Indian defence

Aero India 2009 – part 2

Amit Rai — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 13:03:43 +0000

After a stroll in the Halls it was time to look at some of the displays kept outside the halls. There was a lot of stuff that one could look at if one had enough time for that. Some of the most interesting were being displayed by DRDO like Rustom UAV, Akash missile, Nishant UAV, Radars etc. There was also a very small UAV being displayed by a foreign company which looked cute but I could not understand what use it will be of practically.

Rustom UAV
Rustom is a medium altitude, medium range UAV being developed by DRDO.

Nishant UAV is a light weight UAV developed by DRDO.

The Nishant UAV is primarily tasked with intelligence gathering over enemy territory and also for recce, surveillance, target designation, artillery fire correction, damage assessment, ELINT and SIGINT. The UAV has an Endurance of 4 hrs & 30min. Nishant has completed development Phase and User trials.
The 380 kg Nishant UAV requires rail-launching from a hydro-pneumatic launcher and recovered by a Parachute System. Launches at a velocity of 45 m/s are carried out in 0.6 seconds with 100 kW power and subsequent launches can be carried out in intervals of 20 minutes. The Mobile Hydro-Pneumatic Launcher (MHPL) system mounted on a Tatra truck weighs 14,000 kg and boasts of a life cycle of 1000 launches before requiring overhaul.Nishant is one of the few UAVs in the world in its weight-class capable of being catapult-launched and recovered by using parachute, thus eliminating the need for a runway as in case of conventional take-off and landing with wheels.

Airshow
Airshow is probably the most important part of the Aero India. This years Air show was graced by the presence of some of the best fighter in the world due to the impending $10 billion MRCA deal. Apart from that the most important part of the Air Show was the India’s own LCA Tejas. It was a moment of great pride to see Tejas doing such amazing aerobatics. Tejas aerobatics confirmed how far India has come in the field of aerospace development. From gen 2 aircraft to gen 4+ aircraft in 25 years is no mean feat. Hats off to DRDO, HAL, GTRE, ADA and all the other agencies who have given India such a potent weapons platform. Indian scientists have shown to the world that they are second to none in terms of capability.

Some pictures of aerobatics.

F-16 aerobatics in Aero India 2009

Eurofighter Typhoon

Su-30 MKI in Aero India 2009

Suryakiran at Aero India 2009

ALH Dhruv at Aero India 2009

So that ends the report for the Aero India 2009. It was a great experience and I am sure that I will go there in future also. I hope the show will be better organised in future and provide more facilities to the general public. Anybody who wants to go to Aero India should go there with full preparation for a day of hard work.

Aero India 2009 – part 1

Amit Rai — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 16:24:51 +0000

The 7th edition of Aero India was held at Bangalore’s Yelahanka Air Force Station from 11th to 15th February, 2009. Aero India is a biennial Indian air show and aviation exhibition which is organized by the Ministry of Defence, Government of India and managed by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

This year China participated for the first time in Aero India. With more than 550 organisations taking part in the Aero India 2009 it is one of the largest Air Shows in the world and largest in Asia. Some of the major ones being Boeing, Sukhoi, SAAB, Rafael, IAI, Lockheed Martin etc. The 2009 edition was particularly interesting because of the presence of a larger number of Fighter, UAVs and Transport aircraft. With India emerging as one of the largest importer of arms and $10 billion deal for 126 multi role combat aircraft up for grabs it is no surprise that such a strong presence was demonstrated.

First Impression

As a visitor the first impression that I got was that of chaos. Long queues and choked roads were to be seen at the approach roads and the parking areas. P-3 parking area was full and it took two rounds of the BIAL road to understand that the parking was now available at the P-6 area. In all this confusion I missed the morning air show. Anyways after parking my vehicle I had to stand in another queue to board the BMTC AC bus. While standing in the queue verbal fight broke out between people as someone tried to jump the queue as in typical Indian fashion. The AC in the bus cooled my irritation and felt like the best thing in the world as it gave a lot of relief from the dust and heat. The buses took us to the entrance gate where we had to stand in the queues twice as security checks were being made, what made it worse was the dust and heat that was relentless. Why can’t they just tar the area or sprinkle it with some water to reduce the dust from soiling the clothes and shoes of the visitors. And just two gates for hundreds of visitors is just plain poor planning and consequently people bickered and jostled for space.

The Exhibition

Finally made it through the security checks and entered the exhibition area. There were a lot of halls and hundreds of stalls. I am sure that there is no way you can see all the exhibitions in one day, it will at least take three or four days to see all the exhibitions. Still I tried to see all the important ones including the Sukhoi, IAI, Rafael, SAAB, DRDO, BEL, BDL etc. The area inside was huge and easily accommodated the large crowd. The people managing stalls were courteous and helpful, there were couple of them with good female presence and most of the desi (Indian) crowd was more interested in gawking at them rather than the exhibitions.

Exhibition Area for the show was divided into individual air conditioned halls. Each hall had a group of companies from different parts of the world.

Exhibition Area

SAAB Stall

ISRO

Inside the Halls were displayed a dazzling array of latest electronics and weapons systems. In most of the hall entrance there were queues manned by guards that checked you tickets RFID tags. I passed through couple of these checkpoints but the guards seemed rather poorly trained and did not even wait for the beep sound that came from the device that confirmed the tag. Imagine if I were a terrorist.
The action inside the halls can be best explained by the pictures so here are some quick snaps of the varous halls.

MIG 35

Eurofighter Typhoon

Rafael weapons display

SAAB Gripen

BDL Stall

Milan 2 ATGM displayed at BDL stall

Israel’s IAI

Russia’s Ilyushin

LCA India’s soaring ambition and the sobering reality

Amit Rai — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 10:42:16 +0000

India initiated the Light Combat Aircraft program in 1983 to indigenously develop a multi-mission single seat tactical aircraft. As of 2009 it is yet to complete development and there seems to be no firm date when it will be inducted in the Indian air force. Different sources claim that the date may vary between 2010 and 2015. This has been one of the most expensive and painfully slow defence projects that India has ever undertaken.

Any mention of LCA evokes extreme reactions in India. There is one group which support it’s further development and another group which are of the opinion that LCA project has failed to deliver and hence should be scrapped. Like most things in life the truth probably lies somewhere in between. To properly evaluate the success or failure of LCA we need to understand it’s genesis, the doctrine it was based on and the larger strategic goals that this programme was supposed to achieve.

LCA genesis

LCA programme was launched in 1983 by defence minister Shri. R. Venkataraman (4 December 1910 – 27 January 2009). There were two primary goals for the LCA programme:

The obvious reason was to replace the large number of 60s vintage Mig-21 fighters from the IAF.
Large scale modernisation and up gradation of India’s nascent aerospace industry.

By 1980s Mig-21 in IAF were already more than two decades old and rather obsolete. These were no longer the fearsome fighting machines that they were during the Vietnam war. IAF needed a replacement for these planes urgently and at a reasonable cost. An indigenously developed advanced aircraft could meet the requirements of IAF, while improving the overall technological base of Indian aerospace industry.

LCA Timeline

1983 – DRDO obtained permission to initiate a programme to design and develop a Light Combat Aircraft
1984 – Government of India set up Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) in 1984 as the nodal agency for managing and developing the LCA.
1985 – IAF submits Air Staff Requirements (ASR) for LCA in October 1985. This was initiated by the then Air Chief Marshal Idris Hassan Latif.
1986 – Programme to develop an indigenous powerplant (engine) was launched at GTRE.
1987 – Project definition commenced in October 1987 with French Dassault Aviation as consultants.
1988 – Project definition completed in September 1988.
1989 – Government review committee expresses confidence in LCA programme. It was decided that the programme will be carried out in two phases.
1990 – Design of LCA was finalised as a small delta winged reverse static stability aircraft.
1990 – Phase 1 of the development was commenced to create the proof of concept system. Financial problems in India prevented full scale operations from starting.
1993 – Full funding started from April 1993 full-scale development work for phase 1 started in June.
1995 – First technology demonstrator, TD-1, rolled out on 17 November 1995 and was followed by TD-2 in 1998. However, technical problems in flight control systems and structural deficiencies plagued the prototypes and they remained grounded.
1997 – Multi-Mode Radar (MMR) for LCA design work started at HAL’s Hyderabad division and the LRDE.
2001 – LCA’s maiden flight successfully completed by Technology Demonstrator TD-1 , on 4th Jan, 2001. Prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee renames LCA as Tejas.
2002 – MMR system was reported to be not working as per the criteria laid down in requirements.
2003 – First supersonic flight of Tejas on 1st August, 2003.
2008 – It was reported in September 2008 that Kaveri engine would not be ready in time for Tejas. RFP for in-production engines floated by ADA. the Eurojet EJ200 and the General Electric F414 are the main contenders.
2009 – Tejas completed 1000 flights on 23 Jan 2009.

Tejas (LCA) programme notable success

There is no doubt that the LCA programme made great contributions to the Indian aerospace industry. Some of the technologies developed have been mastered by very few countries. For example, Carbon Fiber Composite for wings and fins, Flight control systems, Design of Full Authority Digital Engine Control (FADEC) etc. All these technologies can now be implemented indigenously without any foreign assistance. These will save a lot of time and effort in any future development. Needless to say very few countries can boast of such wide array of aerospace technologies. It should a matter of pride that DRDO developed these technologies with restricted budget with little or no less assistance. It must also be noted that India of 1980s and 90s was considered an untouchable state by the west. Technology denial and sanctions were a fact of life for India. That DRDO was able to develop such advanced technologies with so much restrictions is indeed a cause of great pride among Indians. It must be noted that LCA development did NOT start in 1983 as many critics point out. Almost a decade was used to set up the building blocks of Aerospace laboratories and industries which were virtually non-existent in India. Also, it must be noted that India had no prior experience in building a modern jet fighter. It is no less than a miracle that India has managed to build a 4+ generation fighter plane from scratch and under severe constraints and technology sanctions.

Tejas (LCA) programme notable failures

While there have been successes we cannot hide the fact that LCA programme has had it’s fair share of failures. In fact most of the times it is in news is because of it’s lack of progress and problems. The most
important cause of concern is the inordinate delay of 25 years in the development programme. Apart from that inability to develop a good powerplant, MMR, overweight undercarriage etc are it’s main flaws.

Thus main reasons for this delay can be attibuted to various factors including:

Lack of political will and direction for the project.
Low level of infrastructure and industrial base for developing such complex system in India.
Technical sanctions and embargoes against India by various governments.
Overall poor programme management and execution by the various government run PSUs.

Tejas can then be compared as a half empty or half full glass depending on individual’s perception. So in all fairness Tejas has been a long saga of vision, ambition, triumph and failure all mixed with each other. Tejas has brutally exposed the reality of India’s state of aerospace and other hi tech industries. It has again and again reminded that India after all is a developing country struggling to meet the growth challenges with technical prowess. However, it has also brought to light the resilience of India’s technical mind which will keep India in good stead in the times to come.