HAL Tejas | Updates, News & Discussions

[trident2010]

It looks good on the Rafale and M2K but not on the LCA-oh well.

It looks ugly on Rafale also.

 

[kurup]

Another image of testing refueling probe in Tejas . Aircraft looks like some LSP .

 

[Gessler]

A mock up of a refueling probe from some time back:

Gives an idea of what it may look like on Mk.2. Shame they can't mount a retractble probe, on the LCA the fixed probe just looks ugle. It looks good on the Rafale and M2K but not on the LCA-oh well.

Another such picture -

 

[ejaz007]

Contracts and Key Events


Aug. – Nov. 2012:

Testing halted. The Tejas encounters a DASH of trouble, as India discovers that the top of the pilot’s DASH integrated helmet display can end up above the top of the Martin-Baker ejection seat. That’s a serious problem, because it means the helmet could hit the canopy as the seat rockets out of the cockpit, killing the pilot. India had to halt testing for 3 1/2 months before the problem was fixed. Their response was to modify the seat, and to provide a backup mechanism that they calculate will blow the canopy off before the pilot’s head can hit it. They had better be right.

DRDO chief V. K. Saraswat has confirmed to India’s Business Standard that the fixes are done, adding that ADA used the down time to make other modifications as a result of flight test feedback. Even so, a string of setbacks has shifted Tejas’ Initial Operation Clearance (IOC) from a re-baselined end-2010 to mid-2013 – if nothing else goes seriously wrong. Final Operational Clearance (FOC) for combat operations was scheduled for end-2012, and now looks unlikely until 2014-2015.

To the west, Pakistan has already inducted 3 squadrons of its comparable JF-17 fighters, whose joint development with China began 16 years after Tejas. India’s Business Standard.


LCA Tejas: An Indian Fighter - With Foreign Help

 

[sancho]

Indeed, but it would be surprising and even if and there would be an issue with the Topsight, why would there be a need to ground the whole LCA fleet from testing, when the rest still could have used the Dash helmets. Sadly most of our defence bloggers are not really reliable sources.

Gessler just posted this pic, showing 2 different helmets, again a prove that a grounding was not needed like the media claims:

 

[Gessler]

Gessler just posted this pic, showing 2 different helmets, again a prove that a grounding was not needed like the media claims:

Nothing that Indian media says can be trusted nowadays - they just dream up a possible problem
and write it down.

 

[BlueDot_in_Space]

LCA Radome

 

[rockstarIN]

LCA-Tejas has completed 1949 Test Flights Successfully. (29-Nov-2012).


(TD1-233,TD2-305,PV1-242,PV2-222,PV3-348,LSP1-74,LSP2-238,PV5-36,LSP3-77,LSP4-56,LSP5-109,LSP7-5,NP1-4)


from

LCA-Tejas has completed 1947 Test Flights Successfully. (28-Nov-2012).


(TD1-233,TD2-305,PV1-242,PV2-222,PV3-348,LSP1-74,LSP2-238,PV5-36,LSP3-76,LSP4-56,LSP5-108,LSP7-5,NP1-4)

 

[Sergi]

LCA-Tejas has completed 1949 Test Flights Successfully. (29-Nov-2012).


(TD1-233,TD2-305,PV1-242,PV2-222,PV3-348,LSP1-74,LSP2-238,PV5-36,LSP3-77,LSP4-56,LSP5-109,LSP7-5,NP1-4)


from

LCA-Tejas has completed 1947 Test Flights Successfully. (28-Nov-2012).


(TD1-233,TD2-305,PV1-242,PV2-222,PV3-348,LSP1-74,LSP2-238,PV5-36,LSP3-76,LSP4-56,LSP5-108,LSP7-5,NP1-4)

Good job but where is Sudhir sir ???
And you forget to highlight the planes which made the fights. ( LSP3 LSP5 )

 

[Gessler]

LCA-Tejas has completed 1949 Test Flights Successfully. (29-Nov-2012).


(TD1-233,TD2-305,PV1-242,PV2-222,PV3-348,LSP1-74,LSP2-238,PV5-36,LSP3-77,LSP4-56,LSP5-109,LSP7-5,NP1-4)


from

LCA-Tejas has completed 1947 Test Flights Successfully. (28-Nov-2012).


(TD1-233,TD2-305,PV1-242,PV2-222,PV3-348,LSP1-74,LSP2-238,PV5-36,LSP3-76,LSP4-56,LSP5-108,LSP7-5,NP1-4)

2 flights in 1 day

 

[BlueDot_in_Space]

LSP3 & LSP5 with Radars flying alot after the modifications. Hope they start doing BVR tests.

 

[BlueDot_in_Space]

LCA wind tunnel model

LCA wind tunnel store drop test configuration

Mapping of the entire surface
pressure field on the LCA model at transonic speeds

Dye flow visualizations in water tunnel to understand tip vortices on LCA
wings and the effect of leading edge devices on
vortex breakdown

 

[mylovepakistan]

Rs 1,500 cr more for combat aircraft Tejas as HAL fails to meet targets

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has allocated an additional Rs 1,500 crore to the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) programme, boosting its projected Rs 14,047 crore budget. The additional amount will be spent on a production line for Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd ( HAL) to build 20 fighters that Indian Air Force (IAF) has ordered for its first Tejas squadron. The IAF has also promised another order for 20 more Tejas for its second squadron. Once the improved Mark II Tejas is developed, the IAF will field 6-7 Tejas squadrons (120-140 fighters).

This need for additional money arises from the inability of HAL, a public sector aerospace monopoly, to establish a production line that can build at least eight Tejas fighters a year. The production line that HAL set up two years ago on the priceless real estate that it holds in the heart of Bangalore has not yet produced a single Tejas fighter.


Briefing Business Standard the Director of the Aeronautical Development Agency ( ADA), P Subramanyam, who runs the LCA programme, explains that nobody realised that setting up a production line was a technology by itself. So far, ADA and HAL have built only prototypes and limited-series Tejas aircraft, producing individual parts one-by-one like a tailor making a suit. When HAL graduated to a standardised production line, it encountered serious difficulties.
“ADA and HAL have realised that creating a production line needs major effort… That realisation has come,” says Subramanyam.

So serious are the difficulties that ADA and HAL approached foreign aircraft manufacturers last year — including Eurofighter GmbH, which builds the Typhoon. The proposal to appoint a foreign consultant for the Tejas production line remains alive in the MoD.

Senior IAF officers express frustration that HAL has failed to set up a Tejas assembly line, though its primary activity for the preceding decades has been to build foreign aircraft on an assembly line under licence.

Air Marshal Pranab K Barbora, who retired as the IAF vice-chief two years ago, summarises the Air Force’s viewpoint: “HAL’s assembly line expertise is outdated by at least three decades. They have done nothing to upgrade their technology. Setting up a modern assembly line for the Tejas is far beyond HAL’s capabilities.”

Barbora says this is why the IAF lobbied hard to post a serving air marshal as HAL chief. Instead, the MoD appointed RK Tyagi, who has no experience in aeronautical development or manufacture.

Contacted repeatedly for comments, Tyagi did not respond to the calls.

ADA is defending HAL, with Subramanyam insisting that HAL would build the first 20 Tejas within two-and-a-half to three years. By then the fighter would have obtained final operational clearance (FOC) in its flight-testing programme and production can begin of the next 20 Tejas (which must be built to FOC standards).

This, says Subramanyam, will take another two-and-a-half years, i.e., be completed in 2018. By then, the Tejas Mark II will be tested and ready, and can enter series production.

What the ADA chief does not explain is: How will HAL, which cannot yet build even two Tejas fighters per year, build 20 fighters over the next three years?

The annual general meeting on Friday of ADA (which is a registered society under the MoD) was also clouded by delays in flight-testing, which Business Standard has reported, will delay the initial operational clearance ( IOC) of the Tejas until mid-2013 at the earliest.

For the IAF, which contemplates dangerously depleted squadron numbers, the big question is: When will the first two Tejas squadrons become operational?

Going by the lack of energy in HAL — which is struggling to build the last two limited series fighters and the first two series production Tejas — the IAF might have a longer wait than it is comfortable with.

Rs 1,500 cr more for combat aircraft Tejas as HAL fails to meet targets

 

[sancho]

Rs 1,500 cr more for combat aircraft Tejas as HAL fails to meet targets

Good old Ajai Shukla again, with no idea about the aero field itself and often a very biased field of view. The claims of the article are more than questionable. Why would HAL be able to set up production lines for Mig 21, Jaguar, MKI, Do 228, or even Trainer aircrafts, but not for LCA?
IF that would be true, does he really think MoD wouldn't know it and would divert more and more productions to them (additional 42 x MKIs, 108 x Rafales, FGFA, IJT, HTT 40...)?
Also, if the aim would be to set up a modern production line, why would HAL go to ask the Eurofighter consortium, when they just need to ask one of the Indian privat companies like TATA? They even have a JV with TATA to jointly produce parts for their developments, so all this doesn't really make sense to me.

 

[SamantK]

Father of India's LCA..