j10 and 4.8 gen jet production in kamra
These J-10s would be superior in air combat than anything that the IAF fields today and would only be matched by a possible MRCA acquisition by India. Even then, with the 5 present contenders left in the MRCA, only the Eurofighter (assuming AESA radars) would be able to match the J-10 in air-to-air combat.
what made those j-10's better than anything that the IAF fields today and would only be matched by a possible MRCA acquisition ??? And no link ??
Mirage-2000 upgrade
Iaf is upgrading its Mirage-2000's at a cost of 40-45 million per plane !
Rs 10,000cr deal likely for Mirage-2000 upgrade - India - NEWS - The Times of India
NEW DELHI: Even as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh left for Paris on Monday to further consolidate the ¡®strategic partnership¡¯ with France, the two
countries are now all set to ink the around Rs 10,000 crore deal to upgrade the Mirage-2000 fighter jets in IAF¡¯s combat fleet. This will be the second mega defence deal to be signed with France in recent times after the ongoing mammoth Rs 18,798 crore project to construct six Scorpene submarines at Mazagon Docks in Mumbai.
With defence secretary Vijay Singh being part of the PM¡¯s entourage to Paris, sources said the announcement about the upgrade of the French-origin Mirages is very much on the cards during the trip. The ¡®differences¡¯ over the upgrade project had been ¡®resolved¡¯ after almost two years of hard-nosed negotiations, which were bogged down for some time because French companies Dassault Aviation (aircraft manufacturer) and Thales (weapons systems integrator) wanted close to Rs 14,000 crore for the programme.
¡®¡®The two sides have now arrived at a reasonable price around Rs 10,000 crore. The first four to six Mirages will be upgraded in France, with the rest 50 or so being upgraded in India by Hindustan Aeronautics under transfer of technology,¡¯¡¯ said a source.
Under the upgrade, the entire airframe will be stripped down to be re-wired and re-equipped with new avionics, mission computers, glass cockpits, helmet-mounted displays, electronic warfare suites and of course weapon systems to extend and enhance the operational life of the multi-role fighters by around 20 years.
India had first inducted 40 Mirages in the mid-1980s, with over 20 more being bought in later years. IAF has had a ¡®good¡¯ experience with the fighters, which successfully carried out ¡®targeted bombings¡¯ during the 1999 Kargil conflict. Some years ago, IAF had even pitched for the advanced Mirage-2000-Vs for its gigantic $10-billion project for 126 new medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA).
The defence ministry, however, told IAF to go in for ¡®a global tender¡¯ for the MMRCA project, and France too closed its Mirage production line. Now, the French Rafale is competing with American F/A-18 ¡®Super Hornet¡¯ (Boeing) and F-16 ¡®Falcon¡¯ (Lockheed Martin), Russian MiG-35 (United Aircraft Corporation), Swedish Gripen (Saab) and Eurofighter Typhoon (consortium of British, German, Spanish and Italian companies) in the hotly-contested MMRCA race.
Other advantages of upgradtion -longer range detection across the spectrum, improved tactical situation awareness, longer range weapon firing against multiple simultaneous targets, weapon stealth and extended operating envelope with the capability to engage ground targets while countering airborne threats.typical border protection mission involving two hours on station will require just two upgraded Mirage-2000 aircraft compared with six current aircraft.
¡®Smart Skin¡¯ concept for Su-30MKI
FORCE - A Complete News Magazine on National Security - Defence Magazine
The pre-planned product improvement roadmap for the Su-30MKI continues to make steady progress, with two Indian Air Force (IAF) Su-30MKIs, delivered in mid-2002, being dispatched to United Aircraft Corp (UAC) of Russia¡¯s Irkutsk-based facility (IRKUT Corp) where both airframes will be strengthened and refurbished, and their navigation-and-attack system will be upgraded in order to arm the aircraft with the BrahMos supersonic air-launched cruise missile for both maritime strike and ground attack. Thus, while all structural and electrical work will be undertaken at Irkutsk, the Tikhomirov-NIIP will upgrade the Su-30MKI¡¯s existing NO-11M ¡®Bars¡¯ passive phased-array radar¡¯s performance and operating modes by incorporating a radar target extraction LRU. Once all this has been done, the two upgraded Su-30MKIs will be flown back to India to begin the weapons qualification test-firings, which will be jointly conducted by BrahMos Aerospace and the IAF.
And come 2014, UAC, together with Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) will begin upgrading the first 100 IAF Su-30MKIs by modifying their airframes to make them stealthy, converting the existing ¡®Bars¡¯ into an active phased-array radar, enhancing the situational awareness by incorporating active electronically scanned transmit/receive arrays on the aircraft¡¯s wings, and beefing up the defensive-aids suite by installing a combined radar/laser warning system and a missile approach warning system. Tikhomirov-NIIP had by last November begun laboratory-level tests of a ¡®Bars¡¯, which was fitted with an AESA array made up of X-band transmit/receive modules built by Istok JSC.
Since then, another two ¡®Bars¡¯ radars have been modified as part of the R&D phase, which will last until 2012, and will be followed by flight qualification a year later. Incidentally, Tikhomirov-NIIP has also developed the Irbis-E passive phased-array radar for the Su-35BM and will soon begin work on modifying the Irbis-E into an active phased-array radar, which will go on board the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA) that will be co-developed by UAC and HAL. In addition, both UAC and Tikhomirov-NIIP have come together to develop the ¡®smart skin¡¯ concept under which an AESA array¡¯s transmit/receive modules can be placed anywhere on board the Su-30MKI to generate the relevant radiation field required for achieving more than 180-degree field-of-view.
