Russia to offer Skat UCAV tech to India?

[thestringshredder]

Russia to offer Skat UCAV tech to India?

After BAE Systems, EADS, Saab and Dassault, the latest contractor now apparently ready to cooperate with India in UCAV technology is RAC-MiG. The company’s discontinued Skat unmanned combat air system demonstrator. Currently, Russia’s future UCAV platform is being spearheaded by Sukhoi with technology inputs from RAC-MiG, though sources indicate that Russia has sent feelers to India for possible cooperation in that sphere as well.

The topline aviation partnerships between the two countries currently include the ongoing Su-30MKI license build in Nashik, the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft and the Multirole Transport Aircraft. In 2010, the Indian Air Force conducted an abortive campaign to procure UCAVs from the global market, ending up with a profusion of information, rather, on the systems available and what cooperation was possible. While no country was willing to sell systems outright—indeed, no systems are operational yet, except for the U.S.-built Reaper hunter-killer drones—several offers for cooperation were forthcoming.

Link - Russia to offer Skat UCAV tech to India? | idrw.org

 

[duhastmish]

India will be commiting mistake of life time if they listen to IAF. Who for sure will opt against it.

This ucav contains most advance technology even ahead to us. Weight RCA and research mig conducted is unparalleled they conducted all fifth gen technology in it. Let's see what happens. India should get involved ASAP to learn.

 

[he-man]

i think its impossible as this skat was already shelved??

@sancho

on the other hand if its offered just grab it,,,,the way hal is working we may never see an aura and its better to partner russians than just buying ready made israeli stuff.

maybe we will be able to make 20-30% of this and gain experience.

iaf refused russian help in lca hoping for usa help who put sanctions on us.had that been taken kaveri would have been ready and lca would have been flying.

 

[duhastmish]

i think its impossible as this skat was already shelved??

@sancho

on the other hand if its offered just grab it,,,,the way hal is working we may never see an aura and its better to partner russians than just buying ready made israeli stuff.

maybe we will be able to make 20-30% of this and gain experience.

iaf refused russian help in lca hoping for usa help who put sanctions on us.had that been taken kaveri would have been ready and lca would have been flying.

Brozzle they are planning a new ucav on same line as manta ray I.e ckat or skat. Development will start from scratch and they will incorporate all they leart from mig and sukoi ucav studies. India will learn well with rcs development and the new engine apart from rd83 they proposed for skat.

 

[he-man]

then w

Brozzle they are planning a new ucav on same line as manta ray I.e ckat or skat. Development will start from scratch and they will incorporate all they leart from mig and sukoi ucav studies. India will learn well with rcs development and the new engine apart from rd83 they proposed for skat.

e should join without wasting time

west will never allow a jv

 

[duhastmish]

India is leaning too much on aura which on paper and will remain for sometime. Btw engine was rd93 same as JF 17. Which will be changed. New ucav will have lesser weight and much lower rcs. Weapon load will also increase from 2 ton. But who knows what they will decide.

 

[GR!FF!N]

don't know about Skat's status,but they're sure a comparable system like France Neuron,right???though India is going to test flight its first UCAV in may-june 2014,Rustam II(Rustam-H will be the armed variants),but I sure think that we should join Skat based UCAV which RAC Mig is developing now..LO Tech,good payload and near supersonic,what more do we need??? 

India is leaning too much on aura which on paper and will remain for sometime. Btw engine was rd93 same as JF 17. Which will be changed. New ucav will have lesser weight and much lower rcs. Weapon load will also increase from 2 ton. But who knows what they will decide.

status of aura is still unknown.but we're sure going to test Rustam II,somewhat comparable with Predator in next year,within 6-7 months from now...

'First Flight of UAV Rustom-2 scheduled in February 2014' - Economic Times

 

[duhastmish]

don't know about Skat's status,but they're sure a comparable system like France Neuron,right???though India is going to test flight its first UCAV in may-june 2014,Rustam II(Rustam-H will be the armed variants),but I sure think that we should join Skat based UCAV which RAC Mig is developing now..LO Tech,good payload and near supersonic,what more do we need??? 


status of aura is still unknown.but we're sure going to test Rustam II,somewhat comparable with Predator in next year,within 6-7 months from now...

'First Flight of UAV Rustom-2 scheduled in February 2014' - Economic Times

Dear difference is big between rustam and aura in range load operation diversity and visibility. Rustam is generation lesser to aura or may be more. But glad to hear rustam is close it will increase dominance and specially fight against Maoist and terrorists.

 

[sancho]

i think its impossible as this skat was already shelved??

That's the reason why it's on offer for India, to get us for the necessary funds since Russia is not funding it and might go for Sukhoi UCAVs. Also only because something is on offer, it doesn't mean that it's a good offer, nor that we have to buy it. The simple fact that Russia is getting drone technology and techs from Israel, since they are behind in this field, should show us, that it's far better for us to join an already experience partner. I am saying it for a long time that we should offer Israel a joint development of AURA and a HALE drone, since we already have a suitable engine and coming stealth developments, while they are one of the best in the drone field anyway. They also don't have the money to develp a UCAV or a HALE drone alone, so would join us for sure, but DRDO as usual might see AURA as a prestige project again, that they want to do alone, which makes delays and problems likely, especially when we look at their normal drone program. 

status of aura is still unknown.but we're sure going to test Rustam II,somewhat comparable with Predator in next year

Although the aim is to have an armed version like the Predator, the better comparison should be the Israeli Heron UAVs, since the first aim is surveillance. The hunter killer capabilities should be added later and so far we have to wait and see how the Rustom 2 turns out at all to see how capable it could be in the armed version.

 

[he-man]

That's the reason why it's on offer for India, to get us for the necessary funds since Russia is not funding it and might go for Sukhoi UCAVs. Also only because something is on offer, it doesn't mean that it's a good offer, nor that we have to buy it. The simple fact that Russia is getting drone technology and techs from Israel, since they are behind in this field, should show us, that it's far better for us to join an already experience partner. I am saying it for a long time that we should offer Israel a joint development of AURA and a HALE drone, since we already have a suitable engine and coming stealth developments, while they are one of the best in the drone field anyway. They also don't have the money to develp a UCAV or a HALE drone alone, so would join us for sure, but DRDO as usual might see AURA as a prestige project again, that they want to do alone, which makes delays and problems likely, especially when we look at their normal drone program.

i totally agree but if they don't agree??

which they probably won't as they have no requirement for something like an aura,in my opinion.

if that option is not there then we can partner russians as they can easily make a way more capable engine than laghu shakti engine or even kaveri .

the fact that they are beginners would give us more share i think,,,,with israelis we would have 0 to offer

 

[GR!FF!N]

Dear difference is big between rustam and aura in range load operation diversity and visibility. Rustam is generation lesser to aura or may be more. But glad to hear rustam is close it will increase dominance and specially fight against Maoist and terrorists.

actually no..IAF will never employ UCAV against Maoists as it is not our policy.As for Aura,we don't know whats its status.most probably,we're not going to see it in action within 5 years.so,why don't go with more advanced UCAV based on another proven prototype if we get the offer. 

Although the aim is to have an armed version like the Predator, the better comparison should be the Israeli Heron UAVs, since the first aim is surveillance. The hunter killer capabilities should be added later and so far we have to wait and see how the Rustom 2 turns out at all to see how capable it could be in the armed version.

actually,we're already operators of Heron,and most probably even those could be armed.but yes,MALE capability is our major priority while we can add Hunter Killer Capability later.but definitely we're going to see them in that role too..

 

[sancho]

i totally agree but if they don't agree??

which they probably won't as they have no requirement for something like an aura,in my opinion.

if that option is not there then we can partner russians as they can easily make a way more capable engine than laghu shakti engine or even kaveri .

the fact that they are beginners would give us more share i think,,,,with israelis we would have 0 to offer

They do have the requirement, since they want long range strike capability, against Iran for example and such a jointly developed UCAV would make them independent from the US. Political issues are a different story. However, even if we join them for a HALE drone, which IAI want to develop anyway (they asked EADS for a partnership,which prefered a customized Global Hawk instead), we would make use of Kaveri engine and get hands on the basic drone technology wrt guidance, avionics.... That basically leaves stealth design for us, to develop alone for AURA.
The Russians remain a bad choice, when 2 countries with limited experience develop something it won't be better, it's always better to choice an experience partner, so Israel or Europeans.

 

[he-man]

don't know about Skat's status,but they're sure a comparable system like France Neuron,right???though India is going to test flight its first UCAV in may-june 2014,Rustam II(Rustam-H will be the armed variants),but I sure think that we should join Skat based UCAV which RAC Mig is developing now..LO Tech,good payload and near supersonic,what more do we need??? 


status of aura is still unknown.but we're sure going to test Rustam II,somewhat comparable with Predator in next year,within 6-7 months from now...

'First Flight of UAV Rustom-2 scheduled in February 2014' - Economic Times

the problem with rustom is

1)first flight is in 2014 so it will take atleast a couple of years to develop
2)it still uses foreign engines
3)it has payload capacity of only 350kg which is next to nothing
4)medium range

scat is the best proposition as russians want a capable drone themselves and scat already exists as a template plus we can refine kaveri on premise of this if russians agree 

They do have the requirement, since they want long range strike capability, against Iran for example and such a jointly developed UCAV would make them independent from the US. Political issues are a different story. However, even if we join them for a HALE drone, which IAI want to develop anyway (they asked EADS for a partnership,which prefered a customized Global Hawk instead), we would make use of Kaveri engine and get hands on the basic drone technology wrt guidance, avionics.... That basically leaves stealth design for us, to develop alone for AURA.
The Russians remain a bad choice, when 2 countries with limited experience develop something it won't be better, it's always better to choice an experience partner, so Israel or Europeans.

i am with u on this but it will never materialize,,take it from me.

i am only speculating as they have atleast a functional scat and don't forget russians said they will use pakfa technologies in their drone.

so even as a sop gap measure i think we must hurry up as rustom-2 is a dud,,,very low performance

 

[sancho]

i am only speculating as they have atleast a functional scat and don't forget russians said they will use pakfa technologies in their drone.

They only have a mock up, nothing close to a flying prototype like the Europeans have in numbers. Also there is nothing apart from the stealth airframe that would be comparable to Pak Fa, which btw is developed by Sukhoi not Mig, so hardly any useful combination. They only want our money and in this case there is not much to gain for us. I prefer joint developments too, but only with a western experienced country.

 

[he-man]

They only have a mock up, nothing close to a flying prototype like the Europeans have in numbers. Also there is nothing apart from the stealth airframe that would be comparable to Pak Fa, which btw is developed by Sukhoi not Mig, so hardly any useful combination. They only want our money and in this case there is not much to gain for us. I prefer joint developments too, but only with a western experienced country.

then i guess we will have to do it alone

because

1)usa has already developed x-47
2)europe has neuron or something
3)only israel is left,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,i have doubt they can plan something like aura,,,its not easy

if the 3 rd option fails we must not waste time

one thing i am sure,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,just don't let hal develop aura alone