HAL Tejas | Updates, News & Discussions

[chachachoudhary]

guys new photo of lch

courtesy:ndtv.com/vishnu

Dhan ta nan!!!!!! Tat ta tatar, tatar, tatar!!!!!



Party time

 

[chachachoudhary]

guys just calm down a bit.It is only the first test flight.A lot of systems have to be tested before the bird can be inducted into the armed forces.

Nevertheless congratulations to all scientists ,engineers and also the test pilots .
With this India has now entered a select group of nations who manufacture their own attack copter.

You are right. I am also very excited and I can understand the joy of others also. Please excuse each others silly comments and savour the moment.

In case of LCH, they have adapted a good approach as far as testing other instruments and weapons are concerned. They are doing the weapons test using Dhruv. So, it will be less time consuming and simpler to integrate them with LCH as a lot of data would be available from dhruv mounted systems. So, actually both tests, basic platform and airframe as well as weapons and instruments are proceeding simultaneously.

Remember developing an attack heli is hell of an achievement. Even big names such as sikorsky had a bad experience with projects such as comanche. (Project cost running in many billions of dollars)

In the light of these facts, I think HAL and DRDO are doing really fantastic job and that too at a fraction of cost.

 

[Kinetic]

Beauty and the beast! WOW! The best attack coper I have ever seen! Congrats to every Indian and HAL. God bless INDIA!

The weight issues still exist and are being worked on. If you notice none of the armaments are mounded onto the sides of the LCH mainly due to weight issues. From what I have heard HAL is trying to find a nice balance between firepower and weight. They want the LCH to be very maneuverable as well as deadly. There are currently some flight control specs to be worked on also. We will have to wait and see how the beast looks after final testing. Im sure HAL will be able to handle this very well.

NO! Empty pylons have nothing to do with weight issue. No aircraft fly with weapons at its first flight. HAL will steadily reduce the weight of the chopper. First 200 kg with this TD-1, 100kg TD-2 and 75 kg with TD-3. When inducted into the Indian armed forces it will be one of the best in terms of capabilities and the best in terms of performances.

 

[Kinetic]

Brick by brick step by step DRDO will attain glory in this decade.

DRDO is the only organization in the world that develops rifles to thermo-nuclear bombs, MBT to nuclear submarines, anti-tank missile to ICBM, grenade to ballistic missile defence.

 

[Join]

DRDO is the only organization in the world that develops rifles to thermo-nuclear bombs, MBT to nuclear submarines, anti-tank missile to ICBM, grenade to ballistic missile defence.

Thats because we do not have any other organization to make...... Slowly TATA,Mahindra and L&T and coming into this field.... So DRDO will have tough competition, but still there products will be limited to aircrafts,MBT or Submarines, no bombs, as it comes under MOD

 

[Join]

DRDO is the only organization in the world that develops rifles to thermo-nuclear bombs, MBT to nuclear submarines, anti-tank missile to ICBM, grenade to ballistic missile defence.

And DRDO is not one organization, its a collective name given to 44 establishments , so everyone is assigned different work

 

[Novice09]

Brick by brick step by step DRDO will attain glory in this decade.

Yes they will... This was due to them... Indian babus, always changing requirements of Army and Air force were some of the reasons for their delayed projects.

 

[BJlaowai]

I have a few questions.
What is the status of Light Attack Helicopter (LAH). Is LCH and LAH the same?
I had read somewhere that LAH will be based on Cheetah helicopter platform. Is LAH just a weaponised version of Cheetah?
What will be the roles for weaponised ALH-Dhruv, LCH and LAH?
Is India planning to develop any Heavy Combat/attack Helicopters, in Mi-17-Hind or Cobra helicopters range?

 

[blueoval79]

India's Light Combat copter makes first flight

As the helicopter taxied slowly along the airstrip, a little knot of designers and executives from Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) watched silently, the sweat beads on their foreheads from more than just the Bangalore heat. The 29th of March, had been selected for a landmark attempt: the first flight of the indigenous Light Combat Helicopter (LCH). Already a year late, and facing criticism for having gone several hundred kilograms overweight, the LCH had much to prove.

Attack helicopters involve the most complex aeronautical, stealth, sensor and weapons technologies. HAL’s state-of-the-art LCH aims to gatecrash an exclusive club of light attack helicopters that includes Eurocopter’s Tiger and China’s ultra-secret Zhisheng-10 (Z-10). In high-altitude performance, the LCH will be in a class by itself: taking off from Himalayan altitudes of 10,000 feet, operating rockets and guns up to 16,300 feet, and launching missiles at UAVs flying at over 21,000 feet.

At 3.30 p.m. the twin Shakti engines roared to a crescendo and the LCH pilots, Group Captains Unni Pillai and Hari Nair, lifted off the ground. The futuristic helicopter, all angles and armoured sheets, flew for a distance just a few feet above the runway; then cheering and clapping broke out as it climbed to 50 feet. Over the next 15 minutes, Pillai and Nair put the LCH through its first flight test, doing a clockwise and then an anti-clockwise turn, hovering motionless and circling the airport four times.

“It is a big day for all of us, especially those involved in the LCH’s design and fabrication”, Ashok Nayak, Chairman and Managing Director of HAL told Business Standard. “We were going to have the first LCH flight in December but, for one reason or another, it kept getting delayed.”

A feared predator in the modern battlefield, the attack helicopter is a key weapon system against enemy tanks. Once an enemy tank column is detected, attack helicopters speed to confront them, flying just 20-30 feet high to avoid radar detection with enemy rifle and machine-gun bullets ricocheting off their armoured sides. Hiding behind trees or a ridgeline, they pop up when the tanks are about 4 kilometers away to fire missiles that smash through a tank’s armour.

Excess weight has been the main reason for the delay in the LCH programme. The heavy armour needed for protection against enemy fire conflicts with the need for a light, highly mobile helicopter that can twist and dodge and hover stationary to allow pilots to aim and fire their missiles. The LCH was supposed to weight just 2.5 tonnes when empty; but the design team found that it actually weighed 580 kg more than that.

At lower altitudes, this would not be a significant drawback. But, at the LCH’s flight ceiling of 6000 metres (almost 20,000 feet), this would significantly reduce the LCH’s payload of weapons and ammunition.

Last September, the chief of HAL’s Helicopter Complex, R Srinivasan, told Business Standard that the LCH’s weight would be progressively reduced over the first three Technology Demonstrators (TDs) of the LCH. “We will find ways of cutting down TD-1 by 180-200 kg; TD-2, will be another 100 kg lighter; and TD-3 will shave off another 65-75 kg. That would leave the LCH about 200 kg heavier than originally planned, but the IAF has accepted that.”

HAL chief, Ashok Nayak, today confirmed to Business Standard that this schedule was on track. “The weight reduction that we had targeted for TD-1, which flew on Monday, has been met. The second prototype, TD-1, which will make its first flight by September, will be lighter still.”

The Indian Air Force (IAF) has said that it needs 65 LCHs; the army wants another 114. If the development programme is not delayed further the LCH will enter service by 2015-2016. To meet its needs till then, the MoD floated a global tender for 22 attack helicopters. With only three companies responding, that tender was cancelled last year.

But HAL remains confident since most of the key technologies in the LCH --- e.g. the Shakti engine, the rotors and the main gearbox --- have already been proven in the Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH), 159 of which are being built for the army and the air force.

Simultaneously, the LCH’s weapons and sensors are being tested on a weaponised version of the Dhruv. These include a Nexter 20 mm turret-mounted cannon, an MBDA air-to-air missile, and an EW suite from SAAB, South Africa. India’s Defence R&D Organisation (DRDO) is developing an anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) for the LCH. Based on the already developed Nag ATGM, the HELINA (or HELIicopter-mounted NAg) missile can destroy tanks from a distance of seven kilometres.

India's Light Combat copter makes first flight

 

[PLAextream]

dont start making conclusion from looking at a proto type ,it just took HAL so many years even it is based on there AHl still the major hurdle would be to integrate weapon system & optrics ,ECW etc . this copter will still be a basic version of cobra which pak is going to replace soon.
just google what CHINA has in its kitty. no offence simple comparison.

 

[PLAextream]

even your hind will be more capable than that .may be youe force looking for a lighter version similsr to cobra attack copter

 

[Tejas-MkII]

A sheet of comparison between LCH and other Heli.

Google Squared

 

[Novice09]

dont start making conclusion from looking at a proto type ,it just took HAL so many years even it is based on there AHl still the major hurdle would be to integrate weapon system & optrics ,ECW etc . this copter will still be a basic version of cobra which pak is going to replace soon.
just google what CHINA has in its kitty. no offence simple comparison.

Why should we compare our LCH with China's WZ-10? It is just a start, we have a long way to go. DRDO will take care of the major hurdles...

And yes, it would be worst than basic version of cobra... HAPPY, EGO SATISFIED?

 

[Join]

I have a few questions.
What is the status of Light Attack Helicopter (LAH). Is LCH and LAH the same?

LCH and LAH are the same..... Light combat or attack, its not named yet. Like LCA which is called tejas, this is yet to be named.

I had read somewhere that LAH will be based on Cheetah helicopter platform. Is LAH just a weaponised version of Cheetah?

No thats Lancer helicopter which is a light atack helicopter, we already have it, that was the first attack heli to be made in India, But thats really Light.

this is HAL LANCER which was introduced in mid 80's

What will be the roles for weaponised ALH-Dhruv, LCH and LAH?

Weaponised ALH dhruv is inducted into the army, its In the second line Insurgency missions, not for front line war, as far as LCH is concerned its yet to be decided.

Is India planning to develop any Heavy Combat/attack Helicopters, in Mi-17-Hind or Cobra helicopters range?

No, Never heard of anything like that, but HAL is developing an LOH(Light observation Helicopter)

 

[In God We Trust]

dont start making conclusion from looking at a proto type ,it just took HAL so many years even it is based on there AHl still the major hurdle would be to integrate weapon system & optrics ,ECW etc . this copter will still be a basic version of cobra which pak is going to replace soon.
just google what CHINA has in its kitty. no offence simple comparison.

Why you have to troll all the time. So what if you got quantity. Ever seen the quality of your products? Studying, researching takes hell of a time and at the end we have pulled a great heli sure not the best around. As we start gaining more and more experience in this field better products and better usage of time will automatically fall in hands. And why bring pakistan into this? Compare it with HIND you will get your answer.