Build twin-engine LCA – Rafale is short term solution

[Dil Pakistan]

Build twin-engine LCA – Rafale is short term solution
(Niti Central)


In a NitiCentral article on December 27, 2014 I suggested that India forget about technology transfer for now, allow complete manufacture in France and in return insist on an accelerated delivery schedule of all 126 Rafale aircraft at a significantly lower price point. In France Narendra Modi announced government to government G2G purchase of 36 Rafale jets to be provided on better terms than Dassault could offer and there is no technology transfer. Modi did what he had to do to respond to the urgency of the situation. It was obvious that negotiation with Dassault was going nowhere and by making a G2G purchase Modi got the job done. As Parrikar said this gives the IAF breathing room to make a proper choice about the long term. Parrikar has been clear that the MMRCA tender will be cancelled and this purchase of 36 aircraft i.e. two squadrons gives a soft landing to the cancellation of the MMRCA tender. If the government buys more Rafale in a follow on order having a total of 3-4 squadrons of Rafale may be enough.

The IAF needs to reach the 45 squadrons mark as soon as possible. That 45 squadrons should consist of a good mix of heavy, medium and light aircraft. The Sukhoi 30 is the heavy aircraft and is supposed to reach a total number of 272 i.e. 15 squadrons but take into consideration periodic crashes and some waiting for maintenance and the available aircraft is somewhat less. The Rafale and Mig-29 would be the medium for about 8-10 squadrons. Then a single engine fighter including the 60 Mirage-2000 aircraft and new LCA would be the light aircraft and should be some 20 squadrons in total. This last category currently includes the 250 Mig-21 and 80 Mig-27 which will be phased out in the next few years. So the need is urgent to say the least.

Now the LCA Tejas Mark-I in its current form is not fully operational so the IAF may not depend upon it and so the Mark-I in the IAF would be 2 squadrons at the most. So essentially the IAF is pinning its hopes on the upgraded Mark-II form which has an upgraded engine providing about 10-15% more power and which will not be available for production till about 2019 and in that Mark-II form the government wants an additional 15 squadrons at least. Now there is no question that development of the Mark-II has to be completed, but the main point I want to make in this article is that in my opinion, the Mark-II LCA will NOT meet the long term needs of the IAF, and the Indian government should NOT contemplate more than 5 squadrons of the Mark-II.

There have been reports that Saab of Sweden has offered to help India with fighter development of single-engine fighters for the IAF. For the IAF requirement for the light single-engine combat fighter the Saab’s Gripen is the perfect fit in every possible way except the cost. It is like finding the perfect car except it costs double what you want to pay. So when Saab offers to sell India the Gripen and offers technology transfer and offers to help India develop its own indigenous single-engine combat fighter, you should take it very very seriously, because the project will succeed in almost every way and India will learn a lot in the shortest possible time and the combat jet will work wonderfully well. However, in my humble opinion you will wind up with a product that you no longer want and which will cost you a hell of a lot more than you wanted to spend. Simply put, in the real world if you want something cheap you have to do it yourself.

So, just as I said on December 27, 2014 that India should forget about technology transfer and that is what ultimately happened, I now say to you that India should not try to solve a problem that you are not equipped to solve, India should NOT try to develop a single engine combat fighter jet for use in the IAF. What India SHOULD do instead is to change the problem to one that you know you can solve without help from anyone else. India does not need help from Sweden if you only change the problem to one that is easier to solve. To see what India should be doing, let’s backup a little.

Every expert commentator on Indian television seems to believe that the light combat aircraft has to be a single-engine combat fighter. That is the wrong problem to solve. The real reason the LCA was not successful is that it is horribly underpowered. Yes it is true that the Gripen originally used the GE-F404 engine and is now using the GE-F414 engine and that the LCA Tejas Mark-I uses the GE-F404 engine and the Mark-II will use the GE-F414 engine, so at first glance you would say if the Swedish people can do this, why can’t we? The obvious answer is that Saab started before world war II and that if you could have done it, you would have done so by now, so obviously HAL does not have as much experience as Saab in designing fighter jets and the proof is that the LCA Tejas Mark-I weighs more than the comparable Saab Gripen and is less aerodynamic. Now if you pay Saab to learn how to improve the LCA so that it can be inducted into the IAF, then you have spent a lot of money for the help and the unit cost of the LCA goes up way too much so it is just not worth it.

So instead of asking Saab for help, why don’t you solve an easier problem? I put it to you categorically, that a twin-engine fighter jet can do everything that the LCA was supposed to do and is a hell of a lot easier to design than a single engine combat fighter. If India were to design a larger LCA using two GE-F404 engines to power it, the unit cost will be less than 50 million and it will work on day one. I repeat that the very first prototype that you build will do everything you need the LCA to do and not only that, you will have so much extra power that you can use larger fuel tanks so that you can fly 2000 km more without refuelling. At high altitudes, using two engines will come in handy. Two engines is also more reliable in case of bird strike.

And ultimately having all that extra power allows you to do that true hallmark capability of every supremely successful combat fighter namely variants. Do you know that the F-16 has so many variants that they have run out of the letters of the alphabet? So if you make a twin-engine and have extra power to spend, you can make a variant with large internal fuel tanks, a variant with internal bomb bay i.e. inside the fuselage, a variant with super cruise i.e. the name of the game is no longer that you have 300 aircraft that are identical, but instead that you have a half-dozen variants each honed for a specific mission. The ability to make variants will also allow you to get good export sales, because every customer wants something different.

So, in a nutshell my message to the Indian government is that you seem to be looking at the wrong problem. You already know how to make an LCA, now just build a twin-engine LCA and you will succeed beyond your wildest dreams. You will also satisfy “make in India”, you will get a rock bottom unit cost of less than 50 million apiece, and because it is truly indigenous you can export the combat fighter, and because the cost is low you can get 45 squadrons that you need, your aeronautical industry and Indian economy will benefit enormously. All this will happen merely because you look within yourself and ask what it is that India really wants and needs.


Build twin-engine LCA - Rafale is short term solution

Any aviation expert's opinion on twin engined LCA? i found one and pasting below

In the words of Air Marshal M Matheshwaran who analyzed exactly why the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft will never fully meet the ASR and cannot become the IAF ‘s frontline fighter in the Lo segment.
Light Combat Aircraft: The need for course correction II | StratPost
He wrote possible solutions and i quote one of them
Quote
"It could either be a single-engine aircraft with a redesigned airframe and a larger fuel capacity on the lines of the Gripen NG or it could be a twin-engine version of the LCA with just incremental technology.
A cost-benefit-performance analysis of the two needs to be deliberated seriously.
This would also have the advantage of providing continuity further on to the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) programme "
Unquote


What you fellow PDFites think? is this idea feasible? whats the pros and cons?

O!...First make the single engine plane and make it fly....then think of the twin engine one

 

[thesolar65]

Did you inhale Nitrous Oxide??

 

[Donatello]

What part of LCA did they not understand?
LCA=Light Combat Aircraft, unless they are stuck at it's true meaning of Least Capable Aircraft, which makes sense to make it better.??

 

[rubyjackass]

LCA won't be LCA if it gets two engines.

 

[gslv mk3]

Make sure this time when you try to invent the wheel it should be rounded, not octagonal...hahahaahaha jahahahaahaha ja

Have your country ever designed a ultralight aircraft on its own ? If not,then STFU.

O!...First make the single engine plane and make it fly....then think of the twin engine one

Its already in service.We made a twin engine fighter in the 1960s-Marut.

 

[Water Car Engineer]

This is supposed to be the lowest tier in the IAF. I dont know why it wouldn't fit this role, especially mark 2 is already over kill for that role. Do people forget that IAF will depend on MKIs, Rafales, and eventually FGFAs and AMCAs? Didnt even mention current MIG 29 UPGs, Mirage 2000UPGs, and future UCAV like AURAs.

Now people talk all this crap about 'mini-MMRCA', twin engine LCA, etc. while flying dilapidating MIGs on the frontier. All the while LCA is in production and entering FOC. <--- I doubt that's a coincidence.

 

[Kinetic]

IAF is main reason to make lca 1 a failed project ,

IAF is never sure what they want ,not just lca but mca or mmrca or even engine. Both Kaveri and lca 2.

Hal drdo is already full of babus. On top the IAF decision making.

May be it's better to ask them requirements one time and fix a time frame. Ask them to shut the fucck up. No expensive toys only local toys.

May be a few to know technology and shelf.


Do you have a airforce?

It's an honest real question. Do u have some aircraft or attack helo?

What is the problem with this guy? Anyone?

 

[JaiShriAllahNath]

LCA won't be LCA if it gets two engines.

Terminologies doesn't matter, as long as it flies at X speed, at Y height and delivers Z bombs, at R range.

 

[Kinetic]

My POV

had LCA been a twin engine fighter we would have inducted it with our own kaveri engines
as Rafale own M88 -2 engine has max thrust of 74KN with after burners meanwhile kaveri in tests had achieved
Max thrust of 82-83 KN with after burner .

IAF set criteria of atleast 90KN of thrust with AB on LCA if kaveri is to be installed


so if LCA had been a twin engine fighter it would have inducted with our own engines

but sadly IAF beleives light fighter category should be single engined fighter so i dont think LCA mark2 would be
made twin engine fighter

But i support the twin engine fighter concept of LCA mark-2

CHEERS

If LCA would have a twin engine fighter IAF would have set criteria of atleast 90KN x 2 ie 180 KN.

 

[Joseph Goebbels]

what is the meaning of LCA ? what is the role it was designed for what were the orignal demands ? what should be its cost and what was the wepons it was to carry ? all these questions and much more are irrelevent and as now IAF has got partially what it wanted is now yet again trying to change the "goal posts"

LCA is pretty good at all what was needed of it but greedy IAF top brass dosent wants to let go there "personal" profits so yet again they are plying there old game but this time things are very different and they know they are owt of silly ideas as the LCA has now morphed into a decent multi role at fraction of cost and as soon as it gets a new engine and radar it will be very much up to any kind of challenge cuase its onli weakness right now is range which can easily be neutrlised by giving it a pair of CFTs

 

[Rau]

IAF is never sure what they want ,not just lca but mca or mmrca or even engine. Both Kaveri and lca 2.

naah ..IAF always sure what they want...they want huge bribe to fill their pocket..

 

[manishmaithani]

It seems paid news or article to me

 

[Rajaraja Chola]

I think its a great idea. We can have more than 120kn dry thrust and mtow of at least 20 ton. 8ton empty 5ton fuel and 7 ton weapon
And it will be min config. Subsequently it could be improved in blocks and a great multi role like rafale

Not exactly. Light aircrafts consume less fuel and maintainance is low while periodically patrolling our skies. Dual Engines rocket our fuel and Maintainance costs beyond budgetory approvals.

We had our twin engine MMCA idea which we dropped for AMCA.

 

[ZooZoo]

IAF has their own lobby so that they do not like to make sure LCA does not get into the bussiness...

Now these Dalals will push to corner. Manohar Forced these ppl to take 1st LCA. He will force these ppl to take 120 LCA...

 

[sancho]

This is supposed to be the lowest tier in the IAF. I dont know why it wouldn't fit this role

When it's finally available in the FOC version, it will fit the intended role perfectly, the only problem is, that the MK1 doesn't meet the intended development aims. TWR, G-Limit, V-MAX will be too low and that's partially what the MK2 will fix, so this nonsense about a twin engined LCA is just another poor Indian media report.
However, in operational terms, even the MK2 will remain clearly below MMRCA capabilities, because of the shortfalls of load configs and we still have to wait for the actual specs of the MK2, when a prototype will be available, to see what differences in flight performance can be achieved. But then again, it's an LCA and never was intended to be an MCA.

If LCA would have a twin engine fighter IAF would have set criteria of atleast 90KN x 2 ie 180 KN.

Just that IAF never required more thrust, let alone a more powerful foreign engine. They are ok with the GE404 in the MK1 and even rejected the Kaveri - Snecma development and insisted on GTRE keep developing Kaveri engine. It was IN that required more thrust in the MK2, to meet the needs of N-LCA as a carrier figher.
Just as IAF never required the singlescreen display DRDO wanted to add in the MK2, but just newer MFD's, which are available today, rather than those developed for MK1 more than a decade ago.

Not a single person in India, would take a house that was planned with doors of 2m height, when the construction company somehow messed it up and could offer only 1.5m doors. We demand the company and their workers to keep their promises and deliver what was planned, which is exactly what IAF or IN demands as well!