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Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft [AMCA] Development | Updates & Discussions.

They have now rectified that situation, so that the Mk1A, MWF, TEDBF, AURA, AMCA and maybe even ORCA will all be designed and built in India.The Tejas experience was difficult and it was delayed, but the fruits of it are that now India has all the necessary experience and infrastructure to design, develop and test nearly all of the elements for a modern fighter.

a) Is there a good *chance* that MK1A & MWF will be ready in-time? I know this is a difficult question to answer, but is the work going full-stream?

b) Is it going to be retractable probe from MWF? why so, when even Rafale has non-retractable probe? They tried the same for LCA Mk1 as well. My question is - Is it going to be a case of over-promising and under-delivering (my question is not just about retractable probe, but other promised technologies / features)?
 
I'm afraid you've got it the other way around- you cannot design and do R&D for a local fighter if you don't have the infrastructure to do it. India's mistake was to let the HF-24 Marut retire and then not use all the experience it gained in it's design, test and manufacture to build follow on fighters. They have now rectified that situation, so that the Mk1A, MWF, TEDBF, AURA, AMCA and maybe even ORCA will all be designed and built in India.The Tejas experience was difficult and it was delayed, but the fruits of it are that now India has all the necessary experience and infrastructure to design, develop and test nearly all of the elements for a modern fighter.

A military turbofan is where we've fallen short- 80% of the way there with the Kaveri but the remaining 20% to get a fully certified and flightworthy turbofan is the hardest part. Sadly, there isn't enough being invested to get that. Hopefully AMCA will rectify that situation since the IAF needs a 115-120 kN thrust engine and wants it done indigenously.

If Pakistan prioritizes its fighter requirement over infrastructure to design and develop one, pray tell us what is the exact fighter requirement from Project Azm? I've seen some claims of it being a twin engine 5th gen type, some saying it'll be a single engine 5th gen type. Is there even a basic rendering of it? Is there any Air Staff Requirement out there for it?

Do you have the facilities to do even basic supersonic and subsonic wind tunnel testing? The RCS testing? The composite fabs and auto claves to build all the necessary skin panels and primary structures? The 'iron rigs' to test out fuel systems and hydraulic systems? What facilities do you have to design, develop and test the Fly By Wire FCS? What about facilities to design and develop mission computer systems and other avionics? Do you even have a test flying agency that certifies airplanes? If so, what is their setup like and what have they certified so far, since the JF-17 is certified by Chinese military flying agencies?

With zero facilities, none of these basic activities that go into the design of a 4th or 5th gen fighter can be done in Pakistan. So what is Project Azm?

Believe me, this is not meant as an insult, but a wake up call. If you want to straight away jump into the design and development of a 5th gen fighter without having built all the needed infrastructure and facilities to do it for a 3rd or 4th gen fighter, it will not be possible to do it on your own.

So once again, what is Project Azm? FC-31 modified to suit PAF requirements? You'll be riding on China's coat tails again while claiming it to be indigenous?
Thank you for a very sensible and sane reply.

Now, Project AZM is part of an even bigger project known as Aviation City, where PAF aims to expand PAC into a full fledged organization to develop everything locally.

Since most your post is concerning with “Designing”, PAF knows what they are doing, not ordinary people like me, Although I believe that in time, Aviation city will be able to do most such you said, But not anytime soon I believe.

Flight computer, FBW-FBO design and testing, As far As I know from open source is that we are already having a product catalogue in that category. As for the iron rigs, Since PAC has intentions to develop commercial airliners itself, so required facilities will be made.

In terms of immediate requirements, We might take some facility help from China, since our availability at CAC is mostly always I believe, so who knows AZM might actually be happening there. In the latest MoD report, we learnt that initial designs were run through various algorithms, Now they are going for further testing and this was in 2017 I believe, So this indicates we might actually be as immediate requirement, Using foreign facilities.

I have to admit, as much as we troll Tejas, That program has been a victim of really bad political game, 3 different parties (Government, IAF, MoD), all supporting different options, So tejas got delayed, But the most important factor was that HAL kept on focusing on infrastructure DURING the development of Tejas which delayed the jet even further.

We played differently, As we were in immediate need of homegrown fighter, Got into a JV with China, End result is what we wanted as per our requirements.

So we got 2 achievements, one is fulfilling our requirements and secondly getting some know how on Fighter development and designing.

I'm afraid you've got it the other way around- you cannot design and do R&D for a local fighter if you don't have the infrastructure to do it. India's mistake was to let the HF-24 Marut retire and then not use all the experience it gained in it's design, test and manufacture to build follow on fighters. They have now rectified that situation, so that the Mk1A, MWF, TEDBF, AURA, AMCA and maybe even ORCA will all be designed and built in India.The Tejas experience was difficult and it was delayed, but the fruits of it are that now India has all the necessary experience and infrastructure to design, develop and test nearly all of the elements for a modern fighter.

A military turbofan is where we've fallen short- 80% of the way there with the Kaveri but the remaining 20% to get a fully certified and flightworthy turbofan is the hardest part. Sadly, there isn't enough being invested to get that. Hopefully AMCA will rectify that situation since the IAF needs a 115-120 kN thrust engine and wants it done indigenously.

If Pakistan prioritizes its fighter requirement over infrastructure to design and develop one, pray tell us what is the exact fighter requirement from Project Azm? I've seen some claims of it being a twin engine 5th gen type, some saying it'll be a single engine 5th gen type. Is there even a basic rendering of it? Is there any Air Staff Requirement out there for it?

Do you have the facilities to do even basic supersonic and subsonic wind tunnel testing? The RCS testing? The composite fabs and auto claves to build all the necessary skin panels and primary structures? The 'iron rigs' to test out fuel systems and hydraulic systems? What facilities do you have to design, develop and test the Fly By Wire FCS? What about facilities to design and develop mission computer systems and other avionics? Do you even have a test flying agency that certifies airplanes? If so, what is their setup like and what have they certified so far, since the JF-17 is certified by Chinese military flying agencies?

With zero facilities, none of these basic activities that go into the design of a 4th or 5th gen fighter can be done in Pakistan. So what is Project Azm?

Believe me, this is not meant as an insult, but a wake up call. If you want to straight away jump into the design and development of a 5th gen fighter without having built all the needed infrastructure and facilities to do it for a 3rd or 4th gen fighter, it will not be possible to do it on your own.

So once again, what is Project Azm? FC-31 modified to suit PAF requirements? You'll be riding on China's coat tails again while claiming it to be indigenous?
As for the RAM coating facilities and knowledge, I don’t think most aviation companies are well versed with that, except for those who actually attempted a fifth gen fighter, So PAC, HAL/ADA or any other company in the world would be new to that.
 
Sorry if I offended your feelings, but you are wrong at least by the posts above which repeatedly claim a first flight in 2025! And this is - at least by my definition very "soon" and "too soon" given the long delays of a type, which is not very much of a most modern high-end fighter, namely the Tejas.

Point is that they are refining the Tejas design since decades and now they propose the Mk.2 - in fact a type, the IAF originally aimed for - will also only be ready at around the same time ... so at least by my assumption in mind of the past track-record I would bet nearly everything that neither the date for the Tejas Mk.2 (de facto a new aircraft) nor for the AMCA in 2025 will be met.




Again, you miss one important issue: Not the number of configurations tested nor the important changes are relevant - indeed Japan, Korea, Turkey (IMO a very different story) and others have shown sometimes even more such models - but the fact, that certain circles in India and such forums keep posting expectations, which are impossible to hold, they are sticking to timelines, when even those for the much simpler types (aka Tejas Mk. 1 and 1A) are no longer valid, and still wanted to be taken seriously!?

That's the point.

Otherwise I fully agree with you, that it will follow its own Indian way of development, ... but why then boasting to the public dated that simply cannot be met? It's even worse than the typical Russian chest-bumping claims and the current Turkish day- (or shall i say wet-) dreams!

There are two things. ADA/HAL can keep updating the designs, do some basic wind tunnel testing, develop some off the shelf tech for the fighters in the meantime. But the funding is something not in their hands. Everyone keeps saying Tejas started in 1983. But actual seed funding was given only in 1993. A decade after. And the program had to suffer for our 1998 nuclear bomb test. While those are excuses, it's valid.

Now while there has been many reports from ADA on Tejas MK2 various designs since 2016 atleast actual govt funding was only provided last year. They cannot be responsible now for having faith and hope in their time line.
ISRO told they can send a human in 5 years in 2012. Funding was only given Last year. Whatever an govt agency can plan, the govt has the last say in its schedule and finances. As for AMCA, funding has been provided for Detailed Design phase and for creating ground infrastructure for testing. When this phase is over, govt has to then provide for prototype funding phase. If the govt decides to give that funding only by 2025, then it won't be Ada fault.

About the 2025 first flight- that is the likely date by when a NG-TD (Next Gen - Tech Demonstator) demonstrator will be flown; caveat- if the funding is made available for the demonstrator to be assembled by 2024-25.

ADA had released a tender many months ago to have the forward, mid and aft fuselage sections assembled at Sulur AFS, in Coimbatore. 2 NG-TDs were to be flown and they need to prove the basic 5th gen technologies.

After that, the production standard prototypes will be assembled and flown. Given the level of technology meant to go into the AMCA, it will not be anytime before 2035 that I would expect the AMCA to enter service. But that is my estimate and ADA hasn't put out any timelines since the project hasn't yet been granted funding to begin full scale development.



You've got it a bit wrong here, so let me explain.

the MWF (Tejas Mk2) is not the type the IAF originally aimed for in the 1980s. The IAF didn't want a Mirage-2000 and MiG-29 replacement from the LCA program, since both were brand new in the IAF back then. It wanted a MiG-21 class aircraft and set ambitious ASRs for it that far exceeded the MiG-21. A few of the original ASRs were not met and concessions were granted, but that is normal for each and every program. Unless of course, one is deliberately hiding facts about a program, which is very true of certain nations that don't have a free press or transparency. If only fanboys were to talk about the Tejas, you'd only hear good things about it. We only know about all the problems that the F-35 faced because they have the most vibrant and well informed media and a lot of transparency.

Even in the MRCA 1.0 contest, all the contestants failed to meet some of the ASRs that the IAF set. Does that mean they were all bad? No, some of those could be fixed to meet the ASRs and some couldn't. If required, any of the MRCA contestants could've entered IAF service with the IAF granting concessions. Par for the course. In all of the IAF's history, every single imported jet has failed to meet some or the other stated requirement. the IAF has adjusted accordingly or upgraded it to meet them. Case in point- the DARIN-1 upgrade for the Jaguar, which started the same year it entered service since the original NAVWASS equipment was considered unacceptable!

The Mk1A was proposed by HAL as a bridge between the Mk1 and the then Tejas Mk2 (which had a MTOW of 15.5 tons and F-414 engine). Once IAF bought into the Tejas Mk1A, and indicated that 83 would be ordered, for a total of 123 Tejas Mk1 and Mk1A fighters, that would replace the 126 MiG-21bis that were upgraded to Bison standard, the LCA program would shift over to the larger class Mk2.

Once the IAF was happy with the changes being brought on the Mk1A, the focus shifted to adding more fuel and payload to the Tejas Mk2 and making it a fighter that could replace the Mirage-2000 and MiG-29. That is the MWF and you are entitled to your view on when you think it would fly or enter service.



2025 for the first flight of a NG-TD demonstrator is doable provided the funding is provided to do that. I don't believe it has been done as yet. It will be like the J-31 first flight in 2012, which was clearly nowhere near being production ready. We saw major changes in the proposed FC-31 fighter model later displayed as an export product, which has not yet flown in that config, 8 years after that first flight. Why? Because the J-20 has taken up all the resources as of now.

NG-TD AMCA demo will fly with F-414-INS6 engines, with a very limited FBW Flight Control Law with limited gains initially and the program will slowly build up pace of testing and envelope expansion. Depending on how that goes, there will be limited series production prototypes built with the interim F-414-INS6. The experience gained with the Tejas FCS means it won't be such a long process, but it will be very involved nevertheless. The final variant of the AMCA with twin 115 kN thrust class engines is a long way off. The engine doesn't yet exist, so all we can say as of now is that the interim F-414-INS6 will power the first few squadrons of AMCA when they enter service, possibly around 2035.

Many posters are driven by the desire for the IAF to have a 5th gen fighter because China is fielding the J-20 now and the F-35 is entering service in large numbers. And some may underestimate the amount of work that needs to be done to get the AMCA to IOC level. One area where I still have my hopes pinned is the bringing in of private sector players in a big way into the Indian aerospace complex. They allow the freeing up of resources at HAL and other DRDO labs for R&D, while the private suppliers do what they do best- manufacture.

GE is working on a 110KN version of F414 engine funded by US Navy for its F18 program. Expected to be tested by 2022. It plans to provide that engine to AMCA if India wants. And cost will be low since development is borne by US Navy.
 
There are two things. ADA/HAL can keep updating the designs, do some basic wind tunnel testing, develop some off the shelf tech for the fighters in the meantime. But the funding is something not in their hands. Everyone keeps saying Tejas started in 1983. But actual seed funding was given only in 1993. A decade after. And the program had to suffer for our 1998 nuclear bomb test. While those are excuses, it's valid.

ADA was established in 1984. 1 year AFTER the LCA program was sanctioned. ADA had no engineers, nearly all of them were moved from HAL to ADA. There was a period where design houses around the world were vying to be the design consultants for the LCA..MBB, Dassault, BAe, etc..Dassault was selected and we know they have a clear preference for delta wing platforms and their suggestion was to go with one for the LCA too. BAe had a concept known as the P-106 (which I believe ultimately evolved into the Gripen), with cranked delta and canards.

The PDP phase for LCA ended in 1989 and very preliminary work started in 1990 but froze soon after with India's economic meltdown of that period. It was only in 1993 that work resumed, as you rightly pointed out. There's so many details that can be discussed as to why certain design choices were made, but maybe that can be done in the Tejas thread. For e.g. why was the most complex and state of the art (back in early 1990s) FBW chosen? Dassault had offered the triplex redundant with analog backup channel FBW derived from the Mirage-2000 for the LCA. But DRDO/ADA decided that they wanted the most modern FBW, the quadruplex digital FBW with no analog back up. Turned out to be more difficult, but thanks to it, the Tejas won't need any updates on this for it's entire life and all future programs can use similar technology without the risk of being obsolete in the future decades.

But the LCA program has been maligned so much by press (many that have an ulterior motive) that nobody looks at the real history behind what happened from 1983 to 1993 or in 1998. The nuke sanctions pushed them back by 2 years, but in hindsight it was perfect for us. It forced ADA and DRDO to do the entire quadruplex digital FBW FCS on their own. Remember, all Indian defence scientists working at Marietta were kicked out of the US and their computers were seized, so they essentially lost all their work and had to start pretty much from scratch. But they managed to do so in 2 years time, which is remarkable.

Today, the Control Law (CLAW) for the FBW FCS is one of the strongest points of the Tejas program, and we are completely self sufficient in that area. Test Pilots describe it as being the best FCS of any fighter jet they've flown.

Now while there has been many reports from ADA on Tejas MK2 various designs since 2016 atleast actual govt funding was only provided last year. They cannot be responsible now for having faith and hope in their time line.
ISRO told they can send a human in 5 years in 2012. Funding was only given Last year. Whatever an govt agency can plan, the govt has the last say in its schedule and finances. As for AMCA, funding has been provided for Detailed Design phase and for creating ground infrastructure for testing. When this phase is over, govt has to then provide for prototype funding phase. If the govt decides to give that funding only by 2025, then it won't be Ada fault.

I believe some funding for the Tejas Mk2 studies was provided earlier as well..which is one of the reasons they don't want to change the Tejas Mk2 name to MWF officially, since they're using funds provided for the Tejas Mk2 project to develop the MWF.

GE is working on a 110KN version of F414 engine funded by US Navy for its F18 program. Expected to be tested by 2022. It plans to provide that engine to AMCA if India wants. And cost will be low since development is borne by US Navy.

the IAF wants an indigenous engine for most of its AMCA fighters. the first couple of squadrons will likely fly with the interim F-414-INS6 engine, but later variants will need to fly with a higher thrust engine. If you're referring to the F-414-EPE, it may be available, but a Kaveri K10 turbofan developed through a JV producing 115 kN would be ideal. Time will tell if that happens.
 
ADA was established in 1984. 1 year AFTER the LCA program was sanctioned. ADA had no engineers, nearly all of them were moved from HAL to ADA. There was a period where design houses around the world were vying to be the design consultants for the LCA..MBB, Dassault, BAe, etc..Dassault was selected and we know they have a clear preference for delta wing platforms and their suggestion was to go with one for the LCA too. BAe had a concept known as the P-106 (which I believe ultimately evolved into the Gripen), with cranked delta and canards.

The PDP phase for LCA ended in 1989 and very preliminary work started in 1990 but froze soon after with India's economic meltdown of that period. It was only in 1993 that work resumed, as you rightly pointed out. There's so many details that can be discussed as to why certain design choices were made, but maybe that can be done in the Tejas thread. For e.g. why was the most complex and state of the art (back in early 1990s) FBW chosen? Dassault had offered the triplex redundant with analog backup channel FBW derived from the Mirage-2000 for the LCA. But DRDO/ADA decided that they wanted the most modern FBW, the quadruplex digital FBW with no analog back up. Turned out to be more difficult, but thanks to it, the Tejas won't need any updates on this for it's entire life and all future programs can use similar technology without the risk of being obsolete in the future decades.

But the LCA program has been maligned so much by press (many that have an ulterior motive) that nobody looks at the real history behind what happened from 1983 to 1993 or in 1998. The nuke sanctions pushed them back by 2 years, but in hindsight it was perfect for us. It forced ADA and DRDO to do the entire quadruplex digital FBW FCS on their own. Remember, all Indian defence scientists working at Marietta were kicked out of the US and their computers were seized, so they essentially lost all their work and had to start pretty much from scratch. But they managed to do so in 2 years time, which is remarkable.

Today, the Control Law (CLAW) for the FBW FCS is one of the strongest points of the Tejas program, and we are completely self sufficient in that area. Test Pilots describe it as being the best FCS of any fighter jet they've flown.



I believe some funding for the Tejas Mk2 studies was provided earlier as well..which is one of the reasons they don't want to change the Tejas Mk2 name to MWF officially, since they're using funds provided for the Tejas Mk2 project to develop the MWF.



the IAF wants an indigenous engine for most of its AMCA fighters. the first couple of squadrons will likely fly with the interim F-414-INS6 engine, but later variants will need to fly with a higher thrust engine. If you're referring to the F-414-EPE, it may be available, but a Kaveri K10 turbofan developed through a JV producing 115 kN would be ideal. Time will tell if that happens.

Funding studies is different than actual funding for prototype development. Earlier we had LCA, MCA and HCA concepts. MCA evolved to AMCA and Mk2/MWF.
While MCA had various designs as long as 2008 if I remember correctly, Tejas MK2 was started to be seriously seen after only Parrikar created IOC and pushed into IAF. It was by then ADA proposed to have an Mk2 fighter with with new engine for overcome all shortfalls. Even the first version of mk2 was 1m shorter than the current design.
But funding for prototype was only provided last year. I think they have also provided funding for a dry version of Kaveri for Ghatak UCAV and also 1:1 scale model for Ghatak testing last year as well. While some funding has been provided for creating ground level infra for AMCA in Coimbatore.

Yea I was mentioning EPE version with 110KN one. By the time AMCA prototype runs, I think ADA will go in for this version.
 
Funding studies is different than actual funding for prototype development. Earlier we had LCA, MCA and HCA concepts. MCA evolved to AMCA and Mk2/MWF.
While MCA had various designs as long as 2008 if I remember correctly, Tejas MK2 was started to be seriously seen after only Parrikar created IOC and pushed into IAF. It was by then ADA proposed to have an Mk2 fighter with with new engine for overcome all shortfalls. Even the first version of mk2 was 1m shorter than the current design.
But funding for prototype was only provided last year. I think they have also provided funding for a dry version of Kaveri for Ghatak UCAV and also 1:1 scale model for Ghatak testing last year as well. While some funding has been provided for creating ground level infra for AMCA in Coimbatore.

Yea I was mentioning EPE version with 110KN one. By the time AMCA prototype runs, I think ADA will go in for this version.

MCA didn't evolve into the MWF. The Tejas Mk2 arose out of the IAF's insistence that the Tejas Mk1 needed an AESA radar, maintainability improvements and a higher thrust engine.

As a result of that, the Tejas Mk2 was to feature a fuselage plug, improved performance (+9G), F-414 engine, internal EW suite, increased payload and increased internal fuel, new DFCC, plus aerodynamic improvements to reduce drag but it didn't have canards. This was in the works at ADA even before Parrikar was the Defence Minister. What Parrikar did was to back the Tejas program fully, and bring IAF and HAL to negotiate on how to quickly address the IAF's needs.

This was the Tejas Mk2 back then; See the length viz. 13.7 m (0.5 m fuselage plug in the Tejas Mk1 fuselage which is 13.2 m in length)

tejas-mk2.jpg


At that time, the IAF wanted no more Tejas Mk1 fighters after the first 40 and directly wanted to go to the Tejas Mk2. That would have been a huge problem, since it meant that the Tejas assembly line would've been idle for some years till the Tejas Mk2 was in production. But because of his intervention, HAL proposed a new Mk1A variant with AESA radar and maintainability improvements, which the IAF agreed to.

Since 83 of those Tejas Mk1A fighters were to be bought, it gave ADA and HAL more time to work on a bigger and more ambitious design, which became the MWF.

Now, the IAF could ask for even greater payload and internal fuel than earlier to target a Mirage-2000 and MiG-29 replacement and so the design grew even longer to 14.3 m (0.6 m more than the earlier Tejas Mk2 design). As the Mk2 grew longer and the CG (Center of gravity) and CL (Center of lift) shifted further aft, canards were required to bring the CL back forward while retaining the same wing design as the Tejas Mk1.
 
a) Is there a good *chance* that MK1A & MWF will be ready in-time? I know this is a difficult question to answer, but is the work going full-stream?

b) Is it going to be retractable probe from MWF? why so, when even Rafale has non-retractable probe? They tried the same for LCA Mk1 as well. My question is - Is it going to be a case of over-promising and under-delivering (my question is not just about retractable probe, but other promised technologies / features)?

Work is going on in full swing for the Mk1A and the MWF.

MWF *may* have a retractable probe, based on what an ADA engineer told a defence journalist during a briefing. It is an easier option to keep the same probe as the Mk1 and Mk1A, but it is being planned to reduce drag.

One thing is for sure- the nose pitot tube will be removed and relocated just behind the radome. Apparently the pneumatic lines that connect the pitot probe to the LRUs behind hinder radar performance a bit and to improve it, the pitot probe will be moved.

wmzoA61.jpg


Regarding over-promising and under-delivering; always remember that everything cannot be delivered at the same time. In all Project Management, there are high, medium and low priorities. There are also dependencies on external agencies; for e.g. if I need to install a certain LRU and the DRDO lab or agency that is responsible for it is delayed due to any reason, my schedule will also suffer. Or I may want a certain capability but it will take time to develop and it will be scheduled accordingly.

So while work is on in full swing, you and other posters need to have sensible expectations. Don't expect impossible timelines and everything you want on DAY 1. An airplane development project is EXTREMELY complex and multi-disciplinary. There are lots of factors influencing the design and the timelines. So stay patient and remember that the IAF is embedded in the Project Team from Day 1. They're guiding it in a way that they didn't with Tejas Mk1. That will make matters a lot more streamlined and miscommunication and lack of stakeholder confidence will be reduced greatly.

MWF will also have an IOC and FOC phase. Gradually, full advertised capability will be delivered. I hope that clears that question of yours.
 
Some very nice posts in this thread lately by @MirageBlue . Thanks for taking the time...and hope to see your interaction continue here and flesh out more as required.

@Joe Shearer @jbgt90 @Hellfire @Krptonite @BL33D @Water Car Engineer @Zapper @Arulmozhi Varman you may all be interested in reading last cpl pages or so.

@Indos you may also find last few pages convo interesting to read, you like to keep tabs on 5th gen project dev etc I remember.

Very interesting, but I was equally interested in the thread on A Vision of a New Combined Arms Philosophy and Doctrine; to be honest, it was @PanzerKiel 's comments and attempts to reduce rushes of blood to the head that I found meaty and hugely instructive.

Since @Signalian helped with his neat layout of the orbat on the other side, I've been doing a lot of thinking, my operation recovery and the subsequent social distancing having given me all that time and leisure. On that other thread, certain common-sense waymarks need to be kept in mind at all times:
  1. No point fighting yesterday's wars;
  2. Even less point fighting with yesterday's weapons;
  3. Worst of all is fighting with yesterday's doctrine - what are achievable war aims, how do we deploy our resources to meet those aims, is today's structure and capability and deployment adequate for achieving those aims, what should we be doing instead, how do we integrate national aims with what is an aberration, war aims, inasmuch as war is an aberration and peaceful co-existence is the norm, what reforms do we need to make at the national level, including in terms of social engineering to converge social goals and the subset that is military goals, how do we factor in geopolitics, including the role of China, the rivalry of China with the US in the South China Sea, the attitude of China towards the Chengdu/Lanzhou military districts, the relationship with Pakistan from the facts-on-the-ground point of view, the role of weapons, their procurement and maintenance, their technology and Indian absorption of the same...
  4. It was disappointing to see the discussion degenerating into a war game.
I agree with you after going through four previous pages of this thread; it is remarkable and this new poster, @MirageBlue, is outstanding; if he and @IAMARVIN had appeared earlier, I might even have stayed active in this forum.
 
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it was @PanzerKiel 's comments and attempts to reduce rushes of blood to the head that I found meaty and hugely instructive.

Yup he has quickly earned a strong optimism and curiosity from me....sorely hope he sticks around and gathers more worthies into the discussions he is frequenting now....either for sounding board or for strong contributions.

Must be harnessing some good nostalgia for you in how the forum once was in lot of "quieter" and serious threads.
 
Thank you for a very sensible and sane reply.

Now, Project AZM is part of an even bigger project known as Aviation City, where PAF aims to expand PAC into a full fledged organization to develop everything locally.

You're welcome and I hope this thread stays civil and doesn't deteriorate into racist and anti religious abuse.

I've seen the buildings that were inaugurated for Aviation City. but not any of the actual facilities that are required to do the design and testing work. All of it takes time, but these are the first steps in a long marathon that needs to be run before real capability exists to design and build an indigenous fighter.

Perhaps you have some idea of the scale of investment that is being made and the facilities that will be developed?

Since most your post is concerning with “Designing”, PAF knows what they are doing, not ordinary people like me, Although I believe that in time, Aviation city will be able to do most such you said, But not anytime soon I believe.

PAF has its expertise in flying, its tactics and all of the activities that go on for maintenance, arming, SOPs, even overhaul, etc. However, Design knowledge is mostly not a part of ANY Air Force in the world. They know the basics and the theory no question, but they won't be employing the hundreds of engineers with the specialised skills that OEMs employ.

That is why even with decades of Transfer of Technology to HAL, they took so much time with the Tejas. Because watching others do it, and being given exact instructions on how to manufacture and assemble a fighter is one thing, but doing it from scratch is an altogether different exercise. It is levels of magnitude harder. the PAC Kamra experience with the JF-17 is ToT. China has the real knowledge and skills on the design and how to productionize the design.

Flight computer, FBW-FBO design and testing, As far As I know from open source is that we are already having a product catalogue in that category. As for the iron rigs, Since PAC has intentions to develop commercial airliners itself, so required facilities will be made.

Not sure how the FBW design expertise was gained when there is not a single FBW equipped product that PAC designed. Maybe you could shed more light on how that happened.

I would hope that PAC is smart and doesn't attempt commercial airliners or even regional jets- unless it wants to lose the Govt. of Pakistan a massive pot of money.

It would be impossible without taking the first steps towards a clean sheet design that is much smaller in scale. Regional jets or anything larger require massive investments in infrastructure and manpower and that is a big no-no without a VERY VERY GOOD business case. Just look at how Bombardier fared. They've exited the commercial jetliner business altogether, despite having a good product. It sucked more money out of the company than anyone imagined, needed the Quebec govt. to pour nearly a billion $ and take a huge stake in the program to save it. China, with all the money they have, haven't yet put the C-919 into service and don't have a single non-Chinese Airline customer..even the Chinese customers they have are thanks to CCP directives, not because they're better than the A-320 or B-737. The COMAC ARJ21 is basically an obsolete design and will never see service outside of China. Mitsubishi is not faring particularly well either with its Space Jet with a negative order book worth nearly $1 billion.

On the Indian side, I'm not at all convinced that the Indian RTA-90 will ever actually see light of day. It'll continue to be a NAL project (and NAL is a small lab by comparison to HAL) and unless a private sector consortium takes a huge stake in it and wants to put it into production, we'll only see RTA-70 and RTA-90 electronically and never for real. Because even with civilian air sector and traffic 10 times bigger than Pakistan, the business case is not there for the massive investment that is required for commercial jetliners. Only way possible is if the Govt. of India is hell bent on establishing an Embraer like company in India.

In terms of immediate requirements, We might take some facility help from China, since our availability at CAC is mostly always I believe, so who knows AZM might actually be happening there. In the latest MoD report, we learnt that initial designs were run through various algorithms, Now they are going for further testing and this was in 2017 I believe, So this indicates we might actually be as immediate requirement, Using foreign facilities.

I have to admit, as much as we troll Tejas, That program has been a victim of really bad political game, 3 different parties (Government, IAF, MoD), all supporting different options, So tejas got delayed, But the most important factor was that HAL kept on focusing on infrastructure DURING the development of Tejas which delayed the jet even further.

TBH, the online trolling of the Tejas makes 0% difference in the real world- to those who operate it day and day out and to the decision makers. Those that are associated with the program know what it is capable of and that's what matters most. Because the Govt. of India provides funds to keep it running- they need to see the impact of the program to continue to invest money, whether internet posters do or not is immaterial.

Public perception for the program has also changed over the years as it has entered service and good things are being said about it by IAF people and it has been proving itself in IAF exercises despite it only being at IOC level.

Earlier, every article would start with "Tejas, 30 years in the making"..which was a complete lie. It is like saying the AMCA is 10 years in the making already because concept studies started 10 years ago.

Most people trolling the Tejas program don't know much about the program or how it has changed the Indian aerospace landscape. If the ACM can say that the MRCA will be the last imported fighter in India's history, then he says so because of the tremendous jump that has been made over the last 2 decades, all thanks to the LCA program. And these are not idle boasts- the IAF would NEVER have committed to that kind of thing if they didn't believe they would get world class products from DRDO/ADA/HAL with private suppliers backing them up.

We played differently, As we were in immediate need of homegrown fighter, Got into a JV with China, End result is what we wanted as per our requirements.

So we got 2 achievements, one is fulfilling our requirements and secondly getting some know how on Fighter development and designing.

I am fully aware of the genesis of the JF-17 program and why the decisions were made that led to the design choices that were made since I followed the program on other forums.

However, I do feel that if Pakistan wanted to establish the design capabilities for the next gen of fighters, it needed to take up a substantial bit of the work packages for the JF-17 at the very start. But timeline was first priority and that meant that CAC did almost all of the design and development and PAF and PAC were involved in Program Management, MMI design and assembly related activities. Why didn't Pakistan take on the development of at least some of the avionics for the JF-17?

Again, I want to give you a wake up call- why did CAC need to do the work for JF-17 Block 3? Surely the scope of it meant that integrating Chinese equipment should have been possible by PAC Kamra. I mean the JF-17 Block 3 isn't a new jet- it is upgrading the radar, adding MAWS and some other items right? Does CAC own the IP to the JF-17 and hence PAC Kamra cannot work on it on without CAC taking up the lions share of the work?

An ever bigger opportunity was with the JF-17B! Look at the Brazilians, how they negotiated the Gripen E/F contract. The Swedes didn't want a twin seater, the Brazilians did. So they negotiated for 100s of Embraer engineers to be trained in Sweden, on fighter design even though Embraer has been designing commercial regional jetliners for decades. And then, the first Gripen F was developed in Brazil, with Saab supporting fully. The Brazilians don't even have plans for a 5th gen fighter as of now, but the knowledge to be gained was worth it totally.

Shouldn't Pakistan have demanded that the JF-17B be designed at PAC Kamra or Aviation City and CAC provide all the know-how and know-why (which is the most important part of knowledge transfer) to hundreds of Pakistani engineers so they could put that knowledge to work on the next gen design? Alright, the JF-17B would then have come 4-5 years later, but would that have really mattered compared to the more valuable learning of the design skills? It is because of that, that I feel that the Project Azm will be a derivative of a Chinese design. Because the hard steps have not been put for any program so far by Pakistan.

China is to Pakistan the way the Soviet Union was for India in the 1970s and 1980s. Why put in the really hard work when your ally will supply it to you for cheap and do all the hard work? Thanks to the Soviet Union, we built hundreds of fighters via ToT. But till the Tejas, we didn't know WHY the fighter was designed a particular way or how to do it ourselves. And it took us 20 years+ of sustained effort to get to where people in the Govt. of India and IAF are confident about a 5th gen program and were perfectly fine with rejecting a Russian PAK-FA based FGFA (which was the easy 5th gen solution for India).

Food for thought, right?

As for the RAM coating facilities and knowledge, I don’t think most aviation companies are well versed with that, except for those who actually attempted a fifth gen fighter, So PAC, HAL/ADA or any other company in the world would be new to that.

DRDO (not HAL/ADA) labs have been researching and working on RAM coatings and RAM skins for a while now. They have already built RAM coatings and RAM skins that are being tested. I can't find the images on my laptop right now, will post it when I find them.

ORANGE facility to test RCS of objects

link to article

link

nairrcas.png


RCS measurement software developed by CSIR-NAL
 
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Bid To Choose Pvt Partner In India’s 5th Gen Fighter JV Begins

Never before has an Indian private sector company been offered the opportunity to be an equal partner in a military aviation project. Military aircraft development and manufacture has so far strictly been the preserve of the state-owned DRDO and Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL). Now, in one of the biggest shifts in India’s government-monopolised military industrial complex, that’s about to change.

Seen as the most meaningful and substantial involvement of the Indian private sector in a military aviation project, all eyes are now on which privately-held company will be chosen to be an equal joint venture partner for India’s fifth generation fighter effort, the AMCA project. In a major newsbreak Sunday night, Livefist revealed that the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) program, is to be executed by a public-private joint venture — a first in Indian military industrial history.

Livefist can now confirm that the selection process is all set to begin to choose the private sector partner in the proposed corporate joint venture. A special purpose vehicle (SPV) is to be created in the interim, followed by a full-fledged joint venture that will administer and execute the development, manufacture and testing of the fifth generation AMCA.

Livefist has learnt that companies that include Larsen & Toubro, Lakshmi Machine Works (LMW) Advanced Technology Centre, Tata Advanced Systems Ltd (TASL) and at least three other private sector defence firms are in the fray. While Livefist understands that L&T is being seen as a frontrunner, given its existing deep involvement and experience in India’s strategic military programs, including the nuclear submarine build program, a final decision on the AMCA JV will only be taken once the selection process is complete.

Workshare, financials and other terms of reference are to be drawn up this year ahead of decision on the private sector company that will be — for the first time — an equal player in India’s most crucial aviation project. The AMCA JV thrust is separate from the existing supplier and developer base the project already has in the private sector. Companies like VEM Technologies, Dynamatics and others are already involved in the prototyping stage, and will remain tier-level partners for the duration of the project.

The AMCA joint venture company will be based in Coimbatore, where an AMCA ‘site’ has been ready for nearly two years now at the IAF’s Sulur base in Tamil Nadu. According top priority to the program, the IAF has already earmarked 20 acres of land for the JV in Sulur for the final assembly and checkout facility. Testing of the jet will take place at the peninsular base which also houses the IAF’s LCA Tejas squadrons.

While the original plan was for the AMCA JV to be directly between the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) and a chosen private sector company, HAL’s involvement in the design of the jet has meant that the state-owned company will be part of AMCA corporate entity. The fact that the AMCA JV is to come up in Sulur in Tamil Nadu, and not HAL’s home turf of Bengaluru, is indicative of this original impulse. Once things get moving, the AMCA will be, by far, Tamil Nadu’s most significant military industrial project.

Given how crucial the AMCA project is to future military planning, one of the biggest questions is just who will call the shots in the proposed joint venture. With HAL and the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) both involved in the preliminary design studies on the stealth jet, the Indian Air Force has expressed concern over the pace of work. Top IAF sources tell Livefist that the air force is hoping that the private sector company chosen for the JV should call equal shots in the new arrangement, if not taking a full lead.

Then there’s the question of the proposed jet’s engine.

The twin-engine AMCA is planned to be powered by an in-development 110 KN turbofan being developed by HAL, DRDO’s Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE — the lead agency) and a foreign engine major (France’s Safran). HAL chairman R. Madhavan told Livefist in an interview last week that the new engine would be ab initio but draw learnings from the erstwhile Kaveri turbofan project. Prototypes of the AMCA, though, will be powered by GE F414 engines. The HAL chairman has said work has speeded up to roll out an AMCA prototype by 2025, with flight test to begin in 2027-28, which confirms earlier timelines set by the DRDO.
https://www.livefistdefence.com/202...tner-in-indias-5th-gen-fighter-jv-begins.html
 
You're welcome and I hope this thread stays civil and doesn't deteriorate into racist and anti religious abuse.

I've seen the buildings that were inaugurated for Aviation City. but not any of the actual facilities that are required to do the design and testing work. All of it takes time, but these are the first steps in a long marathon that needs to be run before real capability exists to design and build an indigenous fighter.

Perhaps you have some idea of the scale of investment that is being made and the facilities that will be developed?



PAF has its expertise in flying, its tactics and all of the activities that go on for maintenance, arming, SOPs, even overhaul, etc. However, Design knowledge is mostly not a part of ANY Air Force in the world. They know the basics and the theory no question, but they won't be employing the hundreds of engineers with the specialised skills that OEMs employ.

That is why even with decades of Transfer of Technology to HAL, they took so much time with the Tejas. Because watching others do it, and being given exact instructions on how to manufacture and assemble a fighter is one thing, but doing it from scratch is an altogether different exercise. It is levels of magnitude harder. the PAC Kamra experience with the JF-17 is ToT. China has the real knowledge and skills on the design and how to productionize the design.



Not sure how the FBW design expertise was gained when there is not a single FBW equipped product that PAC designed. Maybe you could shed more light on how that happened.

I would hope that PAC is smart and doesn't attempt commercial airliners or even regional jets- unless it wants to lose the Govt. of Pakistan a massive pot of money.

It would be impossible without taking the first steps towards a clean sheet design that is much smaller in scale. Regional jets or anything larger require massive investments in infrastructure and manpower and that is a big no-no without a VERY VERY GOOD business case. Just look at how Bombardier fared. They've exited the commercial jetliner business altogether, despite having a good product. It sucked more money out of the company than anyone imagined, needed the Quebec govt. to pour nearly a billion $ and take a huge stake in the program to save it. China, with all the money they have, haven't yet put the C-919 into service and don't have a single non-Chinese Airline customer..even the Chinese customers they have are thanks to CCP directives, not because they're better than the A-320 or B-737. The COMAC ARJ21 is basically an obsolete design and will never see service outside of China. Mitsubishi is not faring particularly well either with its Space Jet with a negative order book worth nearly $1 billion.

On the Indian side, I'm not at all convinced that the Indian RTA-90 will ever actually see light of day. It'll continue to be a NAL project (and NAL is a small lab by comparison to HAL) and unless a private sector consortium takes a huge stake in it and wants to put it into production, we'll only see RTA-70 and RTA-90 electronically and never for real. Because even with civilian air sector and traffic 10 times bigger than Pakistan, the business case is not there for the massive investment that is required for commercial jetliners. Only way possible is if the Govt. of India is hell bent on establishing an Embraer like company in India.



TBH, the online trolling of the Tejas makes 0% difference in the real world- to those who operate it day and day out and to the decision makers. Those that are associated with the program know what it is capable of and that's what matters most. Because the Govt. of India provides funds to keep it running- they need to see the impact of the program to continue to invest money, whether internet posters do or not is immaterial.

Public perception for the program has also changed over the years as it has entered service and good things are being said about it by IAF people and it has been proving itself in IAF exercises despite it only being at IOC level.

Earlier, every article would start with "Tejas, 30 years in the making"..which was a complete lie. It is like saying the AMCA is 10 years in the making already because concept studies started 10 years ago.

Most people trolling the Tejas program don't know much about the program or how it has changed the Indian aerospace landscape. If the ACM can say that the MRCA will be the last imported fighter in India's history, then he says so because of the tremendous jump that has been made over the last 2 decades, all thanks to the LCA program. And these are not idle boasts- the IAF would NEVER have committed to that kind of thing if they didn't believe they would get world class products from DRDO/ADA/HAL with private suppliers backing them up.



I am fully aware of the genesis of the JF-17 program and why the decisions were made that led to the design choices that were made since I followed the program on other forums.

However, I do feel that if Pakistan wanted to establish the design capabilities for the next gen of fighters, it needed to take up a substantial bit of the work packages for the JF-17 at the very start. But timeline was first priority and that meant that CAC did almost all of the design and development and PAF and PAC were involved in Program Management, MMI design and assembly related activities. Why didn't Pakistan take on the development of at least some of the avionics for the JF-17?

Again, I want to give you a wake up call- why did CAC need to do the work for JF-17 Block 3? Surely the scope of it meant that integrating Chinese equipment should have been possible by PAC Kamra. I mean the JF-17 Block 3 isn't a new jet- it is upgrading the radar, adding MAWS and some other items right? Does CAC own the IP to the JF-17 and hence PAC Kamra cannot work on it on without CAC taking up the lions share of the work?

An ever bigger opportunity was with the JF-17B! Look at the Brazilians, how they negotiated the Gripen E/F contract. The Swedes didn't want a twin seater, the Brazilians did. So they negotiated for 100s of Embraer engineers to be trained in Sweden, on fighter design even though Embraer has been designing commercial regional jetliners for decades. And then, the first Gripen F was developed in Brazil, with Saab supporting fully. The Brazilians don't even have plans for a 5th gen fighter as of now, but the knowledge to be gained was worth it totally.

Shouldn't Pakistan have demanded that the JF-17B be designed at PAC Kamra or Aviation City and CAC provide all the know-how and know-why (which is the most important part of knowledge transfer) to hundreds of Pakistani engineers so they could put that knowledge to work on the next gen design? Alright, the JF-17B would then have come 4-5 years later, but would that have really mattered compared to the more valuable learning of the design skills? It is because of that, that I feel that the Project Azm will be a derivative of a Chinese design. Because the hard steps have not been put for any program so far by Pakistan.

China is to Pakistan the way the Soviet Union was for India in the 1970s and 1980s. Why put in the really hard work when your ally will supply it to you for cheap and do all the hard work? Thanks to the Soviet Union, we built hundreds of fighters via ToT. But till the Tejas, we didn't know WHY the fighter was designed a particular way or how to do it ourselves. And it took us 20 years+ of sustained effort to get to where people in the Govt. of India and IAF are confident about a 5th gen program and were perfectly fine with rejecting a Russian PAK-FA based FGFA (which was the easy 5th gen solution for India).

Food for thought, right?



DRDO (not HAL/ADA) labs have been researching and working on RAM coatings and RAM skins for a while now. They have already built RAM coatings and RAM skins that are being tested. I can't find the images on my laptop right now, will post it when I find them.

ORANGE facility to test RCS of objects

link to article

link

nairrcas.png


RCS measurement software developed by CSIR-NAL
I agree with you.
In Chinese web, LCA is always laughed at for being a "30-year failed project" which is to some extend too arrogant. Know-how and know-why is totally different levels. India can assembly Su-30MKI-class advanced fighters via ToT from Russia, but it is through LCA project that India gained the capability to design a fighter.

China did go through such long path. Q-5, JF-17, J-10 and J-20 are totally our domestic designs, but they do take us very long to achieve success.

We gained the designating capability by copy-and-produce J-6(Mig-19), H-6(Tu-16) and J-7(Mig-21) and J-11(Su-27) series, which took us 30-years to digest Soviet technology. We even have 3 dedicated good universities for aerospace R&D, from which almost all our current engineers in such industries graduates .

Copying is a level higher than ToT assembly --- the highest level know-how, an inevitable phase to know-how, and is still very hard for a developing country. Through copying, we built up our domestic aeroplane industries gradually.

But IMO, India is still a little bit too late to achieve this. 2-gen or early 3-gen fighters are still copyable since they are not so complicated. But for 4/5-gen fighters it is a great challenge --- too many subsystems are involved. I don't think currently any country can build their domestic aeroplane industry following the ToT-copy-design path, its too late and costly, and politicians of "democratic" countries won't invest in these projects which won't benefit at all in near future.

For 5-gen fighters, the engines, avionics and manufacturing are too complicated, so you can see only giant weapon producers can independently develop 5-gen fighters, i.e US/CN/RUS, and even US had to jointly develop F-35 since it is too costly to develop a 5-gen fighter solo. For TFX / KFX, I'm pessimistic about their future since neither Korea nor Turkey has gone through the path from 2 to 4 gen.
 
For 5-gen fighters, the engines, avionics and manufacturing are too complicated, so you can see only giant weapon producers can independently develop 5-gen fighters, i.e US/CN/RUS, and even US had to jointly develop F-35 since it is too costly to develop a 5-gen fighter solo. For TFX / KFX, I'm pessimistic about their future since neither Korea nor Turkey has gone through the path from 2 to 4 gen.

Korea has designed two planes before designing KFX/IFX with Indonesia which is KT-1 Wongbi and T50 Golden Eagle (with the assistance of Lockheed Martin). While Indonesia (PT Dirgantara Indonesia) has designed CN 235 with Spain, N 250, N2130, N219. Even though those are not fighters but at least we do have some design experience. Much better than SAC that directly design JF31 despite they dont have any design experience before, just license built Russia fighter.

KFX/IFX itself also get design assistance from Lockheed Martin.
 
Korea has designed two planes before designing KFX/IFX with Indonesia which is KT-1 Wongbi and T50 Golden Eagle (with the assistance of Lockheed Martin). While Indonesia (PT Dirgantara Indonesia) has designed CN 235 with Spain, N 250, N2130, N219. Even though those are not fighters but at least we do have some design experience. Much better than SAC that directly design JF31 despite they dont have any design experience before, just license built Russia fighter.

KFX/IFX itself also get design assistance from Lockheed Martin.
Fighters are way more complicated. Experience is very very important in this aspect. The only comparable East Asian country in this field is Japan (Type Zero, F-2, Shinshin, and F-3 in the future, meanwhile C-2 transporter is also a masterpiece, though all Japanese products are irrationally expensive), Korea is no player, the success of TA-50 relied more on LM rather than Korea.

As for SAC, it is dedicated to produce fighter planes for more than half a century, and they do designed J-8.
J-6, J-7, J-11, J-15, J-16 are all produced by SAC.

The "license built" only applies for J-11A, which is totally assembly-work. From J-11B on, it is we that control all the production, everything is our own except the AL-31 engine (will be replaced by WS-10 in recent years), thus upgrading and personalization is all at our own control, that's why J-16 come into birth. The only restriction is we can't sell them to foreign customers since we use AL-31 and nothing more, our avionics are even more advanced.

That's why SAC can design and carry out FC-31 so quickly --- the experience in fighter manufacture, not only some "license built" but whole flow. 60-year experience of R&D is not just paperwork, but real output.

Again, the first flight of prototype of FC-31 (No.31001) is 8 years before, mean while there is no plane seen for TFX/KFX for years, that is the gap.

And don't forget SAC and CAC is both under the control of AVIC, they are in the same incorporation controlled by the state, they all serves China rather than stakeholders, so the technology on J-20 can also be applied on SAC's product. FC-31 is not a product only of SAC, but AVIC, you must make clear of the difference.

For KFX, whether it will success or not depends on LM, not Korea and Indonesia, and I even doubt whether there will be a result for KFX project --- it will cost tens of billions of $$. Korea has purchased F-35, and its economy is declining, they may not have the money to develop KFX. What's worse, US produces are a good but greedy cooperator, our Super-7 (the original project code of JF-17) had many economic problems when cooperated with Grumman.
 

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