HAL Tejas point defence fighter

Speaking at the Bahrain International Air Show on 22 January, Dr S Christopher, director general of New Delhi’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), noted the Make in India policy also extends to seeking international sales of its equipment.

“Our aim is to ensure we have a quality product – not just for indigenous requirements, but also for export,” he says.

The first international deployment with the Tejas involved flying 970nm (1,800km) from Bengaluru to Jamnagar, before covering a further 650nm for a second refuelling stop in Muscat, Oman. The final leg was a 430nm transit to the show venue at Sakhir air base, near Manama. One aircraft took part in the daily flying display, with the deployment supported by around 50 personnel.



“In terms of interest, this is a good show for us,” says Christopher, who adds one nation in the region has requested information about the Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL)-built type. “We will have interested people coming to India in April,” he reveals.

“The LCA has been [made readup y for production], and this year we will see an additional number of aircraft entering into [Indian air force] service,” says HAL chief executive R Kaveri Renganathan. “We are currently ramping production – any export order, we would be ready to dovetail,” he adds.

Production of the Tejas will rise to seven units this year and eight in 2017, before doubling to 16 the following year. The latter advance will be made by building the Mk1A version of the fighter, which introduces numerous production and system enhancements over an initial batch of 20 jets. India plans to acquire 100 examples in the improved standard.

Also speaking at the show, Aeronautical Development Agency programme director C D Balaji notes more than 3,000 flights have been made by Tejas aircraft, and the air force has received its first production example. “It is a parallel process between test and evaluation and production,” he says, while adding: “there is a significant amount of maturity.”

Meanwhile head of flight test programme, Air Vice-Marshal J Chalapati, says work is under way to integrate a new advanced air-to-air missile with the Tejas. “There will be additional details within the next couple of months,” he adds. Russia’s Vympel R-73 weapon has already been cleared for use by the combat aircraft.

HAL’s Dhruv advanced light helicopter was also on show in Bahrain, with four examples flown by the Indian air force’s Sarang display team. The DRDO brought its indigenous airborne early warning and control system development of the Embraer ERJ-145 to the same event in 2014.

The Ministry of Defence has decided to locally produce 106 upgraded Light Combat Aircraft “Tejas” jets to replace the ageing fleet of MiG fighter aircraft of the Indian Air Force.
The “Tejas Mark 1-A” will have 43 improvements over the existing Tejas currently being test-flown by the IAF for various parameters and slated for final operation clearance in March. The existing project is running years behind schedule.
Sources told The Tribune that a decision has been taken to produce 106 “Tejas Mark 1-A” jets and the same has been conveyed to the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), besides the manufacturer — Bangalore-based Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), a public sector undertaking owned by MoD.
The MoD has set a 2018 deadline for the first aircraft to be ready with a target to complete its production by 2022-2023. In September, new specifications were agreed upon and the IAF accepted 43 modifications that could be carried out without changing the existing design.
On the list of modifications are five major improvements, including an AESA (active electronically scanned array) radar, which the HAL will co-develop with Israel firm Elta; air-to-air refuelling facility; externally fitted self-protection jammer to prevent incoming enemy missiles from homing in using radar signature; and a new layout, involving 27 modifications, of internal systems to iron out maintenance issues.
, but will use the same engine — General Electric’s 404. “The power of the engine is more than enough,” said a senior functionary. Fitting the newer and more powerful GE-414 engine would entail fresh design and airframe studies.
The HAL has been asked to produce 16 jets annually and a Rs 1,252-crore modernisation plan has been okayed to ramp up capacities from the present six-seven planes annually.
The decision will go a long way in keeping the IAF battle-ready. The upgraded jets will fill the void created by MiG-21s and MiG-27s that will be phased out by 2022.
There are 260 Soviet-era single-engine MiG-21 and MiG-27 jets in the IAF fleet. The air force needs 400 jets over the next 10 years.

Continuing with its successful stride of flight trails in 2016, India's Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas achieved a major milestone on Friday. One of the limited series production (LSP) platforms fired a Beyond Visual Range Air-to-Air Missile (BVRAAM) missile Derby for the first time.

According to sources associated with the project, the LSP-7 from Tejas flightline fired the missile in Jamnagar as part of its scheduled weapon trials. These weapon trials are part of the Final Operational Clearance (FOC) mandate. It was the 169th flight of LSP-7 and was piloted by Group Capt Rangachari of National Flight Test Centre. Tejas is also scheduled to fire a Close Combat Missile (CCM) Python-5 missile as part of the FOC trails. The LSP-7 along with LSP-4 were part of Indian flying assets at the just-concluded Bahrain International Air Show (BIAS-2016) As reported earlier, the current trials are aimed at validating the accuracy of the missile. Apart from Python and Derby, Tejas has in weapon menu Russian-made CCM R-73, laser-guided bombs (LGB) Griffin and Paveway and Russian-made gun Gsh-23. "It's a great achievement. We are awaiting the test results. The next schedule will be decided based on our analysis. We are awaiting the data," an official attached to the weapon trials programme said.

higurashihougi wrote:India havent dumped Tejas yet ? Personally I don't think Tejas design is going to work as a modern light fighter.

KiloGolf wrote:So R-73 for VWR and Derby for BVR.
Ok.... Indian MoD

R-77 would have made more sense, even as "stop gap" (which they claim, I don't believe).

Militarov wrote:

higurashihougi wrote:India havent dumped Tejas yet ? Personally I don't think Tejas design is going to work as a modern light fighter.

In theory it should be rly good low cost multirole fighter, has even some rly interesting and unique design features. But Indians are trying to make it extremly cheap.

Over the preceding decade, under-informed defence writers and commentators have made careers out of bad-mouthing India’s Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA). The commentary focused primarily on development delays, criticized the fighter’s performance and sneered at the under-funded, under-staffed Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA), a Defence R&D Organisation (DRDO) agency responsible for the Tejas programme. Regrettably, the Indian Air Force (IAF) colluded in undermining ADA, passing on tidbits to the media in order to show the Tejas in a poor light, apparently to clear the way for importing expensive aircraft. Thanks to this, most Indians came to regard the Tejas as a byword for delay, incompetence and the untrustworthiness of the DRDO. Most Indians concluded that the purchase of exorbitantly priced foreign aircraft like the French Rafale was unavoidable to keep India safe.

These critics have now done an about-turn after Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar inducted the first two production version Tejas Mark I fighters on Saturday into the IAF’s first operational Tejas squadron (45 Squadron). In January, the Tejas made its foreign debut, performing well-received aerobatics displays at the Bahrain international Air Show. Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha, a steady hand at the IAF’s tiller, has supported the Tejas and committed to ordering 100 Tejas Mark 1A fighters --- similar to the current version, except for four specified improvements. Test pilots involved in the Tejas’ flight-testing had always praised its performance and reliability, but now there is also praise from the IAF.

Group Captain Madhav Rangachari, the 45 Squadron chief who flew the Tejas on Saturday, reportedly observed afterwards: "I felt like being on top of the world when flying the Tejas fighter. It’s an excellent aircraft and on par with other fighters in the world.”

That nobody has contradicted Rangachari is a measure of how effusive the media has suddenly become in reporting this story. It needs to be pointed out that the Tejas is not “a generation ahead of other fighters”; it is a contemporary fighter, with several features that match the “best-in-class”, while others still require improvement.

Even so, the most astounding achievement of the Tejas project is the development of a fourth-generation fighter and a respectable aerospace development, production and testing eco-system in India for the pittance of Rs 14,047 crore, just over $2 billion. This was done in the face of intensified international technology sanctions since the 1998 nuclear tests and, as discussed above, amidst media and IAF hostility.

The operationalization of the Tejas has not taken “over three decades” as critics dishonestly maintain. They incorrectly cite August 22, 1983 as the start of the Tejas project, when the government allocated Rs 560 crore for “feasibility studies and project definition”. In fact, it took another decade, until April 1993, when the defence ministry sanctioned the “Full Scale Engineering Development” (FSED) of the Tejas, and provided funds to build two fighters as “technology demonstrators”.

Taking April 1993 as the start of the Tejas development programme, the timeline suddenly looks more respectable. It took just eight years for the Tejas’ first flight in 2001; 20 years for initial operational clearance in 2013, and 23 years for final operational clearance and induction into IAF service. The significantly more capable Tejas Mark IA is expected to be completed by 2018 to meet standards that four agencies --- the defence ministry, IAF, ADA, and Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), which builds the fighter --- have hammered out between them, to make the Tejas clearly more capable than current enemy fighters. If that deadline is met, the Tejas will have taken exactly a quarter century in development. That is a creditable record for building a first fighter.

The improved Tejas Mark IA will have an AESA radar, which the DRDO-HAL combine proposes to build in partnership with Israeli company Elbit.

It will be capable of air-to-air refueling to increase range and combat endurance. It will also have a “self-protection jammer” (SPJ) mounted in an external pod to confuse enemy radar. Finally, it will have an improved layout of internal systems to ease maintenance and allow rapid “turnaround time”, i.e. the quickness with which the Tejas can leave on a fresh mission after returning from an earlier one.

The IAF has already detailed the Tejas’ performance parameters, announcing: “The LCA has a very competitive and cotemporary operational envelope. It is capable of operations up to an altitude of 50,000 feet and a maximum speed of 1.6 Mach at [high] altitudes or 730 knots… at low levels. The aircraft [can turn at] +8G to -2.5G (which allows it to U-turn in 350 metres) in operationally clean configuration… or +6G to -2.5G with other external stores.” This respectable performance envelope will be further enhanced when the Tejas IA enters service.

It is, therefore, incorrect to suggest, as some commentators and editorial writers have done, that only the import of fighters like the Rafale would give the IAF an operational edge.

Directing those billions into the Tejas programme instead would be a more sensible course.

Even as the Tejas Mark IA is being developed, ADA is working on the Tejas Mark II. The key enhancement in that will be the replacement of the current General Electric F-404 engine with the larger, more powerful GE F-414 engine. The technological challenge --- which is to re-engineer the Mark I fuselage to fit in the bulkier F-414 --- would be offset by the Mark II’s greater power. The re-engineering would also provide the opportunity to replace the current generation of avionics with enhanced, new-generation avionics. Realistically, the Mark II can be expected to enter service by 2023-24, until when HAL can build the 100 Mark IA fighters that the IAF has committed to buying.

Supporting ADA through this programme is essential. That agency is simultaneously working on an Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA), which will be a fifth-generation fighter with stealth features, and incorporating an advanced engine that will allow it to supercruise (fly at supersonic speed without lighting the fuel-guzzling afterburner). To enable and empower this project, it is essential to quickly conclude the contract with Russia to co-develop the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA) that has been mired in negotiations for a decade. The FGFA experience would provide Indian aeronautical engineers the knowhow and experience in working on fifth-generation technologies, which would be translated into the AMCA.

The area of concern, which the defence ministry needs to address on priority, is to ensure that HAL builds the Tejas Mark I and Mark IA at a rate of 12-16 fighters per year. That would allow the IAF to conduct operational planning, obtain buy-in from that service, and translate the Tejas from a debutante into a real combat asset.