Sukhoi Su 30MKI

Flying Dagger

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Engine upgrade is simply not required. Su30 already has sufficient power and more than enough payload upwards 8 tons. Anymore is anyway useless.

Even with new radar and avionics even if weight is increased a bit it doesn't change anything overall.
More power is always welcome.. ask any fighter pilot and he'll tell you.

A fully loaded Sukhoi will need it anyhow am not saying it need 380-400kn Right now but derated IZ 30 type engine for around 150 wet thrust and around 100+ dry will be gold. Also as the engine gets older and in general the thrust specially in varied Indian condition drops by 10-20 % . Infact in case of Jags it is 30% drop around for older ones. Sukhoi will be flying over sea to mountain and deserts as our dedicated attack jets armed with brahmos , other anti-ship missiles which will be heavy with fuel tanks .

And an upgrade to engine is also to provide better fuel efficiency and maintenance which IAF seeks and IZ 30 engine for Su 57 is going to provide the same.

Infact that was what IAF asked in the first place but russian offered AL41 since IZ 30 wasn't ready. As of now it is developed and undergoing testing Once it enters serial production by 25 onwards we will be able to re consider based on what is offered.
 

IndianHawk

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More power is always welcome.. ask any fighter pilot and he'll tell you.

A fully loaded Sukhoi will need it anyhow am not saying it need 380-400kn Right now but derated IZ 30 type engine for around 150 wet thrust and around 100+ dry will be gold. Also as the engine gets older and in general the thrust specially in varied Indian condition drops to 10-20 % . Sukhoi will be flying over sea to mountain and deserts as our dedicated attack jets armed with brahmos , other anti-ship missiles.

And an upgrade to engine is also to provide better fuel efficiency and maintenance which IAF seeks and IZ 30 engine for Su 57 is going to provide the same.

Infact that was what IAF asked in the first place but russian offered AL41 since IZ 30 wasn't ready. As of now it is developed and undergoing testing Once it enters serial production by 25 onwards we will be able to re consider based on what is offered.
Pilots will ofcourse demand more power but that's not the point.

Point is do su30mki needs more power to meet any operational requirements?? Which one and how much power??

Answer to these questions is given hal test pilot as no it has no shortage of power on operational front. Which means neither iaf nor hal is proposing engine upgrade only russian are proposing it for money.

Bramhos can only be carried by 40 odd su30mki which are upgraded for it that too only one bramhos weighting 2500 kg while normal payload for su30 is 8 tons+ . So even with bramhos in belly with more air to to air missiles (4-6) and fuel tanks to increase ranges to 2000-2500 km still su30mki will have payload to spare.

Other upcoming missiles are much lighter than bramhos like bramhos ng or rudram series and itcm based missiles.

Anyway no one carries full payload. 99% of mission are not more than 4-5 tons of payload even if heavy air to ground missile are carried.

Similarly su30mki speed is already much higher than most modern jets including Rafale , f35 etc. So even if it's speed comes down a bit it's no big deal also because it still has thrust vectors to dance in dog fights and it has now got mica ir type longer range CCM making dog fights rarer.

All in all engine upgrade is not on cards. Russian are pushing it because they don't have an aesa and without that what Value will they actually add??
 

FalconSlayers

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Pilots will ofcourse demand more power but that's not the point.

Point is do su30mki needs more power to meet any operational requirements?? Which one and how much power??

Answer to these questions is given hal test pilot as no it has no shortage of power on operational front. Which means neither iaf nor hal is proposing engine upgrade only russian are proposing it for money.

Bramhos can only be carried by 40 odd su30mki which are upgraded for it that too only one bramhos weighting 2500 kg while normal payload for su30 is 8 tons+ . So even with bramhos in belly with more air to to air missiles (4-6) and fuel tanks to increase ranges to 2000-2500 km still su30mki will have payload to spare.

Other upcoming missiles are much lighter than bramhos like bramhos ng or rudram series and itcm based missiles.

Anyway no one carries full payload. 99% of mission are not more than 4-5 tons of payload even if heavy air to ground missile are carried.

Similarly su30mki speed is already much higher than most modern jets including Rafale , f35 etc. So even if it's speed comes down a bit it's no big deal also because it still has thrust vectors to dance in dog fights and it has now got mica ir type longer range CCM making dog fights rarer.

All in all engine upgrade is not on cards. Russian are pushing it because they don't have an aesa and without that what Value will they actually add??
I personally feel we should install GaN based UTTQM AESA radar on Su-30MKI in the Super Flanker or the Super Sukhoi upgrade instead of GaAs based UTTAM AESA radar.
 

IndianHawk

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I personally feel we should install GaN based UTTQM AESA radar on Su-30MKI in the Super Flanker or the Super Sukhoi upgrade instead of GaAs based UTTAM AESA radar.
That depends on how fast gan based uttam is ready and when is upgrade is finalized.

Since su30 will be upgraded in batches it is very much possible that initial batches will have gas based aesa while later willl get gan based aesa as it matures .

Gan is absolutely peak of technology remember. Even eurofighter doesn't have an aesa fight now . We are ahead of the curve compared to most nations.
 

Trololo

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For the MKI engine upgrade:

1> The biggest drawback with AL-31FP engine is reliability.
2> AL-41 offers some more power, but reliability improvement isn't that great. Better than AL-31 yes, but not worth the additional cost.
3> If Item-30 engine is orders of magnitude better than the AL-31 and AL-41 both in terms of power, reliability, and T/W ratio, then we can attempt to pay for the re-engining of a major part of the MKI fleet with the same, and set up an engine MRO for it with HAL Koratpur. This will allow HAL to have experience of maintaining 5th gen engines and will come in handy later on. If the item 30 engine is really good, then it should be worth the money.
 

Tang

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That depends on how fast gan based uttam is ready and when is upgrade is finalized.

Since su30 will be upgraded in batches it is very much possible that initial batches will have gas based aesa while later willl get gan based aesa as it matures .

Gan is absolutely peak of technology remember. Even eurofighter doesn't have an aesa fight now . We are ahead of the curve compared to most nations.
And we all most remember, all this upgrade is due to Tejas programme.
 

Frontrunner

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Not changing engine would provide multiple benefits as compared to engine upgrade...

First of all no engine upgrade would permanently eliminate russia as a partner in super Sukhoi upgrade.
This will enable us to completely upgrade aircraft indigenously without giving any royalty to Russians, which entirely will make upgrade program cheap nd sans delays by involving russians and it's infamous contract negotiations a la vikramaditya, ak203 et al.

Second we are already manufacturing/assembling AL31 inhouse with HAL. Procuring a new engine will again lead to delays as HAL would need to upgrade the necessary tech required for a new engine & would need to repeat the circle again going for a new contract for manufacturing engine inhouse attracting huge costs.

Now only advantage a new engine would bring to su-30 is the abundance in power which would be ideal to power it's aesa to it's peak performance & also powering the internal ew suite which would be again aesa based.

Current version of bars pesa has a peak power output of 4-5kw with average output of 1.2 kw.
now putting an aesa radar in place of it will certainly add to power requirement, modern aesa radar has a peak power output of more than 10kw that's double the power required now.

Will the current AL31 would be sufficient to power an upscaled uttam aesa radar to it's peak performance? That's the only question which is needed to be answered
 

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