LCA TEJAS MK1 & MK1A: News and Discussion

[Ghost hale]

In case for some reason *cough*inbreeding*cough* some goat "enthusiasts" still have trouble seeing how Tejas is different from Mirage-2000...

Don't burn ur bridges with goat enthusiasts as u will need their uber modern aircraft next time whenever darkseid or thanos attacks. On serious note, sick render. Just Make one in all black. I know those are not our colour but everything looks beast incarnate with black.

 

[Bleh]

On serious note, sick render. Just Make one in all black. I know those are not our colour but everything looks beast incarnet with black.

Not a bad idea.

Renders are by @Kuntal. The twin-seaters TejasMAX (the one with CATS) is likely to be ready in sometime in April-May. That could come in black... Sure looks cool.

 

[Lost user]

How is that possible when the deal got signed on 3 Feb this year at AI. Money released after that- and GE will make the engines only after a firm order & $$ from HAL. They could not have made 83 engines in 44 days!

Are you talking about the 99 engine deal? That's for F414 that will power Tejas mk2/ MWF

 

[MonaLazy]

Are you talking about the 99 engine deal? That's for F414 that will power Tejas mk2/ MWF

Nope. 83 F404 engines (+some over stock) for 73 Mk1As and 10 Mk1 trainers. About 10K crores in the 47K crores is for engines. The deal was signed in early Feb this year. No way the Americans will deliver engines before they are paid for.

 

[Alfalfa]

Nope. 83 F404 engines (+some over stock) for 73 Mk1As and 10 Mk1 trainers. About 10K crores in the 47K crores is for engines. The deal was signed in early Feb this year. No way the Americans will deliver engines before they are paid for.

Are you sure? AFAIK its USD 600 Mn. for 99 engines or about 4500 Cr. (link below) ... Honestly, at these prices its fine for us to master everything else before the Kaveri matures and keep using imported engines ... also the GEs have served us splendidly... the fact that the LCA hasnt crashed in ~5000 flights is testimony to that...

US major GE wins $600 mn engine bid for Indian Light Combat Aircrafts

GE pipped its European competitor Eurojet as DRDO announced American major's was the lowest bid.

m.economictimes.com

 

[spiritb2]

Nope. 83 F404 engines (+some over stock) for 73 Mk1As and 10 Mk1 trainers. About 10K crores in the 47K crores is for engines. The deal was signed in early Feb this year. No way the Americans will deliver engines before they are paid for.

Actually there is no F404-IN20 engine deal signed between HAL & GE Aviation during Aero India 2021. It was a development & manufacturing contract awarded by GE to HAL for engine ring forgings.

Link

 

[Karthi]

5 kW Brushless DC Generator of Tejas. this device support critical electrical loads for flight safety during emergency when main AC generator fails.

 

[MonaLazy]

Are you sure? AFAIK its USD 600 Mn. for 99 engines or about 4500 Cr. (link below) ... Honestly, at these prices its fine for us to master everything else before the Kaveri matures and keep using imported engines ... also the GEs have served us splendidly... the fact that the LCA hasnt crashed in ~5000 flights is testimony to that...

US major GE wins $600 mn engine bid for Indian Light Combat Aircrafts

GE pipped its European competitor Eurojet as DRDO announced American major's was the lowest bid.

m.economictimes.com

You are getting confused by a 2010 article. That's more than a decade ago! F-414 is vapour ware for now, some F-404 is all we have! When we actually get to the order for Mk2s that price for F-414 will be negotiated again to factor in inflation, dollar-rupee conversion etc.

F414 was selected but never ordered, because Mk1A happened. There is a 100+ F404 order for 83 fighters + spare stock from AI'21, to be negotiated hopefully by end 2021. From GE there's this and this circa 2007 & 2010:

2004

purchase of 17 F404 engines to power a limited series of operational production aircraft and naval prototypes

2007

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has ordered an additional 24 F404-GE-IN20 afterburning engines to power the first operational squadron of Tejas fighter aircraft for the Indian Air Force. Value of the order is in excess of $100 million and follows an initial 2004 purchase of 17 F404-GE-IN20 engines to power a limited series of operational production aircraft and naval prototypes.

2010

This selection follows earlier orders of 24 F404 GE engines in 2007

Kindly note: Selection (intent to buy) vs Order (actual buy)!

if you recall the initial cost bandied by HAL for Mk1A was 56000 crs, that was reduced to 47000 crs because of HAL giving up on so-called ToT aka screwdrivergiri from GE to make the engine in India, besides reducing some Performance Based Logistics costs.

GE Aviation was early hesitant to approve ToT that could have granted locally assembly licensee to the HAL for its engines but Madhavan confirmed that the ToT clause was not included also due to an instance from the IAF that was not willing to foot the bill for the locally assembled jet engines and instead IAF is keen to focus on improving local maintainability and serviceability of the engines at its level.


HAL had proposed ToT of the F404-GE-IN20 Engines when it had given its initial bid of 56000 cores for 73 Tejas Mk1A and 10 Tejas Mk1 Trainer jets but after price negotiations, IAF was no longer interested in ToT of the F404-GE-IN20 Engines that helped it to reduce contract price after plans for the local assembly was dropped.

 

[MonaLazy]

Are you sure? AFAIK its USD 600 Mn. for 99 engines or about 4500 Cr. (link below)

On the price for GE F404 I am wrong, given one GE-414 costs $ 3.71m- will dig for reliable sources.

 

[MonaLazy]

Some more engine dope from 15 Feb 2017 BS article- GE supplies two test engines for Tejas Mk-2, eyes collaboration for AMCA

General Electric (GE) has delivered two qualified 414 engines to be tested on the planned home-grown Tejas Mk-2 single engine fighter and is looking to collaborate with India to build engines for the proposed advanced medium-combat aircraft.


The Tejas fighter is been powered by the GE-404 engine since its development and the IAF plans to induct over 120 planes with the same engine. So far, India has ordered around 100 engines for the fighter from GE and plans to buy more engines in the coming years.


The single engine fighter being developed by the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA), a DRDO unit will undergo an upgrade with more features that requires a more powerful engine and GE has been tasked to supply its GE-414 engine.


"The first two engines are for flight test. They are ready to go as and when the plane is ready. We are committed to deliver six more engines," said Mark Pearson, who leads the military engine programme for GE in an interview.


Pearson is betting on the over 700 engineers who work on design and take charge of manufacturing parts of GE's commercial aero engines, at its India centre in Bengaluru, to push for local co-development of the engine for AMCA, which ADA is developing.


India has begun preliminary design work on the stealth aircraft but has not launched a programme officially. GE is looking to partner with ADA, but it also requires a US government approval to collaborate on military programmes before its Bengaluru team can work on the jet engine programme.


The Bengaluru team has worked on the GE90 engine that power the Boeing 777 planes and the engine that power the A380 aircraft. It also developing the GE9X, which the local team in India is collaborating for the replacement engine of GE90 on the Boeing 777.


"The foundation is already here built over 17 years," said Pearson.


GE, which has a manufacturing facility in Pune whose 40% contribution is engine components, says it could meet the mandated 50% requirement of local production for defence contracts within India. "We can deliver on our commitments as and when we see more orders," said Alok Nanda, General Manager, (India engineering operations) at GE.

This article claims we have already ordered around 100 F-404 engines, not finding anything concrete about this order for a 100 of these engines in our possession- price paid etc. Also, from here only 41 F404-GE-IN20 are produced ($6m per!)- which tallies with 17+24 from 2004 & 2007. We also have 8 older F404-F2J3 supplied before Pokharan-II used to power TDs and PVs. Also learnt in 2017, GE has delivered 2 F-414s for Mk2 flight tests with option for 6 more-

So to sum up the many twists & turns (feel free to point out inaccuracies):

Pre 1998 8 older F404-F2J3 supplied before Pokharan-II used to power TDs and PVs

2004 purchase of 17 F404-GE-IN20 engines to power LSPs & NPs

2007 24 F404-GE-IN20 afterburning engines to power IOC

2009 Mk2 is planned to simply elongate the Tejas Mark 1 with a 0.5 m fuselage plug to accommodate more fuel, while fitting a more powerful engine with 65-100 kN of thrust. But soon it was determined that this elongation of the air frame generated substantial amount of additional drag. Alongside that the IAF demanded at least 18 degrees per second sustained turn rate.

2010 For the power-plant, the General Electric F414 and Eurojet EJ200 were evaluated. In October 2010, GE F414 was selected as the lowest bidder.

2013 The final deal for 99 aeroengines worth $822 million was signed by January 2013. As per the agreement, eight engines were be bought off-the-shelf, while other 91 built in India under transfer-of-technology.

2014-16 Development of MWF was envisioned only in 2014-15 period and configuration optimization studies commenced by ADA in November 2016

Oct 2015 IAF Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha confirmed that the air force plans to order 123 (six squadrons) of Tejas Mark 1, triple the 40 aircraft it had previously committed to buying. Later it was declared that those 83 additional Tejas ordered would be the upgraded Mark 1A version

2017 2 F-414s for Mk2 (6 more off the shelf & 91 more Make in India have not materialized yet)- while the Mk2 itself is changing drastically

2018 Its whole platform was so drastically modified that the previous Mk2 design concept, which was just a re-engined Mk1 air frame with a fuselage plug, was discarded to transform the platform to be classified as a Medium-weight class aircraft. A final configuration was worked out in September 2018 and its basic design was frozen in December 2018.

2020 Mk2 entered detailed design phase after completing the preliminary design review

Coming back to the Mk1/A saga 2 TDs, 6 PVs, 2 NPs, 8 LSPs, 40 Mk1, 73 Mk1A, 10 Mk1 = 141 engines at least

engines in hand - 49, thats another 92 more atleast to order @ $ 6m per pop, about 4500 crs. 10K crores were saved thanks to no ToT/India assembly.

 

[Tang]

Some more engine dope from 15 Feb 2017 BS article- GE supplies two test engines for Tejas Mk-2, eyes collaboration for AMCA



This article claims we have already ordered around 100 F-404 engines, not finding anything concrete about this order for a 100 of these engines in our possession- price paid etc. Also, from here only 41 F404-GE-IN20 are produced ($6m per!)- which tallies with 17+24 from 2004 & 2007. We also have 8 older F404-F2J3 supplied before Pokharan-II used to power TDs and PVs. Also learnt in 2017, GE has delivered 2 F-414s for Mk2 flight tests with option for 6 more-

So to sum up the many twists & turns (feel free to point out inaccuracies):

Pre 1998 8 older F404-F2J3 supplied before Pokharan-II used to power TDs and PVs

2004 purchase of 17 F404-GE-IN20 engines to power LSPs & NPs

2007 24 F404-GE-IN20 afterburning engines to power IOC

2009 Mk2 is planned to simply elongate the Tejas Mark 1 with a 0.5 m fuselage plug to accommodate more fuel, while fitting a more powerful engine with 65-100 kN of thrust. But soon it was determined that this elongation of the air frame generated substantial amount of additional drag. Alongside that the IAF demanded at least 18 degrees per second sustained turn rate.

2010 For the power-plant, the General Electric F414 and Eurojet EJ200 were evaluated. In October 2010, GE F414 was selected as the lowest bidder.

2013 The final deal for 99 aeroengines worth $822 million was signed by January 2013. As per the agreement, eight engines were be bought off-the-shelf, while other 91 built in India under transfer-of-technology.

2014-16 Development of MWF was envisioned only in 2014-15 period and configuration optimization studies commenced by ADA in November 2016

Oct 2015 IAF Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha confirmed that the air force plans to order 123 (six squadrons) of Tejas Mark 1, triple the 40 aircraft it had previously committed to buying. Later it was declared that those 83 additional Tejas ordered would be the upgraded Mark 1A version

2017 2 F-414s for Mk2 (6 more off the shelf & 91 more Make in India have not materialized yet)- while the Mk2 itself is changing drastically

2018 Its whole platform was so drastically modified that the previous Mk2 design concept, which was just a re-engined Mk1 air frame with a fuselage plug, was discarded to transform the platform to be classified as a Medium-weight class aircraft. A final configuration was worked out in September 2018 and its basic design was frozen in December 2018.

2020 Mk2 entered detailed design phase after completing the preliminary design review

Coming back to the Mk1/A saga 2 TDs, 6 PVs, 2 NPs, 8 LSPs, 40 Mk1, 73 Mk1A, 10 Mk1 = 141 engines at least

engines in hand - 49, thats another 92 more atleast to order @ $ 6m per pop, about 4500 crs. 10K crores were saved thanks to no ToT/India assembly.

Thanks for the effort.
DFI forum need this kind of discussion/facts not random mumbling.

Regards

 

[lcafanboy]

Adrishya RAM coating....

 

[Alfalfa]

Some more engine dope from 15 Feb 2017 BS article- GE supplies two test engines for Tejas Mk-2, eyes collaboration for AMCA



This article claims we have already ordered around 100 F-404 engines, not finding anything concrete about this order for a 100 of these engines in our possession- price paid etc. Also, from here only 41 F404-GE-IN20 are produced ($6m per!)- which tallies with 17+24 from 2004 & 2007. We also have 8 older F404-F2J3 supplied before Pokharan-II used to power TDs and PVs. Also learnt in 2017, GE has delivered 2 F-414s for Mk2 flight tests with option for 6 more-

So to sum up the many twists & turns (feel free to point out inaccuracies):

Pre 1998 8 older F404-F2J3 supplied before Pokharan-II used to power TDs and PVs

2004 purchase of 17 F404-GE-IN20 engines to power LSPs & NPs

2007 24 F404-GE-IN20 afterburning engines to power IOC

2009 Mk2 is planned to simply elongate the Tejas Mark 1 with a 0.5 m fuselage plug to accommodate more fuel, while fitting a more powerful engine with 65-100 kN of thrust. But soon it was determined that this elongation of the air frame generated substantial amount of additional drag. Alongside that the IAF demanded at least 18 degrees per second sustained turn rate.

2010 For the power-plant, the General Electric F414 and Eurojet EJ200 were evaluated. In October 2010, GE F414 was selected as the lowest bidder.

2013 The final deal for 99 aeroengines worth $822 million was signed by January 2013. As per the agreement, eight engines were be bought off-the-shelf, while other 91 built in India under transfer-of-technology.

2014-16 Development of MWF was envisioned only in 2014-15 period and configuration optimization studies commenced by ADA in November 2016

Oct 2015 IAF Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha confirmed that the air force plans to order 123 (six squadrons) of Tejas Mark 1, triple the 40 aircraft it had previously committed to buying. Later it was declared that those 83 additional Tejas ordered would be the upgraded Mark 1A version

2017 2 F-414s for Mk2 (6 more off the shelf & 91 more Make in India have not materialized yet)- while the Mk2 itself is changing drastically

2018 Its whole platform was so drastically modified that the previous Mk2 design concept, which was just a re-engined Mk1 air frame with a fuselage plug, was discarded to transform the platform to be classified as a Medium-weight class aircraft. A final configuration was worked out in September 2018 and its basic design was frozen in December 2018.

2020 Mk2 entered detailed design phase after completing the preliminary design review

Coming back to the Mk1/A saga 2 TDs, 6 PVs, 2 NPs, 8 LSPs, 40 Mk1, 73 Mk1A, 10 Mk1 = 141 engines at least

engines in hand - 49, thats another 92 more atleast to order @ $ 6m per pop, about 4500 crs. 10K crores were saved thanks to no ToT/India assembly.

Good stuff, highly informative ...

 

[Spitfire9]

Some more engine dope from 15 Feb 2017 BS article- GE supplies two test engines for Tejas Mk-2, eyes collaboration for AMCA

Just what you want - 2 engine OEM's vying for your business. It may turn out that they can be pushed to offer more ToT and/or workshare than either would have been prepared to offer in the absence of competition.

 

[pruthvi24]

where are we wrt to Kaveri engines?. Last I heard we fixed Kaveri to Russian plane and we were testing it.

 

[Haldilal]

where are we wrt to Kaveri engines?. Last I heard we fixed Kaveri to Russian plane and we were testing it.

Ya'll Nibbiars

Indian Defence just posted a Koo

"Pic of new Kaveri under study ? It has the new inlet fan and also afterburn ..."

www.kooapp.com

 

[Blank]

No matter how cool a render might look, the real thing always is better.

 

[Bleh]

View attachment 82979

No matter how cool a render might look, the real thing always is better.

Oh yeah?

Tejas with 6 bombs.. net 3.5t payload.

 

[FalconZero]

View attachment 82979

No matter how cool a render might look, the real thing always is better.

Sp 26 / 22

 

[Spitfire9]

Anyone know if Mk1a schedule is on track, please - assembly, rollout, first flight? IAF would certainly benefit from getting a squadron a year ASAP.