Naval LCA Tejas
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Filltercoffee
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How many Tejas squadrons are the Naval Air Arm looking at other then two for the two carrier battle groups? I thought they will boost them to two each making the total of four excluding maritime strike and coastal defence which need two each with another for training and conversion.
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Maybe not a single one. Although there's chatter of upto 8 being ordered for augmentation of the Mig-29s, but just rumours... The NLCA is banality a TD.
porky_kicker
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Naval LCA MK1 cockpit
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What a great article!!!!
https://www.vayuaerospace.in/article/342/index.aspx
Moving forward with the LCA (Navy)
31 Jan 2020
September 2019 was very significant, with seminal events taking place around Dabolim in Goa, shrugging off the unceasing rains during this year’s monsoon, particularly this Friday the 13th which was surely an odd date for a most momentous event – the first arrested landing by an Indian-designed and developed aircraft. The trials themselves were over in a mere 15 seconds or so from the time the LCA (Navy) prototype two-seater aircraft, (NP-1), rolled out on finals at the Shore Based Test Facility at INS Hansa and ‘called the ball’ with ‘Four Greens’.
Like all good flight test events, what followed was anti-climatic in that nothing spectacular happened: nothing broke, nothing caught fire, everything came rapidly to a halt and the pilot walked away with all ten fingers and ten toes intact.
To prove that this was no flash in the pan, the same exercise was repeated multiple times over the next few days, culminating in what was probably an even more complete demonstration of the rapid progress that this programme has made in recent months. On 29th of the same month, the other LCA (Navy) prototype, NP-2 demonstrated a complete cycle of the core essential of aircraft carrier operations by launching off the ski jump and ‘trapping’ at the arresting gear site.
Of course, none of this happened by chance; in fact, quite to the contrary. Major achievements in aeronautics are often undertaken in a manner akin to climbing a formidable mountain. To ensure success, the ultimate achievement is broken into essential elements which are then tested and resolved in isolation. Only after all the different aspects are understood – and readiness for each has been convincingly demonstrated – is the final climb to the summit attempted. Being an absolutely pioneering effort in India, the ADA/NFTC design and testing teams have had to explore multiple hardware configurations and software concepts in the quest for the LCA (Navy)’s configuration, making it capable of STOBAR operations.
In the current analogy, such a major mountain was the LCA’s ‘arrested landing’, the launches of the ski ramp at Dabolim having already been demonstrated earlier. The landing exercise had to be broken into three major aspects of ‘Loads’, ‘Handling Qualities’ and ‘Performance’. Underpinning all these were a series of flight test concepts, aimed at achieving safety and efficiency in this exploration venture.
Brutality of an arrested landing
The structural brutality of an arrested landing is easily visualised – but little understood. This emanates largely from the very small flight decks that can be made available for aircraft flight operations. It is ironic that while Navies spare no effort to describe their carriers in terms like ‘Leviathan’ and ‘Colossus’, only a tailhook aviator can truly understand that even the largest of aircraft carriers do not afford him the luxury of a flared landing with its highly inaccurate touchdown scatter. A significantly steeper approach angle and unflared touch down are essential, which, coupled with the ship’s pitch and heave motions, results in a typical touch down at descent rates approaching 8-900 feet per minute (fpm) and could be as extreme as 1500 fpm. To this, one must add the deceleration forces generated by the arrestor hook. Even for an aircraft such as the LCA (Navy), these forces can be as high as 45 tons equivalent, radiating forwards through the black and white striped shank of the hook, to be progressively absorbed by the whole structure of the aircraft and of each component attached to it.
The ability of the aircraft to withstand these forces was therefore explored by isolating the vertical and horizontal loads. Vertical loads were explored by way of un-flared touch – and – go type landings, with sink rates gradually incremented in precise steps (often as small as 50 fpm). The LCA (Navy) has currently been tested up to 1100 fpm as one should discount the ship’s heave/pitch when operating on land.
Horizontal deceleration loads were explored by taxi-in arrestments at progressively increasing speeds. Variations in aircraft weight, engine thrust and arrestor gear settings were also conducted to clear the full envelope of expected loads up to the maximum arresting gear limit of 140 knots.
The LCA (Navy) stood up remarkably well to the loads imposed which were necessarily higher, individually, than those expected in the initial arrested landings. None of the expected problems like broken pipelines or blunt force butting of various parts was encountered. Not surprisingly however, several iterations were necessary to prepare the aircraft for a full-fledged arrested landing.
Amongst the first “problems” encountered at this stage were elements pertaining to the flight test instrumentation which apparently showed higher than expected loads (until these were analysed as an artefact of the sensor locations and orientations themselves). However, dynamic responses of the aircraft to arrestment with the nose wheel raised off the deck, indicated that the nose oleo was underdamped which caused nearly full stroke compression when the aircraft was de-rotated by the arrestment loads.
The hook itself needed several iterations to enable it to perform its unenviable task. These included reinforcement of the hook shank, deletion of the detachable wear plate, reduction in the trailing angle to reduce the time interval between wire pick up and main wheel touchdown - and of course at least three different variants of flight test sensor installations, not surprisingly as these were located at the exact point of origin of these smashing loads. Another major iteration was the need to provide additional room for hook swing up after it picked up the wire. Currently, the LCA (Navy) is operating with a ‘notch’ cut into the engine bay door to accommodate this extra swing.
Probably the most important lesson learnt during this test phase was that a “conservative” design does not necessarily generate additional safety. In the case of the nose oleo, the design case was for a virtually impossible three point landing at 1400 fpm. It emerged that typical landings at much lower sink rates were actually likely to be more stressful, requiring a large amount of energy to be absorbed. Notwithstanding increments to the nose oleo damping, it has, quite counter-intuitively, bred a much healthier respect for the avoidance of low sink rate arrestments as opposed to the slam-bam of a high sink rate landing!
The handling
The other obvious constraint imposed by an aircraft carrier environment is the need for extremely precision control of the aircraft. Accuracy in achieving of the touchdown point is quite obvious given limited confines of the flight deck. However, the need for precision extends far beyond that. Accurate touchdowns have to be achieved while maintaining equally precise control of the speed (to control deceleration loads), slope (to control loads due to high sink rate and dynamics arising out of low sink rates and, of course, to avoid that dreaded ‘ramp strike’) as also lateral displacement/azimuth (to prevent excursion from the safe landing area). Achievement of the required precision is as much a matter of skill as it is of proper design of the flight control software. While much of the macho swagger of the ‘tail hookers’ is based on possession of these heightened piloting faculties, being skill dependent results in a wider scatter in landing parameters. This, in turn, forces the designers to cater for more aggravated mis-landing cases.
In case of the LCA (Navy), the advanced skills gained by ADA in digital flight controls offered a unique opportunity to attempt unraveling of this knotty problem. A unique control strategy has been implemented by the ‘handling qualities brotherhood’ of control systems engineers and test pilots, which results in nearly halving the workload of piloting. This has been achieved by relieving the pilot from the task of controlling speed/angle of attack and also improving behaviour of the aircraft during lateral corrections and turbulence. Results of these endeavours have been outstanding, with many landings conducted to date being within just 1-2 knots of the limit speeds of the arresting gear itself. Arrestments have been confidently conducted in fairly severe crosswinds and even in extremely light surface wind conditions. The touchdown sink rate has also proven to be extremely well controlled. While the current LCA (Navy) has been designed without benefit of the enhanced accuracies achieved, future designs would surely be able to exploit these capabilities to reduce design margins and thereby achieve more efficient operational results.
The performance itself
Approach speeds are the single most critical parameter which drive the essential design of a carrier-based aircraft. Higher speeds necessarily result in higher landing loads which in turn require stronger and heavier structures to cope, which results in further increases in approach speeds thereby causing a vicious weight spiral. The key is to achieve high lift for approach while still permitting the desired optimisation at tactically relevant conditions. The LCA (Navy) has attempted to do this via the Leading Edge Vortex Controller device (LEVCON) which is deflected upwards to further destabilise the aircraft at approach speeds, controlled by drooping the elevons, effectively resulting in a more cambered, higher-lift wing profile. Several aerodynamic iterations (including different slat configurations and approach angles of attack) had to be explored to arrive at a suitable combination that yielded an acceptable approach speed. At the same time, precision on control had to be maintained. All these iterations, in combination with the enhanced precision of speed control, have resulted in an ability to cope with extremely low headwinds encountered at the SBTF, which will certainly pay rich dividends when operating afloat owing to the much stronger winds on deck generated on an aircraft carrier.
Carrier suitability flight tests
Conduct of the activities described thus far necessitated the development of an entirely new branch of flight tests for assessing the Type’s carrier suitability. As in all such endeavours, achievement of safe and efficient flight testing requires a combination of investments in test facilities, test crew and a clear concept of comprehensive testing.
The most visible product of these is the Shore Based Test Facility (SBTF) which has been constructed onshore at INS Hansa in Dabolim, Goa. Apart from the obvious ski-jump ramp and arrested landing wires, the installation includes extensive telemetry facilities for the reception of data from the aircraft and instrumentation of environmental parameters. Two major additions are the deeply intrusive instrumentation of the arresting engines and the deployment of a unique photogrammetric field array using high-speed video cameras. The cameras themselves may be hard to spot but the profusion of black and white chequered tracking marks on the aircraft and arresting gear site are a dead give away!
Preparations by the crew have been achieved by a combination of two factors: deep immersion into the aircraft’s design processes and infusion of knowledge from the ‘best in the business’ at the Carrier Suitability Division of the US Navy. Not surprisingly, this has been a long gestation process and is not for the faint-hearted! In fact, the most experienced flight test crew in the overall LCA programme extant are those involved with the LCA (Navy). However, even greater flight test challenges lie ahead as the programme seeks to demonstrate structural soundness of the aircraft by careful demonstration of the mandated mis-landing design cases. The aircrew seconded by the Navy certainly represents the most extensive and valuable of investment and affirmation of faith in this ambitious venture.
The third component of this capability has been development of a comprehensive flight testing concept allowing for rapid yet measured progression of flight tests. Recognising the unavoidable reliance on skills for the safe conduct of flight tests, all critical test cases are conducted in a systematic escalation within a single sortie.
Hot refuelling is an essential tool to avoid constant interruptions owing to lack of fuel and, more significantly, to permit repeated attempts of testing at the desired landing weights. This has led to extended sessions of up to four hours, each comprising multiple flights, rather than the typical nomenclature of sortie and flights. The only way to use this extended flight time usefully is to be able to analyse the results from the previous tests within the time employed for conduct of the refuelling. A whole host of ‘quick look tools’ and features in the telemetry station along with major enhancements for sampling rates of many parameters have been engineered by the flight test instrumentation team. The LSO is also brought into the loop despite being situated out at the arresting gear site by extending these tools to his location, enabling him to appropriately reorient the flight test schedule for maximum efficiency and safety. By virtue of throwing a host of ‘technology’ at the problem, conduct of flight tests has been enabled with the minimum number of crew required.
As would be expected, there is a lot of justifiable pride associated with these achievements, most of which are uniquely ‘Indian’ and will naturally far outlive employment of the current test aircraft. In typical fighter pilot fashion, such elan has found expression in creation of two new patches: one for all the crew associated with the SBTF and the other more exclusive for those qualified to conduct ‘Carrier Suitability’ testing.
The way ahead
So what does all of this portend for the future? It would first be useful to take stock of what was intended and where we are now. The stated aim of becoming an aircraft carrier building nation and a three aircraft carrier navy would surely ring hollow without a matching capability to build fighters to operate from the carriers and air-launched weapons to equip them. The LCA (Navy) therefore represents one-third of this reach for strategic autonomy by attempting to break into the ultra-elite club of carrier-borne fighter designers.
Reflecting on the nascent understanding of modern fighter aircraft design and carrier-borne aircraft prevalent in the country, it was naively assumed that a land-based aircraft could be modified for carrier operations without too much penalty. The harsh realities of practical aircraft design guiding led to the realisation that the naval version would offer only modest operational capabilities. This was matched by a growing appreciation for the formidable mountain that we had set out to climb. Fortunately, the LCA (Navy) turned out to have sufficient potential to serve as an excellent platform for exploration of STOBAR technologies and accordingly the project was re-christened as the LCA (Navy) Mk.1 and classified as a Technology Demonstrator.
The current bird in hand has provided an excellent initiation into the rough and tumble of carrier suitability design and testing. In a short time, the LCA (Navy) Mk.I has proved capable of very high-intensity utilisation, yielding nearly triple the flight test productivity as compared with the overall Tejas programme.
The criticality of current endeavours to any future ambitions of credible air power afloat, therefore, cannot be over-emphasised as in the future, this would inevitably lead to larger and even more capable ‘deck based’ aeroplanes. This is true irrespective of whatever the future might require, be it unmanned, low observability or any other ‘exotic’ capabilities.
Apart from improvements onboard the aircraft, significant benefits are available through improving design of the aircraft carrier’s launch and recovery aids. The LCA (Navy) development programme is also now undertaking design improvements to the optical landing system which would yield significant benefit to the Navy. A very major push has also been made within the programme to enhance performance of the Landing Signals Officer by the use of technology tools. Prototype tools have been implemented for approach planning, monitoring, control and debrief and are already yielding dividends in the flight test programme. When fully debugged and delivered, these could offer an immense enhancement of the Navy’s capabilities afloat.
Preliminary work has commenced on automatic carrier landing systems to enhance all-weather afloat operational capability. An aircraft carrier landing poses the most stringent scenario for automatic landing by virtue of the ships inherent forward movement and oscillatory motion in response to effects of wind and waves. Efforts undertaken within the LCA (Navy) programme will be instrumental in enabling future unmanned aircraft operations as well as all-weather operations afloat and ashore.
Not to be overlooked are the immense strides made in flight testing of aircraft for carrier suitability. The flight testing knowledge and skills being acquired as part of this programme will offer invaluable advantage when the indigenous aircraft carrier is tested for its own fitness to enter service.
The wide spectrum of benefits already flowing from the LCA (Navy) programme are clearly out of proportion with its diminutive physical dimensions. Benefits certain to accrue in the future will be invaluable in laying the foundation for India’s carrier-borne aviation of the future. It is really a matter of investing sufficient effort to achieve worthwhile ‘payback’ and spawn an aircraft carrier capability worthy of India which is reaching out to assuming ‘great power status’.
Team Vayu acknowledge the soaring spirit and resilience of ADA and NFTC in their pioneering efforts to prepare the definitive LCA (Navy) for future carrier operations.
Tag:- LCA (Navy), Indian Navy
https://www.vayuaerospace.in/article/342/index.aspx
Moving forward with the LCA (Navy)
31 Jan 2020
September 2019 was very significant, with seminal events taking place around Dabolim in Goa, shrugging off the unceasing rains during this year’s monsoon, particularly this Friday the 13th which was surely an odd date for a most momentous event – the first arrested landing by an Indian-designed and developed aircraft. The trials themselves were over in a mere 15 seconds or so from the time the LCA (Navy) prototype two-seater aircraft, (NP-1), rolled out on finals at the Shore Based Test Facility at INS Hansa and ‘called the ball’ with ‘Four Greens’.
Like all good flight test events, what followed was anti-climatic in that nothing spectacular happened: nothing broke, nothing caught fire, everything came rapidly to a halt and the pilot walked away with all ten fingers and ten toes intact.
To prove that this was no flash in the pan, the same exercise was repeated multiple times over the next few days, culminating in what was probably an even more complete demonstration of the rapid progress that this programme has made in recent months. On 29th of the same month, the other LCA (Navy) prototype, NP-2 demonstrated a complete cycle of the core essential of aircraft carrier operations by launching off the ski jump and ‘trapping’ at the arresting gear site.
Of course, none of this happened by chance; in fact, quite to the contrary. Major achievements in aeronautics are often undertaken in a manner akin to climbing a formidable mountain. To ensure success, the ultimate achievement is broken into essential elements which are then tested and resolved in isolation. Only after all the different aspects are understood – and readiness for each has been convincingly demonstrated – is the final climb to the summit attempted. Being an absolutely pioneering effort in India, the ADA/NFTC design and testing teams have had to explore multiple hardware configurations and software concepts in the quest for the LCA (Navy)’s configuration, making it capable of STOBAR operations.
In the current analogy, such a major mountain was the LCA’s ‘arrested landing’, the launches of the ski ramp at Dabolim having already been demonstrated earlier. The landing exercise had to be broken into three major aspects of ‘Loads’, ‘Handling Qualities’ and ‘Performance’. Underpinning all these were a series of flight test concepts, aimed at achieving safety and efficiency in this exploration venture.
Brutality of an arrested landing
The structural brutality of an arrested landing is easily visualised – but little understood. This emanates largely from the very small flight decks that can be made available for aircraft flight operations. It is ironic that while Navies spare no effort to describe their carriers in terms like ‘Leviathan’ and ‘Colossus’, only a tailhook aviator can truly understand that even the largest of aircraft carriers do not afford him the luxury of a flared landing with its highly inaccurate touchdown scatter. A significantly steeper approach angle and unflared touch down are essential, which, coupled with the ship’s pitch and heave motions, results in a typical touch down at descent rates approaching 8-900 feet per minute (fpm) and could be as extreme as 1500 fpm. To this, one must add the deceleration forces generated by the arrestor hook. Even for an aircraft such as the LCA (Navy), these forces can be as high as 45 tons equivalent, radiating forwards through the black and white striped shank of the hook, to be progressively absorbed by the whole structure of the aircraft and of each component attached to it.
The ability of the aircraft to withstand these forces was therefore explored by isolating the vertical and horizontal loads. Vertical loads were explored by way of un-flared touch – and – go type landings, with sink rates gradually incremented in precise steps (often as small as 50 fpm). The LCA (Navy) has currently been tested up to 1100 fpm as one should discount the ship’s heave/pitch when operating on land.
Horizontal deceleration loads were explored by taxi-in arrestments at progressively increasing speeds. Variations in aircraft weight, engine thrust and arrestor gear settings were also conducted to clear the full envelope of expected loads up to the maximum arresting gear limit of 140 knots.
The LCA (Navy) stood up remarkably well to the loads imposed which were necessarily higher, individually, than those expected in the initial arrested landings. None of the expected problems like broken pipelines or blunt force butting of various parts was encountered. Not surprisingly however, several iterations were necessary to prepare the aircraft for a full-fledged arrested landing.
Amongst the first “problems” encountered at this stage were elements pertaining to the flight test instrumentation which apparently showed higher than expected loads (until these were analysed as an artefact of the sensor locations and orientations themselves). However, dynamic responses of the aircraft to arrestment with the nose wheel raised off the deck, indicated that the nose oleo was underdamped which caused nearly full stroke compression when the aircraft was de-rotated by the arrestment loads.
The hook itself needed several iterations to enable it to perform its unenviable task. These included reinforcement of the hook shank, deletion of the detachable wear plate, reduction in the trailing angle to reduce the time interval between wire pick up and main wheel touchdown - and of course at least three different variants of flight test sensor installations, not surprisingly as these were located at the exact point of origin of these smashing loads. Another major iteration was the need to provide additional room for hook swing up after it picked up the wire. Currently, the LCA (Navy) is operating with a ‘notch’ cut into the engine bay door to accommodate this extra swing.
Probably the most important lesson learnt during this test phase was that a “conservative” design does not necessarily generate additional safety. In the case of the nose oleo, the design case was for a virtually impossible three point landing at 1400 fpm. It emerged that typical landings at much lower sink rates were actually likely to be more stressful, requiring a large amount of energy to be absorbed. Notwithstanding increments to the nose oleo damping, it has, quite counter-intuitively, bred a much healthier respect for the avoidance of low sink rate arrestments as opposed to the slam-bam of a high sink rate landing!
The handling
The other obvious constraint imposed by an aircraft carrier environment is the need for extremely precision control of the aircraft. Accuracy in achieving of the touchdown point is quite obvious given limited confines of the flight deck. However, the need for precision extends far beyond that. Accurate touchdowns have to be achieved while maintaining equally precise control of the speed (to control deceleration loads), slope (to control loads due to high sink rate and dynamics arising out of low sink rates and, of course, to avoid that dreaded ‘ramp strike’) as also lateral displacement/azimuth (to prevent excursion from the safe landing area). Achievement of the required precision is as much a matter of skill as it is of proper design of the flight control software. While much of the macho swagger of the ‘tail hookers’ is based on possession of these heightened piloting faculties, being skill dependent results in a wider scatter in landing parameters. This, in turn, forces the designers to cater for more aggravated mis-landing cases.
In case of the LCA (Navy), the advanced skills gained by ADA in digital flight controls offered a unique opportunity to attempt unraveling of this knotty problem. A unique control strategy has been implemented by the ‘handling qualities brotherhood’ of control systems engineers and test pilots, which results in nearly halving the workload of piloting. This has been achieved by relieving the pilot from the task of controlling speed/angle of attack and also improving behaviour of the aircraft during lateral corrections and turbulence. Results of these endeavours have been outstanding, with many landings conducted to date being within just 1-2 knots of the limit speeds of the arresting gear itself. Arrestments have been confidently conducted in fairly severe crosswinds and even in extremely light surface wind conditions. The touchdown sink rate has also proven to be extremely well controlled. While the current LCA (Navy) has been designed without benefit of the enhanced accuracies achieved, future designs would surely be able to exploit these capabilities to reduce design margins and thereby achieve more efficient operational results.
The performance itself
Approach speeds are the single most critical parameter which drive the essential design of a carrier-based aircraft. Higher speeds necessarily result in higher landing loads which in turn require stronger and heavier structures to cope, which results in further increases in approach speeds thereby causing a vicious weight spiral. The key is to achieve high lift for approach while still permitting the desired optimisation at tactically relevant conditions. The LCA (Navy) has attempted to do this via the Leading Edge Vortex Controller device (LEVCON) which is deflected upwards to further destabilise the aircraft at approach speeds, controlled by drooping the elevons, effectively resulting in a more cambered, higher-lift wing profile. Several aerodynamic iterations (including different slat configurations and approach angles of attack) had to be explored to arrive at a suitable combination that yielded an acceptable approach speed. At the same time, precision on control had to be maintained. All these iterations, in combination with the enhanced precision of speed control, have resulted in an ability to cope with extremely low headwinds encountered at the SBTF, which will certainly pay rich dividends when operating afloat owing to the much stronger winds on deck generated on an aircraft carrier.
Carrier suitability flight tests
Conduct of the activities described thus far necessitated the development of an entirely new branch of flight tests for assessing the Type’s carrier suitability. As in all such endeavours, achievement of safe and efficient flight testing requires a combination of investments in test facilities, test crew and a clear concept of comprehensive testing.
The most visible product of these is the Shore Based Test Facility (SBTF) which has been constructed onshore at INS Hansa in Dabolim, Goa. Apart from the obvious ski-jump ramp and arrested landing wires, the installation includes extensive telemetry facilities for the reception of data from the aircraft and instrumentation of environmental parameters. Two major additions are the deeply intrusive instrumentation of the arresting engines and the deployment of a unique photogrammetric field array using high-speed video cameras. The cameras themselves may be hard to spot but the profusion of black and white chequered tracking marks on the aircraft and arresting gear site are a dead give away!
Preparations by the crew have been achieved by a combination of two factors: deep immersion into the aircraft’s design processes and infusion of knowledge from the ‘best in the business’ at the Carrier Suitability Division of the US Navy. Not surprisingly, this has been a long gestation process and is not for the faint-hearted! In fact, the most experienced flight test crew in the overall LCA programme extant are those involved with the LCA (Navy). However, even greater flight test challenges lie ahead as the programme seeks to demonstrate structural soundness of the aircraft by careful demonstration of the mandated mis-landing design cases. The aircrew seconded by the Navy certainly represents the most extensive and valuable of investment and affirmation of faith in this ambitious venture.
The third component of this capability has been development of a comprehensive flight testing concept allowing for rapid yet measured progression of flight tests. Recognising the unavoidable reliance on skills for the safe conduct of flight tests, all critical test cases are conducted in a systematic escalation within a single sortie.
Hot refuelling is an essential tool to avoid constant interruptions owing to lack of fuel and, more significantly, to permit repeated attempts of testing at the desired landing weights. This has led to extended sessions of up to four hours, each comprising multiple flights, rather than the typical nomenclature of sortie and flights. The only way to use this extended flight time usefully is to be able to analyse the results from the previous tests within the time employed for conduct of the refuelling. A whole host of ‘quick look tools’ and features in the telemetry station along with major enhancements for sampling rates of many parameters have been engineered by the flight test instrumentation team. The LSO is also brought into the loop despite being situated out at the arresting gear site by extending these tools to his location, enabling him to appropriately reorient the flight test schedule for maximum efficiency and safety. By virtue of throwing a host of ‘technology’ at the problem, conduct of flight tests has been enabled with the minimum number of crew required.
As would be expected, there is a lot of justifiable pride associated with these achievements, most of which are uniquely ‘Indian’ and will naturally far outlive employment of the current test aircraft. In typical fighter pilot fashion, such elan has found expression in creation of two new patches: one for all the crew associated with the SBTF and the other more exclusive for those qualified to conduct ‘Carrier Suitability’ testing.
The way ahead
So what does all of this portend for the future? It would first be useful to take stock of what was intended and where we are now. The stated aim of becoming an aircraft carrier building nation and a three aircraft carrier navy would surely ring hollow without a matching capability to build fighters to operate from the carriers and air-launched weapons to equip them. The LCA (Navy) therefore represents one-third of this reach for strategic autonomy by attempting to break into the ultra-elite club of carrier-borne fighter designers.
Reflecting on the nascent understanding of modern fighter aircraft design and carrier-borne aircraft prevalent in the country, it was naively assumed that a land-based aircraft could be modified for carrier operations without too much penalty. The harsh realities of practical aircraft design guiding led to the realisation that the naval version would offer only modest operational capabilities. This was matched by a growing appreciation for the formidable mountain that we had set out to climb. Fortunately, the LCA (Navy) turned out to have sufficient potential to serve as an excellent platform for exploration of STOBAR technologies and accordingly the project was re-christened as the LCA (Navy) Mk.1 and classified as a Technology Demonstrator.
The current bird in hand has provided an excellent initiation into the rough and tumble of carrier suitability design and testing. In a short time, the LCA (Navy) Mk.I has proved capable of very high-intensity utilisation, yielding nearly triple the flight test productivity as compared with the overall Tejas programme.
The criticality of current endeavours to any future ambitions of credible air power afloat, therefore, cannot be over-emphasised as in the future, this would inevitably lead to larger and even more capable ‘deck based’ aeroplanes. This is true irrespective of whatever the future might require, be it unmanned, low observability or any other ‘exotic’ capabilities.
Apart from improvements onboard the aircraft, significant benefits are available through improving design of the aircraft carrier’s launch and recovery aids. The LCA (Navy) development programme is also now undertaking design improvements to the optical landing system which would yield significant benefit to the Navy. A very major push has also been made within the programme to enhance performance of the Landing Signals Officer by the use of technology tools. Prototype tools have been implemented for approach planning, monitoring, control and debrief and are already yielding dividends in the flight test programme. When fully debugged and delivered, these could offer an immense enhancement of the Navy’s capabilities afloat.
Preliminary work has commenced on automatic carrier landing systems to enhance all-weather afloat operational capability. An aircraft carrier landing poses the most stringent scenario for automatic landing by virtue of the ships inherent forward movement and oscillatory motion in response to effects of wind and waves. Efforts undertaken within the LCA (Navy) programme will be instrumental in enabling future unmanned aircraft operations as well as all-weather operations afloat and ashore.
Not to be overlooked are the immense strides made in flight testing of aircraft for carrier suitability. The flight testing knowledge and skills being acquired as part of this programme will offer invaluable advantage when the indigenous aircraft carrier is tested for its own fitness to enter service.
The wide spectrum of benefits already flowing from the LCA (Navy) programme are clearly out of proportion with its diminutive physical dimensions. Benefits certain to accrue in the future will be invaluable in laying the foundation for India’s carrier-borne aviation of the future. It is really a matter of investing sufficient effort to achieve worthwhile ‘payback’ and spawn an aircraft carrier capability worthy of India which is reaching out to assuming ‘great power status’.
Team Vayu acknowledge the soaring spirit and resilience of ADA and NFTC in their pioneering efforts to prepare the definitive LCA (Navy) for future carrier operations.
Tag:- LCA (Navy), Indian Navy
holy crap on a cracker...........HVT told me NLCA was bigger than LCA-AF.
Didn't realise it was this much bigger though.
Both are naval it seems, check the front wheel and both have levcon.HVT told me NLCA was bigger than LCA-AF.
Didn't realise it was this much bigger though.
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My bad (well noted).
Still NP-2 is much larger, if we assume NP-1 to be similar to twin-seater Tejas trainer in size. Landing gear much higher too!
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Holy shit at this rate MWF will be a breeze.HVT told me NLCA was bigger than LCA-AF.
Didn't realise it was this much bigger though.
IndianHawk
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Second one is on a jack. It's not bigger it's uplifted and camera angle Making it seem bigger.
FGFAPilot1
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Deleted...........^ Already made the point.
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One priyajitbera made a cute NLCA render at TurboSquid, needs that 725lt centreline drop-tank... Pssible only if launched by CATOBAR though.
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WolfPack86
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LIVEFIST Talks To Admiral Arun Prakash
Tupac slayer
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Having Naval Tejas at around about 60 Aircraft will constantly keep the pressure on Pakistan Airforce southern command, who will not be able to move Aircraft to northern theatre to support operations, These Jets should fire stand off weapons. Having these Jets will force Pakistan not to move 3 Squadrons of Mirages out of Karachi.
silentlurker
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Any news on naval Tejas lately? Pretty quiet compared to land based version...
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It's probably gonna become display memorial... Until TEDBF flies we'll have no more deck-landings.
Rizvi Khan
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Guys I just joined the no.20 daggers squadron in DCS World. Their leads are no.15 battle axes. No. 1 in dcs world worldwide. Run by non other than a former Indian airforce pilot 
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Videos & screengrabs please.Guys I just joined the no.20 daggers squadron in DCS World. Their leads are no.15 battle axes. No. 1 in dcs world worldwide. Run by non other than a former Indian airforce pilot
Also bit more details on each. We don't really know much about DCS community.
Rizvi Khan
Regular Member
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Absolutely I am flying tonight with one member will post videos and screenshots
