HAL Tejas Jet Fighter

aksha · Jan 1, 2016

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India's light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas cleared one of the most critical flight test parameters in the programme, when the pilots pulled 8 'g' (limit of envelope) during its ongoing test flights in Bengaluru. By doing so, it has cleared a key point towards the Final Operational Clearance (FOC), as mandated by the Indian Air Force (IAF).

Sources told OneIndia that Tejas pilots pulled 8 ‘g' and beyond a couple of times during trials held in the last fortnight of December. Commodore Jaideep Maolonkar, Chief Test Pilot at National Flight Test Centre (NFTC) and Group Capt Rangachari, a Test Pilot of NFTC achieved this critical task taking the fighter closer to the FOC. Interestingly, officials at the Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO), Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) and Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) were tight-lipped about this major milestone achieved. As reported by OneIndia earlier, scientists and engineers are now engaged in last-minute preparations to take Tejas for the 4th edition of Bahrain International Air Show (BIAS-2016), being held from January 21-23 at the Sakhir Airbase. This will be Tejas' first official outing outside India to participate in a flying demonstration. Also read: OneIndia Exclusive: Tejas may create history with flying demo at Bahrain air show Fighter can now perform combat maneuvers "The 8 'g' is the limit of the flight envelope which permits aircraft to perform combat maneuvers. This will enable the pilots to do tight turns. They have demonstrated it a couple of times. The pilots are comfortable and aircraft behaved itself," a source said. As this piece goes live on New Year's Day, the Tejas programme has so far (from 2001) logged 3031 flights (1938 hours) with nearly 15 variants joining the programme at different stages. Though Tejas skipped the December 2015 deadline for attaining the FOC, the year otherwise was a satisfying one with the first Series Production aircraft (SP1) being handed over to IAF during early January.

"Being a weapon platform, Tejas has to perform in extreme climatic conditions. Therefore the vigorous testing pursued at Leh (-20deg C) and at Jaiselmer (+40deg C) concludes the aircraft can perform in almost all weather conditions effortlessly. Very few aircraft can demonstrate such capabilities," claims the source.

aksha · Jan 9, 2016

the LCA tejas has an official tejas facebook page linked to the official government LCA Tejas website website,(

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,

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) to give new pics and videos, no. of test flights to the public,

but no one thought that this will start answering the public's queries,
yeah surprisingly the page admin is answering questions, even said that the Mk1 will not have a gun

it seems that the LCA Tejas facebook page is controlled by one of the ADA engineers

i will quote the questions asked and the answers as well

i suppose it is a result of the news media taking potshots at the tejas programme by spreading fake information by quoting "unnamed officials".

i will quote the questions asked and the answers as well

started like this, the guy who asked the questions is a moderator at BRF

Indranil Roy- Lovely picture of LSP3. Is it from the HAL platinum jubilee celebrations? And congratulations to team Tejas on 8G.

This is from the archives of AI2015

and this followed

Indranil Roy- The aircraft "behaved" at 8G. Did the structure behave? What is max sustained G?

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The aircraft behaved well at 8G. A big step forward to the program.

Indranil Roy -
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, I know that the fuel flow proportioner on Mk1 restricts the movement of CG within 1% of MAC. This was true for fuel drawn from internal fuel tanks. Is this also true with external fuel tanks?

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No.

Indranil Roy -Thank you. Are you guys planning on an active fuel proportioner on Mk1A/SOP18?

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MK1A will primarily address the maintenance issues plus the gun integration, AESA radar integration, BVR integration (whenever IAF gives a clear indication on the kind of BVR) etc..

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ASTRA for sure.

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Derby will be for the naval version.

Indranil Roy- Another question related to CG. Is Mk1 still flying around with a 300kg ballast. Or is this a modern myth.

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Flies with ballast but the no is not this big in number.

Indranil Roy- And this is expected to come down after the IFR probe is bolted on? Is it likely that this ballast is completely done away with restructuring and reorganizing the LRUs/MLG on the Mk1A.
Reports claim so. I have learnt not to believe reports.

Amitava Maity -If I'm not completely mistaken, the LSPs and the SPs already had the internal plumbing built-in for the IFR. So maybe hydraulics for the Probe, the Probe itself and the Probe-plumbing interface etc needs integrating - so I'd doubt the entire forward-fuselage ballast can be done away just by IFR integration. However what would be interesting to find out the weight-penalties wrt 2052 (vs 2032) integration

Indranil Roy -Of course. I just meant ballast commiserate to the weight of just the probe to be added will come off

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Indranil Roy , You are absolutely right, Sir. The IFR probe will reduce the ballast weight. As currently, only the prototypes are flying, the ballast is a variable. Once, the final version, rather the frozen SOP starts flying, things will streamline.

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Sir, the last of the LSPs are getting modified for the IFR probe.

Indranil Roy -Thank you for your replies. No "sir" please. Your gun integration on Mk1A has fluttered some feathers. Won't Mk1 have a gun?

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The gun integration was initially part of mark1. However, will be done post FOC thereby appropriately for mark 1A.
This is a lesson for the indian foghter aviation development process. All other prigrams, gun is the first store to be integrated onto a fighter simply because the uncertain modifications it throws. The other profram houses will never reveal the experiences which they have earned in a harder way. Same is appliex to us too.
However, the initial integration activity shows promise. It is only a matter of when will the prototype be offered to carry out the modifications.

Geetesh Bhave- is it true that there are issues with the landing gear..there were some news reports about this..(dint believe the reports..)

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Please understand that any design bound to have problems and remains to be seen how do we solve it. All the aircraft programs all over the world have undergone this process. Yes, there were problems and got sorted out too. Please be assured that the correct picture can be seen only when it is seen and understood from close quartet. Reports are always exaggerated or according to the convince to the reporting agency.

Indranil Roy -1. Are we trying to get tandem bomb racks by FoC? Some recent reports have indicated the same and ofcourse the old NAL wind tunnel models show the same.
2. Moving forward, it would nice if there is a official statement from ADA saying what the Mk 1A (or whatever it is called later) is going to look like. Otherwise, the media is a field day with misinformation and speculations.

Thank you,
One of the biggest LCA fans.

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Indranil sir,
The tandem bombs will be tested soon and they are part of air to ground weapons meant for LCA.
The mark 1A will be free from all prevailing maintenance issues and the AESA radar plus the EW Suite will be integrated. The integration process has already been started.

Abhishek Shrivastava- Is tejas flown to bahrain air show?

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Not yet, sir. Prep is on to be flying there for the international airshow.

Sajeev Jino- Ferry Flight or direct flight

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It has to stage in between.

aksha · Jan 9, 2016

new pics

aksha · Jan 11, 2016

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As the laboured final stretch of India's LCA Tejas trudges on, there's a final milestone on the, well, horizon. A Tejas fighter with a fully integrated multi-mode radar and new quartz radome is all set to fire its first BVR missile off the coast of Goa -- Livefist can confirm it will be a Rafael Systems Derby (mock-ups pictured above last year). As reported earlier by Livefist, the Derby has been
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in the event that the indigenous Astra doesn't enter the field of play in time. More details on this upcoming test soon.

The real wait, of course, is for the Tejas to begin carriage and firing tests of the in-development Astra, which has already been
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.

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SP 2 will come up soon. Cobham radome ground integration checks are over. The actual flight testing will commence soon.

The directive as of now is that the first 20 ac will be with present configuration. The rest no is with SOP-18. This is,a wise decision looking at the time line HAL is seeking. The mark 1A needs all heavy gun's interference and an honest dedicted effort from all to realize.
And coming to delay in SP is becausr there are still grey areas in getting the finlised production version of all the components. The no runs to couple of thousands. All said done, delay is primarily because of lack of a clear cut directive. If you look at mirage 2000 induction, the integration of sensors was a contnuous process whereas it is expexted from tejas to have everything in the beginning itself, which is a tough ask.

aksha · Jan 11, 2016

tidalwave said:
although LCA 's avionics and engines are all imported.

the CAG of India is no fan of the LCA , and this is their report, avionics 80% indegenous

samtel india makes the displays for the MKI, and will replace the imported displays

Samtel Display Systems’ joint venture with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, Samtel HAL Display Systems, has bagged an order with a potential of Rs 2.2 billion ($50 million) for the development of multifunctional display systems for fighter aircraft such as the Sukhoi (Su-30 MKI) and the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA).

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tidalwave said:
its pilot leery about the safety of the plane.

tidalwave said:
but most important of all, its pilot leery about the safety of the plane.

leery about the safety of a plane with 3,038 flights without a single crash and not a single safety incident,??????????? ??????????????????????/

aksha · Jan 13, 2016

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It's official! And, it is as close as it can get! India's Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas will be at a ‘striking distance' of Pakistan's JF-17 Thunder in Bahrain. The Bahrain International Air Show (BIAS) is scheduled from January 21-23 at the Sakhir Airbase.

As reported by OneIndia last month, this will be for the first time Tejas will be participating in a flying demonstration outside India. [Read: OneIndia Exclusive: Tejas may create history with flying demo at Bahrain air show] At BIAS, two Tejas aircraft will be parked next to two Pakistan's JF-17s on aircraft display Pad No 15. Two Royal Air Force Typhoons will also be parked on Pad No 15. Behind the Tejas, the entire Pad No 14 has been allotted to the United Arab Emirate's Al Fursan aerobatic display team. Pakistan's JF-17s is a joint development project of Pakistan Aeronautical Complex and China's Chengdu Aircraft Industry Corporation.

As reported by OneIndia last month, this will be for the first time Tejas will be participating in a flying demonstration outside India. [Read: OneIndia Exclusive: Tejas may create history with flying demo at Bahrain air show] At BIAS, two Tejas aircraft will be parked next to two Pakistan's JF-17s on aircraft display Pad No 15. Two Royal Air Force Typhoons will also be parked on Pad No 15. Behind the Tejas, the entire Pad No 14 has been allotted to the United Arab Emirate's Al Fursan aerobatic display team. Pakistan's JF-17s is a joint development project of Pakistan Aeronautical Complex and China's Chengdu Aircraft Industry Corporation. Operational with the Pakistan Air Force since 2010, the JF-17s have already seen some international air shows, including Paris. It's unclear on what basis the organisers have grouped two military platforms from two not-so-friendly nations on the same parking bay. The move is expected to grab immense media attention during the show. An LCA Tejas telemetry cabin with a tracking antenna and other equipment have also been given a space inside the Sakhir Airbase area, closer to the static aircraft display trade area. Likely to reach Bahrain today Military sources have confirmed to OneIndia that two Tejas platforms LSP-4 and LSP-7 are scheduled to fly out of Air Force Station Jamnagar on Wednesday. "The planes reached Jamnagar last week from Bengaluru and they are all set to fly out to Muscat today. It will be historic in many ways as Tejas will be cruising out of Indian skies for the first time," an officer told OneIndia. In the last one week, in addition to various technical clearances, Tejas had to undergo a series of mandatory custom checks at the Jamnagar base. "It will have a stopover at Muscat before flying out to Sakhir Airbase in Bahrain. It is scheduled to reach Bahrain today itself," the officer said.

Technical crew spread across different bases

A team of over 150 technicians, engineers and ground crew have already been positioned at Jamnagar, Muscat and Bahrain ahead of the Tejas' historic outing. As reported by OneIndia recently, Tejas had cleared one of the most critical flight test parameters in the programme, when the pilots pulled 8 'g' (limit of envelope) during its test flights in Bengaluru last month.

A top delegation from Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) is expected to depart for Bahrain next week ahead of the air show. "It's a massive effort by the team to ensure that the planes are in good shape and ready for the demonstration. Everyone is excited since it is for the first time Tejas will be performing outside India," the officer added.

aksha · Jan 13, 2016

LSP-8

Jeff Head · Jan 14, 2016

aksha said:
LSP-8

Aksha, how many total production Tejas are there now?

And is the Naval version really dead? I hope not.

aksha · Jan 14, 2016

Jeff Head said:
Aksha, how many total production Tejas are there now?

And is the Naval version really dead? I hope not.

the naval version is not dead , the indian navy has put too much money, sweat and blood, in the the navy LCA.

The Indian Navy expects the LCA navy mk2 by 2022 , and they are happy with the tiimeline.
EADS will be working as partner in the project .

the LCA navy will be the real LCA mk2 .

the landing gear problem that grounded the tejas fleet for 6 months grounded the LCA navy prototypes too, inspite of them having a different landing gear design .

there is only 1 series production LCA in IAF service , the SP1
grounded since february with the landing gear problem.
this problem delayed the other SP's.

8 LSP's were built,
LSP 3-6 were IOC 1 standards, LSP 7-8 IOC 2 standards
problem solved in December , 8G FOC point Cleared in December
did 38 test flights that month, including clearing the 8G FOC point

SP-2 is a at check out stage,
and will be in FOC configuration, with the Cobham crystal radar cone, refuelling probe, Derby BVR, Python and R73E wvr missiles minus the internal cannon.

Astra will join soon, its testing jamming resistance,trials said to be successful, soon to enter production.

IAF is so desperate for fighters that it is ready to waive off the internal gun for mk1 FOC,
they asked ADA to proceed to BVR trials leaving the gun integration.

MK 1 A will have internal gun, and some say the IAF wants Meteor on it

the LCA is likely to participate in the singapore airshow as well.

current sereis production rate of LCA stands at a miserable 1 per year.

HAL says it will build 4 SP's this year, But the designing agency the ADA ,expects them to produce only three.

this is from the official facebook page run by the ADA, had posted this in an earlier post.

And coming to delay in SP is becausr there are still grey areas in getting the finlised production version of all the components. The no runs to couple of thousands. All said done, delay is primarily because of lack of a clear cut directive. If you look at mirage 2000 induction, the integration of sensors was a contnuous process whereas it is expexted from tejas to have everything in the beginning itself, which is a tough ask.

https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/hal-tejas-jet-fighter.t4721/page-35#post-383468

jeff, as an aircraft engineer, what do you think about the landing gear problem showing up only in the 2098'th flight, and subsequently grounding the jet for 6 months?? Isn't it strange??
shouldn't such a problem have shown up sooner.?/?

Deino · Jan 14, 2016

Even more ... what is that for an issue on the landing gear ?

HAL Tejas Jet Fighter

aksha

Captain

aksha

Captain

aksha

Captain

aksha

Captain

aksha

Captain

aksha

Captain

aksha

Captain

Jeff Head

General

aksha

Captain

Deino

Lieutenant General