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A Bar Brother said:

Rafale was meant to solve two other problems that the MKI and LCA don't. One was to arrest the squadron shortfall and the other was to bring in large investments from the OEM into the Indian aerospace industry through the offsets clause.

We bought C-17s and Boeing setup a high altitude engine test facility for India worth over $500 Million. This is the type of investment we were looking at with Rafale, considering the size of the deal.

As for squadron shortfall, the idea was to have 3 different assembly lines with the MKI, LCA and Rafale. Now we will have to make do with just two. And LCA has some ways to go before the IAF is sure about adding it to their arsenal. Until then the IAF will have only one assembly line with a reliable aircraft instead of two. What was supposed to be 50 fighters a year could possibly become 32 fighters a year.

Also a lot of people do not know this, but one of the prime requirements for the MRCA deal was the aircraft was not supposed to be a prototype. Rafale is a perfect fit for the IAF. It is nuclear capable, unlike MKI and LCA. It is war proven. It is operational with AESA and other goodies. As it stands today, there will be no equivalent aircraft to the Rafale until the beginning of the next decade. There are too many things that the Rafale offers to the IAF that the MKI and LCA will only offer in the future. The IAF only had to get the aircraft in and start flying operationally. It is a war-ready aircraft, unlike Super MKI or LCA Mk2.

Anyway, don't quote me on the Rafale being cancelled yet. Things may change overnight. Only official news is real news.

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tphuang said:

I agree Rafale is a great aircraft for IAF's requirements. Now if this doesn't get worked out, the massive amount of investment that India had scheduled for Rafale could be spent building a second line for MKI. You could go to the Russians and work on having 117S put on MKI.

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Do you know what kind of proposals they have for MKI upgrades?

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aksha said:

@A Bar Brother ,is it the engine layout that i see in the last picture

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DRDO is looking at Aero India 2015 to remove obstacles to make it a reality


Defence research & Development Organisation (DRDO) is looking at exploiting Aero India 2015 to give a boost to India's Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA), looked upon as the next logical higher step after the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas for a sophisticated fighter aircraft with fifth generation aircraft features like stealth, super-cruise and vector thrust engine.

Dr K Tamilmani, director general (aeronautical systems), DRDO, said although the AMCA configuration has been approved, aircraft model tested in India and abroad and the scientists are about to begin simulation studies, DRDO is yet to finalise an engine for the AMCA, which is being developed by the Aeronautical Development Agency.

He said by March-April, request for proposals would be sent out to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) for engines to be chosen from. "We will be talking to them at the Aero India 2015," he said without disclosing the OEMs.

Tamilmani is hoping to utilise the Aero India platform to push for a series of initiatives that could give the much-needed boost to the AMCA project, which is now in the project definition stage to be completed by end 2016. The government is sanctioning Rs 300 crore for this.

While the crucial part - the engine - is hoped to be tackled at the air show, the project is also partially handicapped by the lack of adequate transonic (at the speeds close to speed of sound) wind tunnel facilities, Tamilmani said. At present, India has just one such wind tunnel facility - the one belonging to National Aerospace Laboratories off Old Airport Road in Bengaluru.

Wind tunnels are the crucial part of an aircraft development, in which the model of an aircraft is subject to a simulated flight by shooting high-speed winds at the aircraft frame and actually making it fly even as it is actually stationary. With this, engineers can arrive at the best designs and assess the stress that the airframe can endure - crucial in an aircraft design.

"The NAL's wind tunnel has the capacity of just 1,500 blow-downs (the high-speed shooting) while our requirement is 11,000 a year. In the absence of meeting such a high demand, we are forced to go abroad to have the aircraft tested," Tamilmani said. The DRDO is currently taking the AMCA design model to Calspan Corporation's transonic wind tunnel, the largest independently-owned wind tunnel in the USA.

However, the disadvantage of doing that, he said, is that "we are taking our details and concepts abroad, that too at our expense." Tamilmani said the government is looking at a land in Telangana to set up a national wind tunnel facility to fill the gap. "In the next five years, we should have the facility," he said, hinting at the urgency of pushing the AMCA project.

The AMCA went into the project definition phase after obtaining the preliminary staff qualitative requirement from the IAF, with whom ADA has undertaken the project.

DRDO is looking at Rs 4,000 crore to develop four prototypes of the AMCA. It is looking at 2020-21 to unveil the first AMCA prototypes. "With available technology, we can develop the AMCA with government support and money. It is a reality that can be achieved," he added.

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Bengaluru, Feb 11: The Indian Air Force (IAF) will receive the first Airborne Early Warning & Control (AEW&C) system - Prying Plane -- by June this year. Dr K Tamilmani, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) Director- General (Aero), said that the second aircraft will be handed over to the IAF in September for user evaluation trials. He said the third aircraft will be arriving in Indian by July this year. The AEW&C systems are built on a modified Embraer EMB-145I aircraft from Brazil. The two aircraft had extensively undergone flight trials in air bases in Bengaluru, Jamnagar and Agra. The ‘Prying Plane' project is a prestigious project for the Centre for Airborne Systems (CABS), which has been mandated for the integration work. Currently, pilots from the IAF's Aircraft Systems and Testing Establishment, attached to the project, are flying the platform. "Once the first aircraft is handed over in June, we will conduct fine- tuning of systems on the second one. The user feedback will be something that will add more teeth to the platform. The EMB-145I will be flying on all five days at Aero India 2015," Dr S Christopher, Director, CABS told OneIndia.

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Importing the special paint coating for combat aircraft for decades, the Indian armed forces will soon have an indigenously developed special coating that its developer, the DRDO, says will have better performance as well as be more cost effective. All special coatings for aircraft are currently imported, the recognisable 'grey', known in IAF circles as Tipnis Grey, after the former chief who chose the precise shade.

The DRDO is currently in the process of getting the special coating certified by the Center for Military Airworthiness and Certification (CEMILAC) in Bengaluru before offering it to the IAF, Indian Navy and other operators of enforcement aircraft. The colour has been described as 'dove grey' and is said to better imported coatings in terms of not just cost, but also abrasion resistance, impact resistance, flexibility, scratch hardness, elongation and adhesion.

The DRDO believes that once the coating is certified, it will be welcomed into the IAF and Indian Navy immediately. The coating will also be used for unmanned aerial systems and helicopters currently in service, as also cruise missiles and other weapons depending on requirement. In a related development, to dissipate the static charge developed due to atmospheric conditions on the radome surfaces of aircraft, the DRDO has developed an anti-static coatings to help performance.

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ADA seems to have refined and narrowed its AMCA powerplant options. The 25-tonne class AMCA is to be fitted with a 110-kN engine. However, currently no 110-kN class engine is available in the world market.
So ADA will design the fighter around a 110-kN engine, but use a 90-kN off-the-shelf engine to power prototypes of the aircraft, giving itself time to develop a 110-kN engine.
ADA Director PS Subramanyam told The Hindu that it would be prudent to procure and integrate an available 90-kN engine into the aircraft so to ensure that the project was not held up.
“Since the fighter has been designed to take on an engine with a higher thrust, we can integrate it as and when such an engine is available. This is what has been done by Dassault in the Rafael development program,” he says.
Elaborating on AMCA powerplant options, K. Tamilmani, Director-General (Aero R&D) told the press that since no 110-kN engine is available off the shelf, GTRE will partner with a US or Russian engine manufacturer to develop such an engine - mostly within India - to power AMCA production variants.
“We have asked for their proposals [and will go ahead with] whoever has a better offer, time frame and cost," he said. The goal is to integrate the new engine into the aircraft by 2020-21.
DRDO and IAF officials will hold talks with two manufacturers during Aero India 2015 - General Electric of US and Klimo of Russia.
Interestingly, Tamilmani didn't mention French Snecma and early front runner for co-producing an AMCA engine with GTRE.
It may be noted that the joint statement released during US President Barack Obama's visit to India from January 25 to 27, 2015 referred to US - Indian collaboration in developing a hot engine (A reference to a jet engine with high turbine temperatures and greater thrust.)
It was earlier reported that the AMCA will be powered by a new engine that GTRE plans to develop with the help of one or more foreign consultants, Snecma being one of them.
On January 8, 2015 the TOI reported that five to six global aero-engine manufacturers have made presentation to ADA for the AMCA engine. It is likely that ADA has now narrowed down its options based on the presentations.

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If you've had enough of models and artist's impressions, tough! It's AeroIndia time, and that means the customary flood of official 3D art, wind-tunnel models etc. Got my hands on the brochure on the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) that'll be handed out at Aero India this year: it contains these two impressions of India's Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft, the country's indigenous fifth generation concept stealth fighter, with the

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config.

The baffling image though is the second one (below), which it calls the AMCA's 'non-stealth configuration', deploying external weapons and stores including drop tanks, JDAM-like PGMs, air-to-air missiles and two pods. At any rate, it's an indication of the design thought process: That designers at the ADA are looking at giving the AMCA external hardpoints in addition to internal bays (which makes little sense given what hardpoints do for radar signature). The other possibility is a variant that deploys only external stores, and has no internal bays (which makes even littler sense for an aircraft intended to be a low-observable platform). Not sure what to make of this.

The brochure comes with some updated literature on profile and capabilities the team is looking to give the AMCA. Brochures at air shows are usually the last place you want to look for solid data on concept programmes, but here's the latest from Team AMCA:

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