ashok321
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Carrier aircraft muddle
Trust the Indian armed services to make it difficult for themselves and the country at every turn. There’s a big muddle ahead, this time because the Indian Navy decided to issue an RFI (Request for Information) from suppliers for 57 twin-engined aircraft for its indigenous carriers, thereby shunting the deprioritizing naval Tejas in its plans. This because the naval brass decided that the weight problem — some one ton over mark — couldn’t be solved in time for it to grace the deck of the IAC-1 Vikrant by when it is commissioned in 2021-22, and that this requirement has, therefore, to be met by imports.
The two aircraft in the fray are the Boeing F-/A-18 E/F Super Hornet — the main carrier plane with foldable wings of the US Navy until it is progressively replaced by the F-35C, and the Sea Gripen that SAAB had offered jointly to develop with India in December 2015 at a time when the Navy was committed to the Tejas. Two years later the navalized Gripen prototype is ready and the Indian Navy has soured on the home-grown LCA.
If there’s a problem with a new aircraft what do more advanced, strategic-minded, not habituated to the easy import option do? Well, take the F-35C. After repeated take-offs, the US Navy discovered a serious design flaw that made the catapult-assisted takeoffs so rough and so disoriented the pilots just when the aircraft is getting airborne as to potential prove fatal. The redesign, it is estimated will take several years, and the rectified plane won’t be available until 2020 or later.
The US Navy tasked its ‘Red Team’ to work on the design modification and get the improved aircraft for trials fastest. Couldn’t the Indian Navy had constituted its own Red Team to work intensively with the LCA design team to trim its weight? This was not feasible for two reasons: (1) A personal mountain of a reason — bad blood between the lead test pilot in the naval LCA program, Cmde Jaydeep Maolankar, and Rear Admiral Surendra Ahuja, Assistant Controller Carrier Project and Assistant Controller Warship Production and Acquisition at NHQ.
By all accounts, Maolankar is a top rate flier dedicated to the Tejas but Ahuja, with no flying experience, is nearer the seat of power and who, perhaps, to spite Maolankar, a batch mate, whose failure to make it to the next rank — however that was managed — was the talk in naval circles, convinced the naval brass that the LCA was no-go, and that its prospects are bleak, whence the Navy’s formal rejection of the Tejas.
On such personal rivalries hang the fate of nations striving to be self-sufficient in armaments! And (2) It would mean giving up on a chance to import another foreign aircraft and forego all the goodies in train. Easier then for the Indian Navy to give up on the Tejas. Having desperately hunted for excuses to reject it, Ahuja finally found it in the aircraft’s excess weight and, rather than proposing remedial measures and doubling in on the navy’s commitment and investment in an Indian designed and developed carrier aircraft, recommended ditching the naval LCA.
Should the Modi government and MOD, assuming Arun Jaitley tomorrow takes over fully as Defence Minister, not instruct the Navy to rethink the import decision? Nah. Jaitley doesn’t know the business end of an aircraft if it bumped him, even less the business end of aircraft development or the value of fostering indigenous aircraft design and development capability. Then again, when have the military services caviled from tilting always and every time toward expensive foreign imports and pushing the nation deeper into the military hardware import hole?
Why expensive? Because 57 is not a large enough number of aircraft to interest half-way profit-driven foreign suppliers, and certainly not Boeing, especially not if in trying to service PM Modi’s flagship ‘Make in India’ program it is also required to make it in India which, in terms of economies of scale makes no sense to anybody. And buying this small lot of aircraft will mean the country paying through its nose for them.
The reason the Swedish SAAB Company will be happy to produce the Sea Gripen in India is because it is also very confident about selling some 200 of its air force variant in competition to the F-16 in the new single-engined aircraft to equip the IAF with attractive talk of fully transferring to India “all source codes” — the design-wise know-why element. But there’s yet another problem. Assuming the Sea Gripen is generally of the same size as the air force variant, then this aircraft, as stalwart naval persons will tell you, will be too big for the lifts in the IACs that carry the planes on to the deck. But SAAB will reconfigure the Sea Gripen because of the big IAF order it hopes to bag. Because then it makes economic sense. Boeing would be interested too if the IAF picked the F-18 for its fleet, except the Boeing is unlikely to onpass source codes and other ‘black box’ technologies to any Indian private sector company or public sector firm, like HAL. Besides, it will be the 2-engined oddity in a single-engined aircraft buy by the IAF.
Except, here’s how Washington will turn the tourniquet to prevent the Swedes from bagging the IAF deal. Ashley Tellis, of Carnegie Washington, the prime mover of American aircraft to Indian armed services, Indian MOD and the only foreigner (albeit of Mumbai origin) — as I revealed in a piece I wrote last year and on this blog (look up!) to have the readiest access imaginable to Prime Minister Modi, has made this plain. In a recent article, he mentioned the fact that between 40% and 60% of the Gripen is composed of components, sub-assemblies and assemblies, including the power plant, sourced from America, that will need US government clearance! Does anybody in Stockholm or in Delhi really believe Gripen has an easy run into the IAF fleet, leave alone the Vikrant deck?
Trust the Indian armed services to make it difficult for themselves and the country at every turn. There’s a big muddle ahead, this time because the Indian Navy decided to issue an RFI (Request for Information) from suppliers for 57 twin-engined aircraft for its indigenous carriers, thereby shunting the deprioritizing naval Tejas in its plans. This because the naval brass decided that the weight problem — some one ton over mark — couldn’t be solved in time for it to grace the deck of the IAC-1 Vikrant by when it is commissioned in 2021-22, and that this requirement has, therefore, to be met by imports.
The two aircraft in the fray are the Boeing F-/A-18 E/F Super Hornet — the main carrier plane with foldable wings of the US Navy until it is progressively replaced by the F-35C, and the Sea Gripen that SAAB had offered jointly to develop with India in December 2015 at a time when the Navy was committed to the Tejas. Two years later the navalized Gripen prototype is ready and the Indian Navy has soured on the home-grown LCA.
If there’s a problem with a new aircraft what do more advanced, strategic-minded, not habituated to the easy import option do? Well, take the F-35C. After repeated take-offs, the US Navy discovered a serious design flaw that made the catapult-assisted takeoffs so rough and so disoriented the pilots just when the aircraft is getting airborne as to potential prove fatal. The redesign, it is estimated will take several years, and the rectified plane won’t be available until 2020 or later.
The US Navy tasked its ‘Red Team’ to work on the design modification and get the improved aircraft for trials fastest. Couldn’t the Indian Navy had constituted its own Red Team to work intensively with the LCA design team to trim its weight? This was not feasible for two reasons: (1) A personal mountain of a reason — bad blood between the lead test pilot in the naval LCA program, Cmde Jaydeep Maolankar, and Rear Admiral Surendra Ahuja, Assistant Controller Carrier Project and Assistant Controller Warship Production and Acquisition at NHQ.
By all accounts, Maolankar is a top rate flier dedicated to the Tejas but Ahuja, with no flying experience, is nearer the seat of power and who, perhaps, to spite Maolankar, a batch mate, whose failure to make it to the next rank — however that was managed — was the talk in naval circles, convinced the naval brass that the LCA was no-go, and that its prospects are bleak, whence the Navy’s formal rejection of the Tejas.
On such personal rivalries hang the fate of nations striving to be self-sufficient in armaments! And (2) It would mean giving up on a chance to import another foreign aircraft and forego all the goodies in train. Easier then for the Indian Navy to give up on the Tejas. Having desperately hunted for excuses to reject it, Ahuja finally found it in the aircraft’s excess weight and, rather than proposing remedial measures and doubling in on the navy’s commitment and investment in an Indian designed and developed carrier aircraft, recommended ditching the naval LCA.
Should the Modi government and MOD, assuming Arun Jaitley tomorrow takes over fully as Defence Minister, not instruct the Navy to rethink the import decision? Nah. Jaitley doesn’t know the business end of an aircraft if it bumped him, even less the business end of aircraft development or the value of fostering indigenous aircraft design and development capability. Then again, when have the military services caviled from tilting always and every time toward expensive foreign imports and pushing the nation deeper into the military hardware import hole?
Why expensive? Because 57 is not a large enough number of aircraft to interest half-way profit-driven foreign suppliers, and certainly not Boeing, especially not if in trying to service PM Modi’s flagship ‘Make in India’ program it is also required to make it in India which, in terms of economies of scale makes no sense to anybody. And buying this small lot of aircraft will mean the country paying through its nose for them.
The reason the Swedish SAAB Company will be happy to produce the Sea Gripen in India is because it is also very confident about selling some 200 of its air force variant in competition to the F-16 in the new single-engined aircraft to equip the IAF with attractive talk of fully transferring to India “all source codes” — the design-wise know-why element. But there’s yet another problem. Assuming the Sea Gripen is generally of the same size as the air force variant, then this aircraft, as stalwart naval persons will tell you, will be too big for the lifts in the IACs that carry the planes on to the deck. But SAAB will reconfigure the Sea Gripen because of the big IAF order it hopes to bag. Because then it makes economic sense. Boeing would be interested too if the IAF picked the F-18 for its fleet, except the Boeing is unlikely to onpass source codes and other ‘black box’ technologies to any Indian private sector company or public sector firm, like HAL. Besides, it will be the 2-engined oddity in a single-engined aircraft buy by the IAF.
Except, here’s how Washington will turn the tourniquet to prevent the Swedes from bagging the IAF deal. Ashley Tellis, of Carnegie Washington, the prime mover of American aircraft to Indian armed services, Indian MOD and the only foreigner (albeit of Mumbai origin) — as I revealed in a piece I wrote last year and on this blog (look up!) to have the readiest access imaginable to Prime Minister Modi, has made this plain. In a recent article, he mentioned the fact that between 40% and 60% of the Gripen is composed of components, sub-assemblies and assemblies, including the power plant, sourced from America, that will need US government clearance! Does anybody in Stockholm or in Delhi really believe Gripen has an easy run into the IAF fleet, leave alone the Vikrant deck?
