Indian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
- Thread starter bd popeye
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Transfer of technology is just a term used to make Indians think they are getting a good deal.
There's no way any western company will give proprietary technology to a country like India.
At best you'll be able to assemble engines from kits like Turkey does. I doubt that'll even happen given your ties to Russia.
This is how the US does tech transfer of jet engine technology in the best of times.
"It was decided that GE would produce 65% of the engine and send it as a kit to VFA, who would manufacture the remaining 35% of the parts and be responsible for final assembly and testing."
Do not expect to produce any of the critical parts of the engine. At best you will produce the low pressure parts and assemble the whole thing from kits.
"It was decided that GE would produce 65% of the engine and send it as a kit to VFA, who would manufacture the remaining 35% of the parts and be responsible for final assembly and testing."
Do not expect to produce any of the critical parts of the engine. At best you will produce the low pressure parts and assemble the whole thing from kits.
I'll give you one better (and shorter):
Indians have yet to master small arms production. They can't even do a reliable assault rifle.
It would have been better if they just took all the Tejas development money and put it into Bollywood sci-fi movie 8th generation aircraft their citizenry could gobble on. In India alone the revenue they would generate from such a film would exceed Avatar+Avengers combined.
I strongly encourage folks to avoid X vs Y topics overall.
Sometimes they can be constructive and productive, but more often than not they tend into flinging insults and generalizations at one side or the other.
I encourage people to exercise self restraint. This thread will be watched.
Sometimes they can be constructive and productive, but more often than not they tend into flinging insults and generalizations at one side or the other.
I encourage people to exercise self restraint. This thread will be watched.
India is already "producing" the AL-31F for SU-30MKI. You haven't put that engine in anything else. Either you are not licensed to use it anywhere else or you don't have the critical components from Russia to make beyond the numbers allotted to the MKI.
Why would the F-414 be any different? Chances are pretty much absolute that you'll be locked to a particular contract for its "production" because the US and GE are not in the business of giving away its intellectual property.
Now, let's say India through some act of divine intervention gets full rights to the F-414. Then what? You only have a medium size engine that is equivalent to the WS-13, WS-21 and WS-19.
India still wouldn't have a heavy engine equivalent to the WS-10 or WS-15.
And it certainly wouldn't have a high-bypass turbofan like the WS-20, CJ1000 or CJ2000.
Then there is the production infrastructure that allows China to build and put the WS-10 into four concurrent frontline programs in J-10, J-11, J-16 and J-20.
Indian have never introduced and produced an indigenous engine so there basically no production infrastructure in place besides the AL-31F assembly that is restricted to the MKI. So India catching up to China's full range of turbofans is more than 20 years even if we assume you were gifted the F-414 in five years.
But first get the F-414 produced in India and then maybe we'll have a baseline for discussion. Right now, it is the WS-10, WS-13, WS-9, WS-15 and WS-20 all powering Chinese production or prototype aircraft versus the Kaveri which was never put onto an Indian aircraft. There is nothing to compare with.
First off, I do agree that I think sweeping statements like "X nation is so and so many years behind Y nation" is not useful, given how one cannot simply reduce an entire industry so simply like that. Differences in subdomains, and differences in extent of foreign expertise and assistance and IP ownership etc further muddy the waters.
That said, I agree that I don't think the Indian aerospace industry as a whole is 20 years behind China. In some subdomains the gap is smaller than others.
If one wants to be more specific and compare things like "equivalent 5th generation fighter milestones" or "equivalent 4.5th generation fighter milestones" we need to wait and see how projects like Tejas Mk2/MWF and AMCA go first, and for those milestones to be met first.
Regarding engines, China was building WS-10As for use in production, in service 4th generation fighters since about 2010 (starting with J-11B), then other land based Flankers after that. They began use on production J-20s and J-10s in about 2019, but were equipping PLA fighters en masse nearly a decade prior to that.
India putting Kaveri into service does not make them "catch up to China" no more than China in the late 2000s putting WS-10A into service mean China caught up to the US in engines by 2009.
India has yet to catch up to China in the field of super alloys. China is already only a single generation of materials below the US and UK and two below Japan (to simplify things too much). Composites and ceramics? Engine control? software? manufacturing process? There are hundreds of processes involved surely. Even German and British engine makers have contracted Chinese academics and corporations to perform certain processes for leading edge commercial aviation engines.
Years ago we learned that China produced some novel way of laser drilling for cooling holes. Does India making a 1980s level Kaveri of a medium thrust low bypass turbofan mean it is somehow "caught up to China"? Lol. To say nothing of Kaveri being abandoned and planned to be an Indian M88. While it is true it doesn't matter what it is and where it's from as long as it can be made in house entirely and understood and mastered, well still even then it is simply a M88. Assuming all the critical knowledge and technologies including all manufacturing processes and materials are mastered via ToT (it won't be), even then it wouldn't have caught up to China of 2009. By the time India has walked the walk of this whole domesticating the M88, it would be the year 2030. WS-15 would have matured and WS-10 would be in the process of being replaced. There would be 6th gen PLAAF fighters possibly even entering LRIP.
Let's remember that these Indian dreams are paper projects still and the WS-10 matured and evolved to be the WS-10A by 2009 already. Put into service widely with PLAAF J-11B fighters more than 10 years ago. Put into single engine J-10Cs more than 3 years ago. 3 years of single engine service proven performance and over 12 years of widespread mainstream frontline fighter service. It would be the year 2033 before that would be close to happening for India and then only with a 1980s level engine (granted WS-10 is also that) but only a medium thrust one.
To simplify and quantify it if forced, indeed it is 20 years behind if not more (assuming India gets to producing and using by 2030 it is exactly 20 years behind and on a less impressive and less powerful engine class). This also being India's only project where all their engine efforts are put into as opposed to China with 10 or more other major projects. I mean China has several combined cycle engines flying with hypersonic aircraft/missiles for a while already.
India has yet to catch up to China in the field of super alloys. China is already only a single generation of materials below the US and UK and two below Japan (to simplify things too much). Composites and ceramics? Engine control? software? manufacturing process? There are hundreds of processes involved surely. Even German and British engine makers have contracted Chinese academics and corporations to perform certain processes for leading edge commercial aviation engines.
Years ago we learned that China produced some novel way of laser drilling for cooling holes. Does India making a 1980s level Kaveri of a medium thrust low bypass turbofan mean it is somehow "caught up to China"? Lol. To say nothing of Kaveri being abandoned and planned to be an Indian M88. While it is true it doesn't matter what it is and where it's from as long as it can be made in house entirely and understood and mastered, well still even then it is simply a M88. Assuming all the critical knowledge and technologies including all manufacturing processes and materials are mastered via ToT (it won't be), even then it wouldn't have caught up to China of 2009. By the time India has walked the walk of this whole domesticating the M88, it would be the year 2030. WS-15 would have matured and WS-10 would be in the process of being replaced. There would be 6th gen PLAAF fighters possibly even entering LRIP.
Let's remember that these Indian dreams are paper projects still and the WS-10 matured and evolved to be the WS-10A by 2009 already. Put into service widely with PLAAF J-11B fighters more than 10 years ago. Put into single engine J-10Cs more than 3 years ago. 3 years of single engine service proven performance and over 12 years of widespread mainstream frontline fighter service. It would be the year 2033 before that would be close to happening for India and then only with a 1980s level engine (granted WS-10 is also that) but only a medium thrust one.
To simplify and quantify it if forced, indeed it is 20 years behind if not more (assuming India gets to producing and using by 2030 it is exactly 20 years behind and on a less impressive and less powerful engine class). This also being India's only project where all their engine efforts are put into as opposed to China with 10 or more other major projects. I mean China has several combined cycle engines flying with hypersonic aircraft/missiles for a while already.
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Lethe
Captain
Honestly, to say that India is X numbers of years behind China is both flattering and to miss the point. If India was forty years behind China but actually producing, inducting, operating, refining an indigenous product, that would be an enormous advancement over what we have seen to date and are likely to see in the near future.
China's road to fielding world-class capabilities across any number of domains was not built on importing world-class platforms, components or technologies, but by fielding generations upon generations of technologically uncompetitive garbage and refining and improving it to the nth degree while feeding lessons learned back into an industry apparatus energised by the simple task of doing. This is the hard route that India has refused to go down, and whatever the sins of India's defence industry bureaucracy, and they are surely many, part of that is also down to intransigence on behalf of the armed services themselves.
China's road to fielding world-class capabilities across any number of domains was not built on importing world-class platforms, components or technologies, but by fielding generations upon generations of technologically uncompetitive garbage and refining and improving it to the nth degree while feeding lessons learned back into an industry apparatus energised by the simple task of doing. This is the hard route that India has refused to go down, and whatever the sins of India's defence industry bureaucracy, and they are surely many, part of that is also down to intransigence on behalf of the armed services themselves.