LCA TEJAS MK1 & MK1A: News and Discussion

Rajaraja Chola

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Delta Elegance!

Wish we get a promo like this for Tejas someday.. ( not having much hopes from Kangana's "Tejas" movie on the cinematography front)
I think that movie production has stopped and I hope it's not restarted. Tejas doesn't have much a war legacy to begin with. Probably a movie can be taken after 10-15 years.
As of now.its going to be a purely propaganda movie with zero history or insights.
 

samsaptaka

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Watching the hamara Tejas series on YouTube, am I the only one who thinks HAL has an absolutely outdated integration/manufacturing assembly line ? Where a zoo of workers are twiddling everything manually. Absolutely no robotic arms etc...no automation, no computer aided control or QC etc... Completely old school hand assembly. No wonder they struggle to finish even 20 per year !
 

Narasimh

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Watching the hamara Tejas series on YouTube, am I the only one who thinks HAL has an absolutely outdated integration/manufacturing assembly line ? Where a zoo of workers are twiddling everything manually. Absolutely no robotic arms etc...no automation, no computer aided control or QC etc... Completely old school hand assembly. No wonder they struggle to finish even 20 per year !
I was watching the rafale asssembly, they assemble it manually too without robots. But they have assisting equipments like a lift crane to move around the assembled pieces, custom equipments etc.
 

AVAST

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Watching the hamara Tejas series on YouTube, am I the only one who thinks HAL has an absolutely outdated integration/manufacturing assembly line ? Where a zoo of workers are twiddling everything manually. Absolutely no robotic arms etc...no automation, no computer aided control or QC etc... Completely old school hand assembly. No wonder they struggle to finish even 20 per year !
Thats how normally its done even at big companies. Its just that hal employees are lazy. Same goes for Air india.
 

Aditya Ballal

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Watching the hamara Tejas series on YouTube, am I the only one who thinks HAL has an absolutely outdated integration/manufacturing assembly line ? Where a zoo of workers are twiddling everything manually. Absolutely no robotic arms etc...no automation, no computer aided control or QC etc... Completely old school hand assembly. No wonder they struggle to finish even 20 per year !
The only time you’ll see cranes or automatic machines laying the parts, are the heavy ones that can’t be carried by hand. Such a system is done for larger aircraft where almost every part of the aircraft cannot be physically carried by a human in numbers for a long time, but even here the actual assembly is actually done by hand using automatic or manual tools. For fighter aircraft which are much smaller in comparison it’s always men “twiddling” around the airframe as there are much smaller nooks and crannies where most machines simply can’t get into or it’s just not worth it. You’ve got to remember, a fighter aircraft is not an automobile.
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The only fighter production line you’ll see an automatic crane doing a lot of work is the F35 one, where it physically lifts the aircraft along the line after each stage of production, but the this is feasible only in mega factories, where mega orders are places. I have made a post in the AMCA thread regarding this, I’ll share it once I find it.
 
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Aditya Ballal

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The only time you’ll see cranes or automatic machines laying the parts, are the heavy ones that can’t be carried by hand. Such a system is done for larger aircraft where almost every part of the aircraft cannot be physically carried by a human in numbers for a long time, for fighter aircraft which are much smaller in comparison it’s always men “twiddling” around the airframe as there are much smaller nooks and crannies where most machines simply can’t get into or it’s just not worth it. You’ve got to remember, a fighter aircraft is not an automobile.View attachment 132442View attachment 132443
View attachment 132444View attachment 132445View attachment 132446
The only fighter production line you’ll see an automatic crane doing a lot of work is the F35 one, where it physically lifts the aircraft along the line after each stage of production, but the this is feasible only in mega factories, where mega orders are places. I have made a post in the AMCA thread regarding this, I’ll share it once I find it.
@samsaptaka
These aren’t fast moving production lines like automobiles that require an extreme level of speed, parts and components take a long time to make and integrate, hence there is a lot of time on hand to do most of the assembly work by workers by hand.
 
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Covfefe

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Watching the hamara Tejas series on YouTube, am I the only one who thinks HAL has an absolutely outdated integration/manufacturing assembly line ? Where a zoo of workers are twiddling everything manually. Absolutely no robotic arms etc...no automation, no computer aided control or QC etc... Completely old school hand assembly. No wonder they struggle to finish even 20 per year !
Automation is a big BIG cost hole- hardly justifies the cost in low labour cost economies like India. If you're not mindful in making the decisions to go for automation, you may end up even bankrupt (GM, case in point). Robotic arms are used when 1) there's demand for extremely high precision operation (majority of that work is done at sub-assembly level) 2) you need high speed of operation (fighter jet production lines are batch production make to order kind of line, extremely high speed isn't of essence so much)
However, their assembly line does look very cluttered and lack of discipline is visible(workers wearing sports shoes was hilarious, on contrary once my plant manager was asked to return from the production line by safety officer). They can use more automated cranes as pointed out by Aditya but most of the work in a jig-assisted assembly is manual.
Slower speed of delivery could be due to other reasons for all we know - delay in sub-assemblies, testing, acceptance by AF etc
 

Vivek k

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The point is - it seems that aircraft building expertise and capacity comes only from doing it yourself. For the Tejas no screwdrivergiri is available. So HAL is learning the hard way. The experience should make them a better firm. And it may be that HAL is providing deliveries without declaring these details in public. I hope that is the case.
 

Whitecollar

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Automation is a big BIG cost hole- hardly justifies the cost in low labour cost economies like India. If you're not mindful in making the decisions to go for automation, you may end up even bankrupt (GM, case in point). Robotic arms are used when 1) there's demand for extremely high precision operation (majority of that work is done at sub-assembly level) 2) you need high speed of operation (fighter jet production lines are batch production make to order kind of line, extremely high speed isn't of essence so much)
However, their assembly line does look very cluttered and lack of discipline is visible(workers wearing sports shoes was hilarious, on contrary once my plant manager was asked to return from the production line by safety officer). They can use more automated cranes as pointed out by Aditya but most of the work in a jig-assisted assembly is manual.
Slower speed of delivery could be due to other reasons for all we know - delay in sub-assemblies, testing, acceptance by AF etc
This is where the Chinese excel...having enough skilled workforce that understand market demands and work accordingly with precision to meet the target. Plus they've already indeginized LRUs, sub assemblies, and have technical know how to achieve desired production speed(omitting quality of finished maal).
Only having manpower doesn't solve issues when more than half our population is unskilled or semi skilled. I guess only after Modi's arrival, the skill development program across the country took speed.

Also it isn't only about HAL. All the Tier 2 and Tier 3 spare providers need to develop their skilled workforce to achieve the expected quality standards as well as production speed.

That being said, safety should be a behaviour based thing. You can force it as much as you want but the individual has to understand the concept and abide personally.
 

AVAST

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Automation is a big BIG cost hole- hardly justifies the cost in low labour cost economies like India. If you're not mindful in making the decisions to go for automation, you may end up even bankrupt (GM, case in point). Robotic arms are used when 1) there's demand for extremely high precision operation (majority of that work is done at sub-assembly level) 2) you need high speed of operation (fighter jet production lines are batch production make to order kind of line, extremely high speed isn't of essence so much)
However, their assembly line does look very cluttered and lack of discipline is visible(workers wearing sports shoes was hilarious, on contrary once my plant manager was asked to return from the production line by safety officer). They can use more automated cranes as pointed out by Aditya but most of the work in a jig-assisted assembly is manual.
Slower speed of delivery could be due to other reasons for all we know - delay in sub-assemblies, testing, acceptance by AF etc
Nah the only thing hal guys love to do is sit around doing nothing. They only care about their salaries. Its the same in every defence psu and the thing is everyone is complicit from top to bottom, nobody wants to work. If you do join you have to be like them or you get singled out.
 

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