With the MiG-29 on steroids, who needs the Rafale

September 3, 2013 Rakesh Krishnan Simha

With the air defence MiG-29s being upgraded to an advanced multirole aircraft, the Indian Air Force could save more than $10 billion by scratching the Rafale.

More than a year after the French Rafale won the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) dogfight, a contract is nowhere in sight – forget the delivery date. Not only is it the usual drawn-out drama that comes with India’s defence acquisitions, it is also clear the French have overpromised on the technology transfer provisions and now want to welch out.

The delay in the signing of the MMRCA contract, along with the high-octane upgrade of the Indian Air Force (IAF) MiG-29 Fulcrum and the advanced state of gestation of India’s fifth generation fighter, the Sukhoi PAK-FA, are creating a situation where the Rafale seems superfluous to India’s defence requirements.

The biggest game changer is the ongoing upgrade to the IAF’s Fulcrum fleet which will convert them to the MiG-29SMT. This means these aircraft will now be on a par with the advanced MiG-29M. “The MiG-29SMT upgrade will represent a major step forward for the aircraft on multiple fronts,” says Air Force Technology.

Most Indian Fulcrums are MiG-29Bs, downgraded by removing Russian IFF (Identify Friend or Foe) and datalink equipment, and a subpar radar. (This is standard practice by all manufacturing nations which reserve the most advanced versions for their own defence forces while exporting stepped down models.)

The IAF has speeded up the MiG-29B upgrade programme because of two factors.

One, an impending fighter crunch. Hundreds of MiG-21 interceptors and MiG-23 interceptors and fighter bombers have been retired, and the long-serving MiG-27 ground attack fighter won’t be around very long. The 118 British Jaguars – which have been highly accident prone – may also have to be withdrawn from their deep penetration roles in view of the improvement in air defences in India’s neighbourhood.

Secondly, India’s Light Combat Aircraft, Tejas, which was to have filled the void created by the MiG-21’s exit, remains flight shy. The three-decade long programme is suffering from all sorts of problems, leaving India with a huge gap in its light interceptor fleet.

MiG-29 on steroids

Defense Industry Daily (DID) reports the 62 upgraded MiG-29s – 54 single-seat fighters and 8 trainers – will join the Mirage-2000 fleet in the IAF’s multirole middle-tier category. This is a category that is above the MiG-21s/27s and below the Sukhoi-30 MKIs. The upgrade will change their role from air-superiority planes to full multirole fighters with modern air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons.

The planes will be fitted with upgraded weapons and a new avionics suite, including the Phazatron Zhuk-ME radar. The Zhuk-ME’s acquisition range has increased 1.5 times. It also adds terrain following mode, and ground target acquisition including high-resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) to obtain a better picture than is possible with conventional radar.

After the $964 million upgrade, the Fulcrums are expected to remain in service for 10-15 more years, with their safe flight-hour lifetimes extended from 25 years/2,500 hours to 40 years/3,500 hours.

The IAF is also bulking up its middle tier by upgrading its 51 Mirage 2000s to a standard similar to the latest Mirage 2000-5. Flying with new radar and new weapons, the upgraded fighters can be expected to serve until around 2030.

Including aircraft under order, India’s Sukhoi-30 MKI fleet is currently pegged at 272. It is an impressive number for such a high-end and expensive weapons platform. This shows a keen sense of judgement by the IAF, which realizes that 100 percent fleet utilisation is impossible and having a large number of aircraft around is the key to getting the job done.

“These aircraft will be the high end of India’s air power, and can be expected to remain in the force past 2030, and are competitive with or superior to top-end European fighters and American F-15 variants,” says DID.

Even allowing for the inevitable delays – with India insisting on various customisations – Sukhoi’s fifth generation stealth fighter will be entering service well before 2030. Under these circumstances, the Rafale is too late to the party.

Rafale: Reasons for buying

To be sure, the primary reason for selecting a Western aircraft – ahead of more potent Russian alternatives – is to reduce dependence on one vendor country.

The other objective is to acquire the full technology suite of a modern aircraft for local production. French technology is being pitched as the magic potion that will save the Tejas programme, while also providing a large boost to aerospace and defence electronics industries in India. Basically, it will allow India to move up from screwdriver technology to building entire fighter aircraft from scratch.

But will Dassault, which builds the Rafale, oblige? The French newspaper L’Usine Nouvelle cites complex electronics, and especially the Thales AESA radar, as being difficult to transfer. The Delhi-based Daily Pioneer predicts a “stream of news reports that we’ve already heard a thousand times before will come out telling us how unprepared our institutions are to receive this technology”.

There is no reason for the IAF to accept a downgraded Rafale. In view of the massive fall in living standards in the West in general and mass unemployment in France in particular, it is France, not India that has to compromise. The alternative for Dassault is the closure of its Rafale plant. Someone should sit with the French and show them the mirror.

The IAF is clear that it does not want to repeat the story of the HF-24 Marut fighter – the first Indian supersonic aircraft – which was developed in the 1960s by HAL and the freelancing German aerospace engineer Kurt Tank. Like the Tejas, the Marut too was an underpowered aircraft that was quietly retired.

If the French do not deliver the technology, there is no point spending billions on sterile imports – unless someone in the vicinity of South Block is seriously committed to kickbacks.

Rafale’s costs may defy gravity

Another problem with the Rafale is the ballooning cost. The MMRCA was a requirement of the 2000s but the extended competition has inflated costs to stratospheric levels – from $10 billion a decade ago to around $20 billion, according to the New Delhi-based Institute for Defence Studies & Analysis (IDSA). Plus, nobody reckoned with the falling rupee, which has also increased the cost per plane.

DID believes the 100 or so Rafales would offer some compatibilities with the upgraded Mirage 2000s, but will come at about twice the Sukhoi-30 MKI’s price. “If budget pressures intervene and Tejas continues to lag, India could be forced to buy a less expensive mid-tier plane instead,” it says.

That plane could well be the MiG-29SMT. Its variant, the MiG-35 could easily replace the Rafale if India scratches the MMRCA and opts for a government to government deal instead.

Need for spending wisely

Acquiring the Rafale at such a prohibitive cost is extravagance which India cannot afford at a time when economic growth has hit an embarrassing 5 percent and the rupee is in free fall. “While it was presumed a few years ago that funds for defence would not be a constraint in the future, a slowing economy has led to these funds being curtailed,” says the IDSA. “The writing on the wall is clear: resource constraints are looming for the armed forces.”

When advanced Russian aircraft are available for less than half the price of the Rafale, it would be prudent to wait before signing on the line that is dotted. The money can be better spent on beefing up the Tejas programme. For the kind of cash we are talking, there is a hell of a lot of red hot technology that cash strapped defence companies in the West will part with.

Dark secret behind mystery of the 'flying coffins'

By Yatish Yadav - NEW DELHI

Published: 25th Aug 2013 08:45:46 AM

A post-mortem of the Indian Air Force’s (IAF) MiG series of fighter jets has come up with shocking revelations pointing to perennial engine oil leaks besides other serious technical glitches that have lent the aircraft notorious distinction of ‘flying coffin’ or ‘widow-maker’ owing to frequent crashes and loss of human lives.

Every MiG crash in the country invited emotional outbursts from public and stinging rebuke from defence analysts, but the incidents were invariably written off claiming them to be human error.

Documents accessed by The Sunday Standard reveal that MiG engines that propelled these roaring fighter jets, once considered backbone of the IAF, are of poor quality. Nearly 40 per cent of these engines and accessories produced by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), Koraput, have been returned by the IAF for some or the other defects. HAL is a Navratna company, owned by the government.

The problem ranges from oil leak, metallic particle in oil filters and hot air leak from rear casing to trouble in compressor and even in turbine of MiG-27 aero engines. The defects are scary for the government, which has lost almost half of its MiG fleet to the crashes in the last 40 years, leaving 171 pilots and 39 civilians dead. Although Defence Minister A K Antony had told Parliament last year that both human error and technical defects were responsible for MiG crashes, he conveniently forgot to inform people about horrific condition of government’s state-of-the-art manufacturing unit.

“Most of the cause factors can be classified as defects during manufacturing or overhauling process. IAF has been flagging these issues but government’s response is slow,” said an official on the condition of anonymity.

It is learnt that all three MiGs—MiG-27, MiG-29 and MiG-21—are facing serious quality issues. MiG-27 suffered Low Pressure Turbine Rotor (LPTR) failure in at least 11 recent incidents. The HAL in some cases even lied while overhauling the LPTR, saying it had followed the overhaul manual but Ministry of Defence (MoD) officials said the procedure recommended by the original equipment manufacturer was not being implemented by the celebrated company.

There are more shocking facts conveniently swept under the carpet. The springs installed in fuel pump of MiG 21 engines are failing frequently. A MiG-21 Bison aircraft crashed in November 2012 in Gujarat which was attributed to spring failure.

The documents suggest that of the five main fuel pumps fitted with HAL-manufactured springs, at least three springs failed, which is unforgivable as it would have certainly resulted in accidents. Shockingly, the main fuel pumps of MiG-21 Bison engine continue to leak fuel, despite four studies conducted and implemented since 1990s. It says despite incorporating changes, fuel leak from main fuel pump continued unabated from throttle end.

A senior official said flying operations of MiG-29 fleet are often suspended due to non-availability of critical accessories and poor quality of repairing. Even if one aircraft of the fleet is affected by the snag, the entire fleet is grounded till the problem is identified and resolved.

However, another reason behind the poor quality of production and engine repairs is attributed to mass production work in the last leg of production year, to achieve the target. For example, in the first six months of 2012-13 production year, HAL finished the work on only four MiG-29 engines, but in the last quarter of the year, four engines were completed within three months.

Similarly for MiG-27, the HAL finished the work on nine engines in nine months, but interestingly another nine engines were completed within the last three months. The issue was flagged by the MoD saying such trend is adversely affecting the quality of aero engines.

“HAL is not interested to provide quality engines or repair work to the IAF. They are only interested in meeting the production numbers every year. There is also an impression that the work force in HAL delays the production to last three months to earn few extra bucks for ‘over time’ which is disgusting, given the fact that human lives are at stake,” an official said.

07 September 2013| last updated at 12:10AM

More assets for Esscom

KUALA LUMPUR: The Eastern Sabah Security Command (Esscom) will be strengthened for the safety of Malaysians, especially in Sabah, Datuk Seri Najib Razak posted on his Twitter account yesterday.

The prime minister was commenting on a news report which stated that Esscom would be receiving new assets soon.

On Thursday, Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said some of the new assets, particularly those needed for patrols, had already been purchased and were pending delivery.

Meanwhile, in an earlier tweet, Najib reminded the public that this Sunday was the closing date for anyone to contribute ideas for the 2014 Budget.

The Budget is scheduled to be tabled at the Dewan Rakyat on Oct 25.

S. Korea Exports Supersonic Trainer Jets to Indonesia

[2013-09-10, 17:32:16]

Two South Korean supersonic trainer jets took off Tuesday morning for Indonesia in the country's first export of the aircraft.
 
The T-50i supersonic trainers made by the Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) left at 10 a.m. from a military airfield in Sacheon, South Gyeongsang Province.
 
The jets will fly 56-hundred kilometers for seven hours and make stopovers in Taiwan and the Philippines to refuel before arriving in Indonesia.
 
It is the first time for South Korea to export domestically-developed aircraft by “flight delivery,” instead shipping via freighters or vessels.
 
The KAI said it will deliver 14 more trainer jets to Indonesia by the end of the year and fulfill a bilateral contract four months ahead of schedule.
 
South Korea has become the sixth country in the world to export supersonic jets following the United States, Russia, Britain, France and Sweden.

Navy awards another production contract to Lockheed Martin for electro-optical sensor suite on AH-1Z combat helicopter

September 8, 2013

Posted by John Keller

CRANE, Ind., 8 Sept. 2013. U.S. Navy helicopter avionics experts have awarded another production contract to the Lockheed Martin Corp. Missiles and Fire Control segment in Orlando, Fla., for a multi-sensor electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) fire-control system for the U.S. Marine Corps AH-1Z Cobra attack helicopter as part of the H-1 upgrades program.

Officials of the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Crane, Ind., have awarded a $34 million contract to Lockheed Martin to provide the AN/AAQ-30 Target Sight Systems (TSS) for the AH-1Z combat helicopter.

The AN/AAQ-30 TSS comprises a large-aperture midwave forward-looking infrared (FLIR) sensor, color TV camera, laser designator and rangefinder with eyesafe mode, and on-gimbal inertial measurement unit integrated into a stabilized turret.

The turret mounts to the nose of the aircraft via the Lockheed Martin-developed aircraft interface structure. TSS provides the capability to identify and laser-designate targets at maximum weapon range.

The Navy's H-1 upgrades program remanufactures of legacy aircraft with state-of-the-art designs incorporated into the existing fleet of AH-1W’s, converting them to AH-1Zs, Navy officials say.

The TSS provides target identification and tracking, passive targeting for integrated weapons such as Hellfire missiles, and a laser designation capability supporting U.S. and allied laser-guided weapons.

Its features include an 8.55-inch aperture, midwave staring FLIR with four fields-of-view, multi-mode and multi-target tracker with coast-through-obscuration capability; gimbal stabilized to less than 15 microradians; on-gimbal inertial measurement unit for reduced image blur due to jitter; multi-mode multi-target tracker; image processing; high-magnification continuous-zoom color TV camera with field-of-view matched to the FLIR; and cooled 640-by-512-pixel indium antimonide detector.

On this contract Lockheed Martin will do the work in Orlando and Ocala, Fla., and should be finished by November 2015. For more information contact Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control online at www.lockheedmartin.com/us/mfc, or the Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane at www.navsea.navy.mil/nswc/crane.

DSEI 2013: Patria unveils new vehicle concept

10 September 2013 - 15:55
by Tim Fish in London

A new modular 8x8 vehicle concept prototype is being displayed by Patria at the DSEI exhibition for first time.

Heikki Allonen, president of Patria, told reporters that the vehicle is an improvement on the company’s successful Armoured Modular Vehicle (AMV) and they have used operator experience and operational feedback to develop the new concept.

The prototype vehicle is 8.4m long, a width of 2.8m, and a vehicle height over hull of 2.4m. With the basic vehicle weighing 13t, there is a gross vehicle weight of 30t offering a larger payload capacity without sacrificing mobility.

With a maximum speed in excess of 100km/h, the vehicle has a climbing capacity of 60%, can overcome obstacles up to 0.7m, cross trenches of 2.1m and has an operating radius of 600-1,000km.

Allonen stated that the new hull has a modular architecture and so the vehicle is future-proofed and can incorporate a variety of weapons up to 120mm including the Patria Nemo 120mm mortar system. The vehicle is also fitted with a situational awareness, and vehicle health and usage monitoring system.

As well as improvements in firepower, flexibility through modularity and payload efficiency, the vehicle was stated as having a superior performance with an upgraded power line and a new integrated terrain control system and modular ballistic, IED and mine protection options if required.

Future electrical power needs will be met by a 530 amp generator and an engine power output of 450kw. The concept is a base vehicle that can be adapted to customer requirements. The vehicle on display was fitted with a Saab remote weapon station.

Vehicle performance testing is still underway and the vehicle will not be named until 2014.

About 1400 AMV vehicles have been sold to seven customers over the past ten years and Patria said that when new vehicle comes to fruition it will complement the success of the AMV and not replace it.

They ady did it again in 2001


And the AFP still gone soft on 'em

Err, ada komen?

Chinook is good, but I opt for osprey

The Osprey’s huge propellers and the positioning of its engines had created obstruction issues for normal machine gun mounting locations, but AUSA 2007 saw BAE Systems promoting a retractable belly turret solution  based on a 3-barrel 7.62mm GAU-17 minigun. Special Operations Command has ordered some, and now the US Marines have deployed with them.

I think the turks also ady develop their own attack heli rite?
Too bad our maf more or less ady firm on tiger

First Oplot tanks for Thailand successfully undergo driving and firing trials

BULLETIN RELEASED: 16/09/13 9:26AM GMT

Kyiv, September 16 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The first two Oplot main battle tanks produced under an order from Thailand at the Malyshev Plant (Kharkiv), have successfully undergone driving and firing trials at a firing ground near the village of Chuhuiv (Kharkiv region), the press service of the Ukroboronprom State Concern told Interfax-Ukraine on Monday, referring to the concern’s director general, Serhiy Hromov.

Hromov said that during the first stage of driving and firing tests, the tanks had demonstrated maneuverability at various speeds. During the firings both tanks fired their 125-mm cannons, 7.62-mm coaxial machine gun and 12.7-mm anti-aircraft machine guns. All targets were hit.

“In general, the trials of the Oplot main battle tank confirmed the high quality and technical specifications of the battle tank, as envisaged by its designers,” he said.

The tests of three more tanks from the first batch are scheduled for the near future, he added.

In September 2011, Ukraine and Thailand signed a contract worth over $200 million on supplies of 49 Ukrainian Oplot main battle tanks to Thailand. Ukroboronprom’s Malyshev Plant started fulfilling the contract in the spring of 2012.

In recent years Ukraine has been actively developing military and technical cooperation with Thailand. The contracts for supplies of Ukrainian military hardware, particularly BTR-3E1 armored personnel carriers and Oplot tanks, concluded with Thailand in 2006-2011 and being implemented today, are estimated to be worth $500 million.