Indian Air Force: News & Discussions

Flying Dagger

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Any details to what extent the Taiwanese Mirages are upgraded to?
UAE /Qatar are in much better shape and upgraded one less used.

When Taiwan enquired French abt the upgrade they decided to drop the platform itself from their airforce in favor of more F-16s 😂😂😂😂. Though MICA is integrated on them as they were bought in 90s .

But eventually a team of IAF personnel have to go there and examine the cost but I am damn sure they aren't looking to upgrade them unless it's too cheap they'll rather buy a new. Israel/HAL can perhaps upgrade them with European AESA or ours. In my experience it is never happening.
 

Flying Dagger

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Most people do not realize that RBE 2 AESA is generation ahead of both Russian AESA on MIG 29 & 35. I think money has become a serious problem for us or we would have gone for more rafale.
Money is always an issue.. plus Mig 29 cost us pretty low including the upgrade of 59 Mig 29 where HAL will play major role. I mean for the price of one Rafale you can buy around 4 Mig 29 UPG or for upgrade of one Mirage are getting 2 Mig 29 UPG and they are much ahead of anything PAF got including the few F-16 blk 52. With Astra/ASRAAM combo they can take care of Western theatre easily.

Regarding Rafale AESA being generation ahead I won't say that.. It has higher TR modules than Rafale or equal at best. In anycase a good deal as stop gap I'll be happy if we can get 100 of those at this price.
 

Chanakya 002

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Money is always an issue.. plus Mig 29 cost us pretty low including the upgrade of 59 Mig 29 where HAL will play major role. I mean for the price of one Rafale you can buy around 4 Mig 29 UPG or for upgrade of one Mirage are getting 2 Mig 29 UPG and they are much ahead of anything PAF got including the few F-16 blk 52. With Astra/ASRAAM combo they can take care of Western theatre easily.

Regarding Rafale AESA being generation ahead I won't say that.. It has higher TR modules than Rafale or equal at best. In anycase a good deal as stop gap I'll be happy if we can get 100 of those at this price.
One thing i always wonder, can we have different budget for salaries and pension of our armed forces including DRDO and OFS.
and one budget for only procurement.
That too in segments like say- 2 Billion for Army, 2 Billion for IAF and 02 Billion for Navy.
 

Flying Dagger

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One thing i always wonder, can we have different budget for salaries and pension of our armed forces including DRDO and OFS.
and one budget for only procurement.
That too in segments like say- 2 Billion for Army, 2 Billion for IAF and 02 Billion for Navy.
That's how it is done actually. But after pension operational cost etc there is little left for procurement since most of what we procure is imported.

Unless we do something abt govt run organisation and Pvt sector pick up in defence it's hard. Our slow growth rate isn't helping it either.
 

Chanakya 002

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That's how it is done actually. But after pension operational cost etc there is little left for procurement since most of what we procure is imported.

Unless we do something abt govt run organisation and Pvt sector pick up in defence it's hard. Our slow growth rate isn't helping it either.
I think by privatising OFBs govt will save some money and work will be faster.
 

Flying Dagger

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There is a generation difference. Here's radiating elements for AESA radars.

View attachment 58210
View attachment 58211

AESA radar on MIG 29 ,MIG 35 either use patch radiators or ring radiators.

Patch radiators.
View attachment 58213

Ring radiators.
View attachment 58212

Both offer less bandwidth , gain( directivity ) & range compared to notch radiators we see on western AESA. ring radiators do offer Higher bandwidth , gain ( directivity ) range but , notch radiators still leads.

Here is notch radiators on RBE-2 AESA. which is a 3rd generation AESA.

TSA( vivaldi) flared notch radiators.
View attachment 58215

notice the V shaped flared notch.
View attachment 58217

narrower region of these notch.... radiates RF signals of high frequency, while broader part radiates RF signals of low frequency. It's basically two TRM packed in one. TSA are broadband antenna suitable for Ultra wideband signals , giving radar wider bandwidth(>50% of center frequency ) as well as better gain (directivity) , LPI characteristics, ECCMs (anti-jam capability), higher resolution (target identification) and greater effective range.
Radar itself can do Electronic attacks , like the radar of F 35.

Here are quad packed high density stepped notch TSA on F 35 radar.View attachment 58214

Russian industry still lags behind west, that's why they keep importing high tech stuff from France. Russian AESA radar are good for indian needs, given Pakistan doesn't get better one from west, which they might.
In short while in patch or ring the TR modules packed are less while in notch its high ..

But Mig 29 AESA will have comparable TR modules just like Rafale AESA.
 

Sridhar_TN

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In short while in patch or ring the TR modules packed are less while in notch its high ..

But Mig 29 AESA will have comparable TR modules just like Rafale AESA.
Money is always an issue.. plus Mig 29 cost us pretty low including the upgrade of 59 Mig 29 where HAL will play major role. I mean for the price of one Rafale you can buy around 4 Mig 29 UPG or for upgrade of one Mirage are getting 2 Mig 29 UPG and they are much ahead of anything PAF got including the few F-16 blk 52. With Astra/ASRAAM combo they can take care of Western theatre easily.

Regarding Rafale AESA being generation ahead I won't say that.. It has higher TR modules than Rafale or equal at best. In anycase a good deal as stop gap I'll be happy if we can get 100 of those at this price.
Dude. Having a greater number of TR modules does not make an AESA Radar a better one or let alone a generation ahead. The number of TR modules is directly related to the size of the radar that will be fitted into an aircraft with size constraints. That’s all. Rafale has a smaller nose cone. Hence a smaller radar.
 

Flying Dagger

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Dude. Having a greater number of TR modules does not make an AESA Radar a better one or let alone a generation ahead. The number of TR modules is directly related to the size of the radar that will be fitted into an aircraft with size constraints. That’s all. Rafale has a smaller nose cone. Hence a smaller radar.
So? Dude ??

Did I said it makes them gen ahead but yes more TR modules does mean better range.

And no no. of TR modules isn't just related to nose size but diff. Packing ways too.

They packed 1000+ TR modules on mig29/35 Zhuk AME, last around 2016 from the earlier 650+ in comparison to 800+ for Rbe2 aesa.

Now let me tell you why Zhuk AME is indeed an advanced one.. Russians have moved on to GaN Zhuk AME now.
 

omaebakabaka

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Lots of claims on bvr and AESA, give some solid evidence that they actually worked with the level of superiority that is claimed in any air to air battles so far that mattered in peer to peer 1st rated airforces or 1st rated vs 2nd rated? Especially considering BVR has been around for a while.....f-22's are known to be garage queens as they need lot of maintenance and f-35s are also not exposed in numbers to protect its signatures? Why buy something to only use it so restrictively.....we can say in BVR, the field is pretty even and I would actually give advantage to Russians as their whole force is based on defeating NATO and they invested in missiles more than anyone and they have supersonic and now hypersonic missles and the range of missiles is actually vast. AESA, certainly western tech is better....we all know that Russians import electronic components for their sats and tanks from west but they are catching up. Russian microprocessors are rather interesting and match pretty well with western ones in defence applications but they do lag in general computing in some respects.
 

Flying Dagger

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Mig 29 AESA Specifications.

Zhuk-AE AESA radar.View attachment 58249

Zhuk-AE( FGA 35) AESA.
View attachment 58248

Specifications are good for both, i would like to see second one in service though.
Both are old one these were GaS based the first one had 650+ TR modules.

The latest is GaN based AESA they have on offer with 1000+ TR modules with peak power raised to 20 watt per TR Avg 8 w.

The first one had 8 w raised to 15 w in the second.
 

Flying Dagger

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20kw radar for MIG 29 ? any source regarding this.
I have only seen pics of 4 different types of zhuk AESA.

• FGA 29( Zhuk-AE)
View attachment 58253
This one has 575mm antenna & 680 T/R modules. Detection range is 200 km for 3m2 target.

• Modified bigger FGA 29 now labelled as ( FGA 35)
View attachment 58252
This one has 688mm antenna & 1016 T/R modules with 250 km detection range for 3m2 target.

•FGA (35)3D GaN based radar.
View attachment 58257
This one has 680mm +/- antenna diameter & 960 T/R modules. Detection range is 200km for a 5 tonne UAV size target ?( 1m2 Target )

•here's the last one from placard. Zhuk-AM/AME GaN based now Labelled as FGA 35, FGA 50.
View attachment 58255

View attachment 58254
Look like a modified version of FGA 35(3D) with 260km+ detection range for 3m2 target & 1000+/- T/R modules.
First one is from 2008 with 650 + TR modules it had 5-8 w peak power per TR module.

The last one it might be... Earlier peak power was 15 w per TR module for GaN based AESA which is raised to 20 w per TR module. The avg was 8 w.

Regarding names they have been interchanging it so many times tough to keep tab. 35 becomes 29 then they dev 35 then again dropped it as 29 and so on. Right now they are offering the GaN based one as Zhuk AME.

For Su 57 they are working on photonic.
 

fire starter

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First one is from 2008 with 650 + TR modules it had 5-8 w peak power per TR module.

The last one it might be... Earlier peak power was 15 w per TR module for GaN based AESA which is raised to 20 w per TR module. The avg was 8 w.

Regarding names they have been interchanging it so many times tough to keep tab. 35 becomes 29 then they dev 35 then again dropped it as 29 and so on. Right now they are offering the GaN based one as Zhuk AME.

For Su 57 they are working on photonic.
photonic radar are not feasible America stopped working on them long time ago.
 

Flying Dagger

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photonic radar are not feasible America stopped working on them long time ago.
Please share the source as far as I know it's the nxt big thing in radar evolution.

Russian will introduce ROFAR on Su 57 and China is working on its Quantum/Photonic radar too.

 

Flying Dagger

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there are serious problem with ROFAR radar.
from the article.
View attachment 58426
as mentioned above ROFAR is supposed to operate in W band ( 80-100 GHz) & above in mm wavelength.
well mm wavelength will result in lower noise floor , significantly enhance resolution, bandwidth etc.., compared to say cm wavelength used by FCR working in X & Ku band and since reflection properties of EM waves at W band (80- 100 GHz) & above is different, this will make LO shaping very very less effective.
so basically you can detect even ELO threat's.
Jamming will also won't work here, since range of EW system need be greater than that of the radio receiver, which is physically impossible with ROFAR.
That sounds great right....Well here's the problem.

At such high frequency , attenuation will be 25 times greater( one way ) than an X band (10 GHz). For a radar receiving reflected signal that’s 50 times greater attenuation.

View attachment 58440

That means you need to have 50 times more power than a radar working in X band to have same range.
For e.g, to have same range of RBE 2 AESA which has peak power between 10 & 15 kW. ( I might be wrong here regarding peak power ) a ROFAR would require peak power between 500 & 750 kW.
for a 20kW class conventional radar , that's 1MW for ROFAR. This will create a massive engineering challenge to put such a Radar on a fighter jet.
that's why chances of a ground based ROFAR are high compared to one on plane for foreseeable future.
ROFAR has application in lower band ( X, Ku) & can increase there effectiveness many folds even against low observable threat's. But it's true potential lies in EHF where as mentioned above , problem are many folds.
Rarely the radar of a fighter jet will operate at their peak power and the loss in photonic radar is half or even lesser in comparison to conventional as per russia.

Ground radar will be first step for sure just as we see in AESA radar and their further miniaturization for Awacs then fighter jet.

Anyway fighter jet like say Su 30 will be able to provide that much power with upgraded engines.
 

Shirman

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My main understanding with photonic radar matter is they do not work as conventional radars be it AESA or mechanical scanned, in Aesa circuit based scanning is done by electrical powered while in photonic radar the entire process is done/generated by lasers there was a nice explanation thread not on this forum,done by @panzerfeist1 @StealthFlanker and even others like @Austin, @gadeshi and others had given some important link why newly proposed izdliye 30/ type 30 engines need variable cycle engines with more power for new IRST and sensors planned like photonic radars. I think in the west Rolce-Royce and US P&W, GE are also on the same page with regards to Direct Energy weapons. Coming to topic I think the cost effective option is to have AESA for 80 odd mig-29 upg along with HAL proposed Super Su-30 Aesa upgrades. Data link them to Tejas Mk1a and rafales and be done with 114 additional MMRCA competition.
 

Haldilal

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Out of 10 women fighter pilots one will be chosen to fly the Rafale on joining the Golden Arrows squadron. The woman pilot in question has been flying MiG-21 fighters. She was one of the 10 chosen to fly Rafale jets following a stringent selection process and is undergoing training now. However, the name of the lady fighter pilot is yet to be disclosed.

Most likely I feel it would be Avani Chaturvedi who was part of the first batch of combat pilots along with Mohana Singh Jitarwal and Bhawana Kanth. The trio was inducted into the Indian Air Force fighter squadron in June 2016.

In 2018, Avani became the first Indian woman pilot to go solo on a MiG -21 Bison.

1600756422677.png

Avani Chaturvedi




.
 
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Haldilal

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Ya'll Nibbiars remember Discplined pilot is worth more than the Gifted Pilot.
 

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