Indian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
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i suspect it was an FCS issue. pitch inputs went through at the usual rate but roll rate for some reason was greatly reduced. pitch got mixed into the roll at the wrong time turning what should have been an aileron roll into a barrel roll
with roll maneuvers the plane falls in nose attitude because obviously you're losing lift at perpendicular and inverted roll angles so you always have to pitch to correct the flight path afterwards. if the pilot was operating on muscle memory to be commanding pitch after the roll, but the roll rate was quartered, then it would result in pitch up being commanded while the plane is still inverted. that's what looks to me as the best description of the maneuver immediately before the crash.
with roll maneuvers the plane falls in nose attitude because obviously you're losing lift at perpendicular and inverted roll angles so you always have to pitch to correct the flight path afterwards. if the pilot was operating on muscle memory to be commanding pitch after the roll, but the roll rate was quartered, then it would result in pitch up being commanded while the plane is still inverted. that's what looks to me as the best description of the maneuver immediately before the crash.
Tejas crash dampens export hopes for Indian fighter jet
NEW DELHI/DUBAI, Nov 23 (Reuters) - The crash of India's Tejas fighter in front of global arms buyers at the Dubai Airshow is the latest blow to a key national trophy, leaving the jet reliant on Indian military orders to sustain its role as a showcase of home-built defence technology.
The cause of Friday's crash was not immediately known but it capped a week of jockeying for influence at the event, attended by India's arch-rival Pakistan six months after the neighbouring foes faced off in the world's largest air battle in decades.
Such a public loss will inevitably overshadow India's efforts to establish the jet abroad after a painstaking development over four decades, experts said, as India paid tribute to Wing Commander Namansh Syal who died in the crash.
CRASH AT SHOWCASE EVENT IN DUBAI
"The imagery is brutal," said Douglas A. Birkey, executive director of the U.S.-based Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, referring to the history of crashes at air shows where nations and industries seek to tout major national achievements."A crash sends quite the opposite signal: a dramatic failure," he said, adding however that while the Tejas would suffer negative publicity, it would most likely regain momentum.
Dubai is the world's third-largest air show after Paris and Britain's Farnborough, and accidents at such events have become increasingly rare.
In 1999, a Russian Sukhoi Su-30 crashed after touching the ground during a manoeuvre at the Paris Airshow, and a Soviet MiG-29 crashed at the same event a decade earlier. All crew ejected safely and India went on to place orders for both jets.
Fighter sales "are driven by high order political realities, which supersede a one-off incident," said Birkey.
POWERED BY GE ENGINES
The Tejas programme began in the 1980s as India sought to replace vintage Soviet-origin MiG-21s, the last of which retired as recently as September after numerous extensions due to slow Tejas deliveries by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL).The state-owned company has 180 of the advanced Mk-1A variant on order domestically but is yet to begin deliveries due to engine supply chain issues at GE Aerospace .
A former HAL executive who left the company recently said the crash in Dubai "rules out exports for now".
Target markets included Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and HAL also opened an office in Malaysia in 2023.
"The focus for the coming years would be on boosting production of the fighter for domestic use," the former executive said, requesting anonymity.
But the Indian Air Force is worried about its shrinking fighter squadrons, which have fallen to 29 from an approved strength of 42, with early variants of the MiG-29, Anglo-French Jaguar and French Mirage 2000 set to retire in coming years.
"The Tejas was supposed to be their replacement," an IAF officer said. "But it is facing production issues".
As an alternative, India is considering off-the-shelf purchases to fill immediate gaps, with options including more French Rafales, two Indian defence officials said, adding that India still plans to add to about 40 Tejas already in service.
India is also weighing competing offers from the U.S. and Russia for 5th-generation F-35 and Su-57 fighters - two advanced models also rarely sharing a stage in Dubai this week.
'BASE' FOR FUTURE PROGRAMMES
India has for years been among the world's biggest arms importers, but has increasingly projected the Tejas as an example of self-reliance with Prime Minister Narendra Modi taking a sortie in the fighter in November 2023.Like most fighter programmes, the Tejas has fought for attention at the intersection of technology and diplomacy.
Development was initially held up partly by sanctions following India's 1998 nuclear tests as well as problems in developing local engines, said Walter Ladwig, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London.
But the jet's long-term significance is "likely to lie less in sales abroad than in the industrial and technological base it creates for India's future combat-aircraft programmes," he said.
REGIONAL RIVALRY PLAYS OUT
Both India and Pakistan were present in force at the show, where the Tejas performed multiple aerial displays in the presence of the rival Pakistani contingent.Pakistan disclosed the signing of a provisional agreement with a "friendly country" to supply its JF-17 Thunder Block III fighter, co-developed with China.
On the ramp, a JF-17 was flanked by arms including PL-15E, the export variant of a family of Chinese missiles that U.S. and Indian officials say at least one French Rafale used by India during an aerial battle with Pakistan in May.
At an exhibition stand, manufacturer PAC distributed brochures touting the JF-17, one of two models deployed by Pakistan during the four-day conflict, as "battle-tested".
India is a lot more careful with the Tejas, which was not actively used in the four-day conflict in May, Indian officials have said, without giving any reasons.
Nor did it participate in the annual January 26 Republic Day aerial display in New Delhi this year due to what officials said were safety reasons associated with single-engine aircraft.
The MiG-29K falls out of the sky and jogs itself to death with every landing. The Vikrant sailed no radar for first several years after commissioning and has elevators that cannot accept modern carrier aircraft -- they'll need to leave their Rafale-M on deck. SSKs patrolled without torpedoes because of scandal.
Army that cannot produce its own rifles and need to import. Foreign howitzers with kickback scandals that brought down governments. The Arjun tank is on par with the Tejas as a drama with decades in development with reluctant acceptance by the IA.
The entire Indian Armed forces are like IAF which in turn is like the country to be perfectly honest. You can't expect excellence in its armed forces when the government that runs them cannot keep clean streets or produce proper infrastructure.
I find it funny how Western media uses the same bullshit talking points to entertain the idea that somehow someone that isn't India would buy this death trap.
I almost want to agree except that across the border Pakistani government is also pretty incompetent but you don't see the congruity extending into the Pakistani military.
This Indian article is pretty good,
Pakistan is such an oddball case, the government is kinda a shitshow but the PAF has been thrashing India for decades, wonder how is that even possible
For Pakistan:
1. The military is the real ruling power and the civilian government is just a kind of fig leaf to cover that up. Trump directly meeting with a Pakistani general made that clear.
2. The civilian government cannot interfere with them so they can focus on doing what they believe is needed to survive and thrive.
3. The biggest and most imminent threats to the real ruling elites in the military are the risks of losing military contests with India. And so that's where they ensure maximum accountability and competence. It also shows why no civilian government in Pakistan would ever be allowed to separate the Pakistani military from China. The civilian government is the dog and the senior military leadership is the owner.
For India:
1. Modi as a fig leaf representing the richest and most powerful private individuals in India.
2. 100% civilian government political interference in the military.
3. Loss of business and trade ties with the West.
A comparison of these two lists explains it all.
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Few excerpts from the Wire article,
Meanwhile, for HAL, the Tejas crash inevitably revives memories of an earlier disastrous export venture: the sale of its seven to Ecuador in 2008-2009 for $42.5 million, of which four crashed. These crashes eventually led to the Ecuador Air Force (EAF) terminating its ALH contract with HAL in October 2015, in a major setback to what was then the first ever major export of an indigenous military platform.
At the time, Ecuadorian defence minister Fernando Cordero had told reporters in the capital Quito that two of these four crashes were due to ‘mechanical failure’, and that the remaining three Dhruvs had subsequently been grounded by the EAF.
HAL for its part countered those claims by maintaining that ‘human error’ and poor maintenance by the EAF was responsible for two of the four Dhruv crashes.
The first Dhruv had crashed in Ecuador soon after its delivery to the EAF in 2009 whilst making a low pass at a military parade in Quito, while the second accident occurred in February 2014, killing three of four people on board.
These were followed by two back-to-back crashes within a fortnight of each other in early January 2015, which ultimately decided the EAF against continuing to operate the ALHs.
Conversely, HAL, which had completed Dhruv deliveries to Ecuador by 2012, contested Quito’s claims that it had failed to ship helicopter spares to the EAF on schedule. A HAL spokesman at the time had maintained that the Dhruv’s service and maintenance were ‘exclusively’ the EAF’s responsibility, as the 24-month warranty period for it to provide after-sales service support for the seven ALHs had expired.
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Looking at it optimistically, Dubai could become a turning point rather than a tombstone – if HAL responds with transparency, speed, professionalism and openness, and treats this accident as an opportunity to demonstrate credibility under pressure.
But to belabour an earlier observation, the global fighter market is unforgiving, ruled not by sentiment or sympathy, but by faith and confidence. If HAL manages the post-crash narrative with clarity and competence, it can strengthen Tejas’s export positioning and signal that India is engineering its way into the major league.
If not, the incident risks hardening a narrative the Indian aerospace industry has spent over a decade trying to erase – one of an ambitious sector still struggling to find a niche in global military aviation.
The Dubai Tejas crash has left HAL’s ambitions grounded and its reputation hanging by a thread.
Although tongue-in-cheek in nature, but what she says has merit to it.