LCA TEJAS MK1 & MK1A: News and Discussion

[Neeraj Mathur]

Ya'll Nibbiars The Work on the assembly is done is a single shift what if the budget allows and triple shift can a 60 aircraft per year are even possible?.

Dont you think it would require a private player. Public sector might not do it.

 

[IndianHawk]

Ya'll Nibbiars The Work on the assembly is done is a single shift what if the budget allows and triple shift can a 60 aircraft per year are even possible?.

Absolutely all it requires enough orders to justify that much production. One production standards are set all you need is to double / tripple assembly machines setup with more money. Skilled manpower could be a challange though! It takes time to train people.

HAL today has capabilities to build 12 su30mki + 16 lca mk1 + few bae hawk manufacturing simultaneously.

IF all these resources are dedicated to single jet with some more investment in machines they could very easily produce 40 jets per annum in just 2-3 years.

 

[Haldilal]

Absolutely all it requires enough orders to justify that much production. One production standards are set all you need is to double / tripple assembly machines setup with more money. Skilled manpower could be a challange though! It takes time to train people.

HAL today has capabilities to build 12 su30mki + 16 lca mk1 + few bae hawk manufacturing simultaneously.

IF all these resources are dedicated to single jet with some more investment in machines they could very easily produce 40 jets per annum in just 2-3 years.

Ya'll Nibbiars The Nasik Plant is under utilized could be alone produce 40 to 60 aircraft alone if modernized.

 

[Okabe Rintarou]

Ya'll Nibbiars The Nasik Plant is under utilized could be alone produce 40 to 60 aircraft alone if modernized.

The Chinese meanwhile are building 100 jets a year.

Anyways, consider this simple calculation: If we take 60 jets per year that is a lot. If we take it as sustained production and assume a 30 year lifespan of an airframe as well as ensure that when one type of jet ends its production run, we replace it with the next gen jet, the size of our Air Force would grow to 1800 jets and then level off. I think that's a bit too much, so even if we go for 40 jets per year, we can get 1200 jets, enough for 60 squadrons. I know we are at half that number right now, but 60 squadrons seems like a good number in the long term if we want to be strong enough to deter China alone.

Thinking long term force planning, Air Force should be targeting 40 jets per year sustained production. If the Air Force was like the Navy, then they would have been planning future procurement like this. The biggest problem is can we continue adding a new generation after every 30 years? If not, we can continue to produce a newer version of the older model with some modifications till the time tech for a new generation matures.

Something like this, if we assume a $200 Million per jet (including costs of spares, weapons and blast pens), we'd need $8 Billion spent on fighter jet procurement each year. Right now the entire CAPEX of Air Force is around $6.5 Billion of which around 40% might be for fighter jet prcurement. So assuming our economy continues to grow, we might become able to spend this much annually by 2030-35. So our target from 2030 onwards should be for 40 jets per year production which would include a mix of AMCA and MWF (So maybe 10 AMCA Mk1 and 30 MWF per annum from 2030-35?).

Of course in short term right now, we need to get annual production as high as possible because we are 10 squadrons down in the 42 figure of minimum squadrons required. Right now, budget is our limiting factor, especially given that Air Defence modernization, IACCS roll-out, new ALG constuction, HAS construction, drones and drone defence procurement, attack helicopter procurement, C-295W procurement and procurement of AWACS and Tankers is all happening simulatenously.

 

[pipebomb]

HAMMER and SAAW have little overlap. SAAW will come to LCA soon enough


On the face of it the HAMMER integration move is odd as the IAF paid HEAVILY to integrate SPICE onto the Rafale but then they have also ordered HAMMER for their Rafales.


Further cements my view that the IAF are like spoilt kids that feel like they need to have everything they can buy but in this case they are paying to integrate the HAMMER onto the LCA which *may* make it a little more marketable on the international market- at the very least it validates ADA's point that they can happily integrate any sub-system/weapon the user wants quite easily onto the LCA.

LCA with I-Derby and Hammer, it's a more formidable weapons package than the SU-30 MKI has

I thought hammer was stop gap before rafale is integrated with spice(i.e Indian specific upgrades) as Chinese front was getting hot. First the rumours that the current air chief is trying to scuttle a follow on deal of 36 rafales for bigger 90+ order of rafale and now hammer for lca. We already has two imported guidance kits(griffen & spice) and domestic ones have almost completed testing (gauruda & guruthama). Even if you consider hammer does bring something unique to the table, we can always call in rafale for that niche requirment.

In my view these are ominous signs after R.K.S Bhadauria's exist. We already know many of our institutions are comprised including judiciary. It is as if someone is trying to tie down our already insufficient CAPEX with these silver bullet's procurements.

 

[IndianHawk]

The Chinese meanwhile are building 100 jets a year.

Anyways, consider this simple calculation: If we take 60 jets per year that is a lot. If we take it as sustained production and assume a 30 year lifespan of an airframe as well as ensure that when one type of jet ends its production run, we replace it with the next gen jet, the size of our Air Force would grow to 1800 jets and then level off. I think that's a bit too much, so even if we go for 40 jets per year, we can get 1200 jets, enough for 60 squadrons. I know we are at half that number right now, but 60 squadrons seems like a good number in the long term if we want to be strong enough to deter China alone.

Thinking long term force planning, Air Force should be targeting 40 jets per year sustained production. If the Air Force was like the Navy, then they would have been planning future procurement like this. The biggest problem is can we continue adding a new generation after every 30 years? If not, we can continue to produce a newer version of the older model with some modifications till the time tech for a new generation matures.

Something like this, if we assume a $200 Million per jet (including costs of spares, weapons and blast pens), we'd need $8 Billion spent on fighter jet procurement each year. Right now the entire CAPEX of Air Force is around $6.5 Billion of which around 40% might be for fighter jet prcurement. So assuming our economy continues to grow, we might become able to spend this much annually by 2030-35. So our target from 2030 onwards should be for 40 jets per year production which would include a mix of AMCA and MWF (So maybe 10 AMCA Mk1 and 30 MWF per annum from 2030-35?).

Of course in short term right now, we need to get annual production as high as possible because we are 10 squadrons down in the 42 figure of minimum squadrons required. Right now, budget is our limiting factor, especially given that Air Defence modernization, IACCS roll-out, new ALG constuction, HAS construction, drones and drone defence procurement, attack helicopter procurement, C-295W procurement and procurement of AWACS and Tankers is all happening simulatenously.

How many fighter jets we will require depends upon many new technologies too which are taking over various roles of fighters jets.

Drones like predators/ rustom reduce need for patrolling by fighter jets .
Programs like cats with unmanned teaming reduce need of jets to carry armament / missiles / bombs.
Cruise missiles reduce need of jets to penetrate enemy airspace .

And then there are SAMs like s400 , xrsam, mrsam, akash / akash ng , qrsam , vlsam etc which are coming in Massive numbers which reduce requirements for fighter jets to respond to enemy advance.

Meanwhile new technologies also increasing radius of action of jets making a single jets capable to do what earlier required 3-4 jets .

Swing role lca mk1 / mk1a can do alone what required 1 MiG-21 + mig27 combo before. single Rafale can execute mission of 2 mirages simultaneously.

Jet's can now hit farther with new air to air and air to ground weaponary. Scalp can obliterate 600 km away while bramhos can hit 800 km away.

Keeping all these things in mind one might see fighter jets requirements to be more or less consistent over coming decades. Other assets may grow much faster like sams , cruise missiles , tactical ballistics missile ( rocket force) , drones of all kind small for swarm and big for patrolling surveillance .

 

[Okabe Rintarou]

How many fighter jets we will require depends upon many new technologies too which are taking over various roles of fighters jets.

Drones like predators/ rustom reduce need for patrolling by fighter jets .
Programs like cats with unmanned teaming reduce need of jets to carry armament / missiles / bombs.
Cruise missiles reduce need of jets to penetrate enemy airspace .

And then there are SAMs like s400 , xrsam, mrsam, akash / akash ng , qrsam , vlsam etc which are coming in Massive numbers which reduce requirements for fighter jets to respond to enemy advance.

Meanwhile new technologies also increasing radius of action of jets making a single jets capable to do what earlier required 3-4 jets .

Swing role lca mk1 / mk1a can do alone what required 1 MiG-21 + mig27 combo before. single Rafale can execute mission of 2 mirages simultaneously.

Jet's can now hit farther with new air to air and air to ground weaponary. Scalp can obliterate 600 km away while bramhos can hit 800 km away.

Keeping all these things in mind one might see fighter jets requirements to be more or less consistent over coming decades. Other assets may grow much faster like sams , cruise missiles , tactical ballistics missile ( rocket force) , drones of all kind small for swarm and big for patrolling surveillance .

Somewhat true, but the Chinese are continuing onwards with fighter production at high rates. At least for the 4th and 5th gen, we'll need more jets than we are planning for right now. At the end of the day, the cost of the entire CATS-fighter-munitions package will be the deciding factor, along with how many such packages your adversary fields. Look at USAF, for instance. They managed to get F-35 costs down to almost 4th gen levels. As a result of that and the general increase in their defence budget due to economic growth, they now plan to field more fighters in the future than they had in the past, even though capability of each fighter is going up.

Our competition is with China, we'll need more than 42 squadrons, despite the CATS and more SAMs.

 

[pipebomb]

Sudarshan is cancelled.. HSLD is cleared, but integrated only to Su-30 yet. We'll be integrating everything we have or hands on to Tejas eventually. Expect to hear news like this for SCALP, Meteor, Spice too in Mark1A.

SAAW being integrated.

But should we. I my opinion we should spend our money to integrate only indian weapons and components as no one else will pay for it whereas foreign customers should shell out for integration of these foreign weapons.

 

[IndianHawk]

Somewhat true, but the Chinese are continuing onwards with fighter production at high rates. At least for the 4th and 5th gen, we'll need more jets than we are planning for right now. At the end of the day, the cost of the entire CATS-fighter-munitions package will be the deciding factor, along with how many such packages your adversary fields. Look at USAF, for instance. They managed to get F-35 costs down to almost 4th gen levels. As a result of that and the general increase in their defence budget due to economic growth, they now plan to field more fighters in the future than they had in the past, even though capability of each fighter is going up.

Our competition is with China, we'll need more than 42 squadrons, despite the CATS and more SAMs.

Yes that may very well be the case. Our number will grow but how much will depend on upcoming technologies.

Regarding f35 usa has brought down production cost of latest batch down to 4.5 gen level but keep in mind they paid far more for all earlier batches and that too despite almost 2000 jets planed run . For china and india whose 5th programs will be much smaller costs will be higher to absorb.
Look at russia struggling to produce su57 already.

Also f35 operational costs are still very very high compared to f16 it replaces. Debate on that is ongoing hence the talk of new 4.5 gen plane in usa.

Against china we would like to match 60% of their fighter strength in the mid term .

So if Chinese have 1200 modern fighter jets we might be looking at 720 modern fighter jets. Which is about 40 squadrons. And if Chinese aim for 2000 fighter jets then our numbers too will rise to 1200-1400 fighter jets . But by then our economy will be as large as America and we will be able to afford it all without sweating.

 

[pipebomb]

Yes a BVR at the level of AMRAAM-120C5

Does c5 has a two way datalink?

 

[doreamon]

I thought hammer was stop gap before rafale is integrated with spice(i.e Indian specific upgrades) as Chinese front was getting hot. First the rumours that the current air chief is trying to scuttle a follow on deal of 36 rafales for bigger 90+ order of rafale and now hammer for lca. We already has two imported guidance kits(griffen & spice) and domestic ones have almost completed testing (gauruda & guruthama). Even if you consider hammer does bring something unique to the table, we can always call in rafale for that niche requirment.

In my view these are ominous signs after R.K.S Bhadauria's exist. We already know many of our institutions are comprised including judiciary. It is as if someone is trying to tie down our already insufficient CAPEX with these silver bullet's procurements.

Hammer comes with a propulsion kit . Other bombs u mentions dont have it . So fighter jet has to climb a required height to release them . And its nt easy as tibet already at a high altitude and long range air defence like s400 and other chinese systems deployed there . We need more fighter jets that can fire hammer like bombs . Nt just 36 rafale . Imagine loosing a tejas vs rafale in a war . Which one ll u prefer .
And if new weapon systems are being integrated in tejas its a plus point for export .

 

[pipebomb]

Hammer comes with a propulsion kit . Other bombs u mentions dont have it . So fighter jet has to climb a required height to release them . And its nt easy as tibet already at a high altitude and long range air defence like s400 and other chinese systems deployed there . We need more fighter jets that can fire hammer like bombs . Nt just 36 rafale . Imagine loosing a tejas vs rafale in a war . Which one ll u prefer .
And if new weapon systems are being integrated in tejas its a plus point for export .

First of all you don't have release a spice from high altitude all the time, you can release during a high speed steep climb from low altitude. In this method your time of exposure to a long range radar is reduced significantly. Israeli do it to mask themselves from sam threats all time.

Second could you share more on hammer's propulsion . For example what weight can it propel to which height or distance & and for what time. To my knowledge it looks like a gimmick.

 

[Okabe Rintarou]

So if Chinese have 1200 modern fighter jets we might be looking at 720 modern fighter jets. Which is about 40 squadrons. And if Chinese aim for 2000 fighter jets then our numbers too will rise to 1200-1400 fighter jets . But by then our economy will be as large as America and we will be able to afford it all without sweating.

Exactly. In the long term, Chinese are looking to at least match if not surpass USAF in size. So we need to be looking at 1200 jets in IAF over the long term. 2040-2050. We should have 40 jets per annum production starting from 2030, with 30 MWF and 10 AMCA Mk1 per annum from 2030-34 and then when AMCA Mk-2 enters production in 2035, we need to continue at same rate but for 40 AMCA per annum and keep that production going for 15 years to get to 1200 total jets in IAF by 2050. By 2050, we should have our 6th gen ready for production and it should start replacing Su-30 MKI and Tejas Mk1A combo, maybe again at 40 jets per annum. By then there is no doubt in my mind that Chinese would be past the 2000 jets mark.

To get this done, IAF needs to think long term, at the implications of not funding previous gen technologies required for engine or other tech development for the 6th gen platform right now, or the implications of not nurturing the indigenous jet development ecosystem so that it can even think about making 40 AMCA and then 40 6th Gen jets every year. Long term planning is the only way IAF can ensure we don't end up in pre-Tejas state with low technological readiness level which prevents us from continuously building the next gen fighters entirely in-house.

 

[pipebomb]

MK1A Suffers from Range limitation. I would like as many as MK2 to be inducted. They can roughly match MKI in range and replace MKI in many roles. It has a massive 6+ tons of Payload. With State of art EWs, Top class radar and BVRS, it can match anything in Chinese inventory except in WVR fights where twin engine TVC fighters will have a natural advantage but with AESA mounted on moving assembly and WVR missile Python 5, it will be able to do well in WVR combat as well. With top class EW, it will do well in WVR combat as well. If we can bring something like SPECTRA in MK2, it will become the Baap of any single engine fighter. After initial orders of few aircraft, I would like MK2 to be atleast frontal stealth. If we are able to put 70+/110 KN kaveri, this will become a highly deadly medium weight fighter. If 110 KN kaveri comes with TVC, it will be game over for Pakis and Chinkis. If Meteor is integrated, it will be a better fighter than Gripen E.

No mk1 or mk1a both are more than enough for CAPS. A bigger fighter just give you more on station time. You can compensate that by larger no. mk1/mk1a or by tankers which we need anyway. Quantity has a quality of its own .

On your second part, we would be lucky if we get something similar to spectra for amca. You have to allocate resources to develop spectra which will be possible if we divert then from unnecessary things like thrust vector.

 

[pipebomb]

MK1A will be lighter, more agile, will have state of art AESA and EW and will carry 4+ ton payload. Flight ceiling is invreased to 57000 ft. Payload will be 4+ ton, STR will be 18*+, Top speed improved by 2%, Transsonic acceleration improved by 20%, OBOG, mid air refueling, maintenance friendly , Astra MK1, MK2, I derby , Python 5, AMRAM , Rudram1,2, 3 are for sure. It will be a top class light fighter and will beat Saab Gripen C/D.

But mk1a is same aerodynamically to mk1, how are you expecting any of this.

 

[pipebomb]

what should be the best head to head dogfight? excluding expenditure coz paks are poor to afford a war.

su 30 mki + tejas can easily outnumber jf-17 and some f-16 (tho paf won't bring jf-17 to battle since they are very unreliable rn. but i'm taking the best condition for them if 3rd block turns out to be better than f-16)

rafale + mig vs f-16 - rafale and f-16c are very similar. but we also have migs to outnumber.

fair dogfights (even considering paf pilots are "highly trained")

1) su 30 mki (4+ gen) is still the best. both jf-17 block 3 and f-16 are no match to it in head to head dogfight. but i have some hope in jf-17 III's manoeuvrability.

2) rafale vs jf-17 block 3 (4.5 gen)
rafale is much much better even in manoeuvrability. paxtani troll thinks bvr is some sort of pinki peerni magic lmao.

3) rafale vs f-16c - pretty equal.

4) tejas foc mk1/mk1a vs jf-17 III
by the time paf would start inducting jf-17 III in large numbers. tejas would be more mature.

5) tejas foc mk1/mk1a vs f-16c ( ≅4th gen)
tejas having tailless delta wings might have some advantage imo. but f-16 is more mature, f-16 should be tad better.

6) mig 29upg vs f-16c
people consider f-16 to be better than mig, also f16 has better k/d ratio vs mig.

7) mig 29upg vs jf-17 block 1&2 (<4th gen)
jf-17 ass would be kicked

PAF		IAF
F-16c	<	Su-30 mki
JF-17 III Block	<	Rafale
JF-17 Block 1&2	<	Tejas MK1/MK1A +
(none)		Mig 29UPG
		Mig 21 (Old crap but something)

even after this idk why do pakistani likes compare aircrafts of different line of defence and generation. perhaps they like to give themselves a bj.


@mist_consecutive what are your thoughts on this?

Jf-17 in its current form is not a bvr fighter, similar to our bison. And packies doesn't has high off-boresight wvr missile either. Tejas mk1 can take on packie f-16s so no need to consider jf-17.

But in future a bvr missile with an aesa seeker head would be a problem for which we should develop effective ew now for our fighters. We also need indigenous common datalink for all three services.

 

[pipebomb]

Block 3 is comparable to tejas mk1a

No its not, radar is inferior (not all aesa are alike) no obgs, inferior ew.

 

[IndianHawk]

No mk1 or mk1a both are more than enough for CAPS. A bigger fighter just give you more on station time. You can compensate that by larger no. mk1/mk1a or by tankers which we need anyway. Quantity has a quality of its own .

On your second part, we would be lucky if we get something similar to spectra for amca. You have to allocate resources to develop spectra which will be possible if we divert then from unnecessary things like thrust vector.

Spectra is combination of all passive active sensors which gives clues to pilot. We will see something similar in MWF itself. Mk1a also has limited sensor fusion.

AMCA sensor fusion will be leagues ahead of current spectra.

 

[Compersion]

Apologies if this has already mentioned:

What was the maximum number of Mig-21 we have had at any point of time. Was it 332?

Is that something that we are provisioning for Tejas.

List of historical aircraft of the Indian Air Force - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[pipebomb]

1st THEY DON'T WANT 10TH GEN FIGHTER JF17. and that's a fact. They said it themselves.

They want mig class but Russia isn't offer isn't satisfactory it seems. Also fear CAATSA.

as for Tejas, I wonder how will HAL change Martin Baker seats.

However with current scenario, maybe JF17 but yet Chinese offer isn't too satisfactory.

@Roland55 your opinion??

j-10c in every aspect a better choice than jf-17blk3 imho