and not even get maintenance/upgrade contracts? That would be a waste of effort. The real money is in long term support.

 

[p2prada]

It isn't India that decides to go with the OEM, it is written in the contract that any outside changes negate the standing agreement. How would you like it to have your equipment assembled in another country and not even get maintenance/upgrade contracts? That would be a waste of effort. The real money is in long term support.

No. All upgrade contracts go to OEM. I guess this is to avoid corruption as well. It's our own law. It is just coincidence that it benefits OEM.

 

[Twinblade]

@venkat

I found out the reason for why Israel wasn't chosen for the Mig-21 upgrade. The same happened with the Mirage-2000 upgrade. I went around questioning people and found out that MoD does not allow anybody except the OEM to upgrade the imports. We are speculating this is because cost negotiations are much cheaper when the contract is first signed because the vendor is guaranteed that when their stuff comes up for MLUs they will be chosen for sure.

Also, we don't know if this would be changed in DPP 2012.

One of the reasons why a third party upgrade is not preferred as it brings a zillion system integration issues of its own. These vary from mismatched LRU fittings, different levels of sensor activity, unexpected spikes/harmonics in the legacy power supply leading to premature failure of seemingly compatible newer equipment to differences in telemetry standards and different tolerances set for ignoring error signals below a certain threshold. These issues are totally solvable if given enough time, but an extensive trial and error process is suited for aircraft with a significant air frame life and not for those living on life support. Check out this video from Aero India 2011 for the issues I am talking about. Its a bit long and drab but I think you would appreciate it.

 

[p2prada]

One of the reasons why a third party upgrade is not preferred as it brings a zillion system integration issues of its own. These vary from mismatched LRU fittings, different levels of sensor activity, unexpected spikes/harmonics in the legacy power supply leading to premature failure of seemingly compatible newer equipment to differences in telemetry standards and different tolerances set for ignoring error signals below a certain threshold. These issues are totally solvable if given enough time, but an extensive trial and error process is suited for aircraft with a significant air frame life and not for those living on life support. Check out this video from Aero India 2011 for the issues I am talking about. Its a bit long and drab but I think you would appreciate it.

Yes. This is a major technical point. However if we are talking about this particular scenario(Israeli upgrades for Mig-21), they have had experience in dealing with Romanian Mig-21s. The new Lancer carries the best Israel had to offer at the time.

One major problem was that the Romanian aircraft did not come with R-77s. But that may be because they did not have any.

System integration issues are omnipresent.

I will definitely watch the video, but in 2 or 3 days time. I am at 256Kbps, need to get back to 2 Mbps in the next billing cycle.