Dear Mr. Tshering22,
You may have noticed that it was with misgivings that I commenced the unpleasant task of contradicting basic errors of fact and complete misunderstandings of the roles assigned to various players. This was in the interests of accuracy, not because I am a supporter of HAL. As a matter of fact, I am not; although external to that organisation, I had opportunities at close quarters to see the real flaws in that corporation, not the wholly fictitious ones that have been conjured up.
It is worth doing once; I did that in my earlier post, at a level of superficiality, in the hope that would dissuade you from your worst excesses.
It may be worth doing twice; I do so here at greater levels of detail, still in hope but increasingly fainter hope that you will use the information being given to you and do some work on your own. This is preferable to following popular journalists who have made a career of discovering inefficiency where none existed, of identifying culpability where none existed, of condemning bad design where design did not come into the picture. Your remarks in your previous post display the same lamentable lack of information that you displayed in your first, and it is clear that you neither know nor care to find out the facts, and that you prefer to go with your misinformation.
So be it. I present detailed facts in cases where you have presented mistakes in fact; and where you have made wholly untenable remarks, not sustainable in logic or by common sense, I shall endeavour to point them out to you.
A question of logic.
My intention is not to prove HAL employees, the vast majority of whom are technical staff and not administrators, as any superficial observer knows; it is to show that you are substantially, significantly wrong in your assessment of HAL capabilities.
Being reasonably knowledgeable about military matters due to curiousity is hardly a qualification, surely, to come to opinions about matters about which we appear to be completely ignorant. Nor does the other factor, knowledge by relationship, seem to be any more reasonable. In that case, any discussion on matters military must be vetted and passed by the one million plus Indians who are related to defence personnel.
Your lack of information will be presented item by item, either in this post, against your corresponding remarks below, or in subsequent posts, if they demand extended treatment.
A question of fact.
I remind you, once again, HAL was not set up to undertake original design and manufacture of aircraft. It was set up for maintenance, thereafter its role was shifted to contract manufacture of types adopted into the IAF. It is necessary to understand that India always undertook licensed manufacture, and has not violated the terms and conditions of its terms of trade in a single instance.
What does that mean?
It means that you have counted non-Indian agencies production under official or 'unofficial' license as a credit, and not counted HAL production at all!
It means that while HAL manufactured with official consent, and on payment of royalties in full, and with complete documentation and support, others did not.
When comparing manufacturing other people's designs, there are two stories, one, the Indian, that you have either deliberately or through ignorance of this process completely omitted from your account, and one, not Indian, that you have misrepresented as legitimate manufacture, when it merely amounted to extending the range of services permitted to make many copies from an initial small order.
Your first mistake is in saying HAL made nothing big in time for induction. If we are to take up the tale of comparison with Chinese manufacture, then we have on the credit side for HAL the following:
Folland Gnat (full manufacture, including body fabrication, component, sub-assembly and assembly fabrication, integration, trials and flight testing): 195 (until 1974)
HAL Ajeet (re-design of electronics improved hydraulics and controls, a better ejection seat, new avionics): 79 (until 1982)
Mikoyan MiG 21: 600 +
Sepecat Jaguar: 140 +
Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, India's leading aerospace agency, manufactured 140 Jaguars under the name Shamsher.
HT 2: 166
HJT 16 KIRAN: 190
A question of fact.
A truly stupid analysis; I am sorry, but it is difficult to ameliorate the stupidity inherent.
1. The entire design activity was in the hands of ADA;
2. This involved enormous technical steps, including design and development of flight control laws for aircraft of unstable flight characteristics; I am aware that the magnitude of this is completely lost on you, but you might like to consult any technically competent person. The LCA/Tejas flight control laws are entirely original, and have proven to be more ‘flyable’ than others, according to preliminary reports by test pilots;
3. Enormous and fundamental changes in direction were made by the IAF, and this has been commented on unfavourably by every external audit;
4. Critical components promised by suppliers, and facilities committed by service providers went under embargo and created huge delays, not by HAL;
J10 started before 1979, inducted in 1998, timeline 19 years, is what you quote to prove the heroic achievement of Chinese government agencies. Of course, other questions like the ones cited below are not to be considered, only the long march for a trifling 19 years, on time, according to you, Mr. Tshering:
A question of logic.
Should that question not be addressed to the IAF? The aircraft is ready for induction in all respects.
Logic.
What was Kurt Tank doing, designing an airframe, without specifying and identifying an engine? Was he Guggiaro or Karmann Ghia?
And it is all right for IAI to have designed the prototype J10s, but not all right to engage a world-renowned German designer, whom the Egyptians later engaged? It is then a triumph of native technology by our neighbours?
Fact.
It was never my intention to support government agencies, but to correct your mistakes, and to put your rant in perspective.
Your standard of analysis is indicated in this small instance, and that is why it was pointed out, that in one small set of four organisations, you managed to get one wrong.
You still have it wrong, because your original ran: “PLAAF, PLAF, USAF …” and so on; if you meant PLAF was PLAAF, how many times was it your intention to mention it?
Fact.
Let us not waffle, Mr. Tshering; there are reported to be 80 in service.
Logic.
Your level of understanding is truly fantastic.
I quote from a source that you are likely to use, more than other sources, at any rate:
In 1995, China secured a $2.5 billion production agreement which licensed China to build 200 Soviet-designed Sukhoi Su-27SK aircraft using Russian-supplied kits. Under the terms of the agreement, these aircraft would be outfitted with Russian avionics, radars and engines. However, only 95 of the original aircraft were delivered and the contact for the remaining 105 is still pending.
It is believed that Russia cancelled the arrangement in 2006 after it discovered that China had reverse-engineered the technology and was developing an indigenous version, the J-11B.
Try to understand what that means, Mr. Tshering. If it helps, you can take your shoes off, to allow your brains full play.
It means, leaving aside all other examples, the J-11A is the direct equivalent of the Su-30MKI, with three components changed:
• Fire control radar;
• Helmet-mounted system;
• Multi-function displays;
These are the same items which differ between the Su 27 and the Su 30 MKI.
Making (or, to use your very professional term, well befitting the aerospace expert that you wish to be in future, integration) the J11A is exactly, precisely the equivalent of assembling, or integrating, if you prefer, the Su 30MKI.
What are you thinking about?
Other changes include:
• Standardisation of the HUD (Head Up Display) consistent with those on the MiG 27 and Sepecat Jaguar fleets;
• Sagem GPS navigation system;
• The Israeli Litening targeting pod for laser-guided munitions;
• The DRDO Tarang Electronic Counter-Measure System;
The Su 30MKI was arguably more indigenised, more customised, than the J11A.
Fact.
This is not a match-up between Indian and Chinese organisations. There is no doubt that Chinese organisations have acquired technology, and productionised this acquired technology at a much faster rate than Indian ones have.
However, I present a comparative table below of two aircraft types, and invite you to pick out the one that is the copy and the one that was the original.
General characteristics
• Crew: 2 (1 student pilot and 1 instructor/official pilot, or 1 official pilot and 1 weapons systems officer)
• Crew: 2 pilots
• Length: 12.27 m ()
• Length: 11.49 m (37 ft 8 in)
• Wingspan: 9.48 m ()
• Wingspan: 9.72 m (31 ft 10 in)
• Height: 4.81 m ()
• Height: 4.76 m (15 ft 7 in)
• Empty weight: 4.96 t (6.5 t)
• Empty weight: 4,600 kg (10,141 lb)
• Max takeoff weight: 9.5 t ()
• Max takeoff weight: 6,500 kg (14,330 lb)
• Powerplant: 2× Ivchenko Progress AI-222K-25F afterburning turbofans
• Powerplant: 2× Klimov-Motor sich AI-222-25 turbofan, 21.58 kN (4,852 lbf) each
Fact.
Again, I am faced with indomitable, granite hard ignorance.
Everybody is aware of the facts. Everybody is aware that the IAF had made up its mind twenty years ago, and that GoI, NOT HAL, but the Ministry of Defence, was reluctant to take a decision.
Fact.
The Hottentot tribe of the Kalahari Desert counts 'One, two, many', and then repeats. Presumably your quantitative skills are of that order.
After omitting entirely the facts on one side, and listing a spurious set of facts on the other, you come to astonishing conclusions. We have here a new mathematical genius.
Regrettably, your arithmetic is as sound as your reasoning or your listing capacities: as we have already seen, neither is outstanding, nor is your math. Of the five achievements that you have mentioned, without taking one iota of credit from Chinese engineers and production staff, who have proved to be among the best in the world, independently of their screwdriver missions, two are licensed manufacture, in numbers far less than has been achieved by them, themselves, or even by HAL, two are developments of Israeli designs, productised, and one is a close copy of an existing Russian model.
However, you have still not finished with the Tejas.
Unfortunately for your forensic career, the design of the Tejas still has not become the responsibility of the HAL.
In addition, if you had been following the development cycle with the anxiety that all of us in the aerospace industry had been, you would have known that the excessive weight was the direct result of changes in the QSR. Ask the IAF why they changed the QSR so many times.
You may see for yourself how ridiculous your double vision is. Some things, when HAL does them are not even cited. But what is not even listed in the case of HAL is held in the balance against it when a non-Indian firm does it.
Logic.
Please do.
You did not ask my permission to make a fool of yourself earlier; why start now and set a bad precedent?
Logic.
Your point being?
You started by criticising a public sector organisation, on account of faults that were not its own. You now deny any comparison with the private sector of other countries, which did not have a comparable public sector organisation.
Very well.
To stop any future whining that you have been taken by surprise, or not permitted to present your views, let us take it on your lines.
Please go case by case
on the century series,
on the debacle of the F-105,
on the F111,
on the disaster of a gunless F4 Phantom and what happened when MiGs came visiting,
on the Starfighter (unless you have covered it already under century fighers), and, of course, leading everything else,
the F14.
Unless you believe that the F15 sweeps all before it. I cannot help hoping that you will say something fanboyish like that.
Apart from suggestio falsi, your other method of argument seems to be suppressio veri.
You totally overlook the extreme reluctance of any Indian private sector organisation to invest in technology. I might remind you of Hindustan Automobiles, of Premier and of Mahindra & Mahindra. With the honourable exception of Tatas, none of them lifted a little finger to help.
Logic.
Of course, apart from this stagey drama, you are aware of the huge back-current of technology from Israel back to the USA?
Fact.
For the responsibility for that, you must look elsewhere, within the Ministry of Defence Production, and within the IAF, in this instance.
You recognise that.
Let us be thankful for small mercies.
Yes, unfortunately.
Not only wrong, but blind, deaf and dumb.
HAL’s role is to pick up the finished design and make aircraft. The Russian equivalent and the Chinese equivalents are well-known. In all three industrial contexts, there is a design bureau, and there is a production facility. Only a thorough dunderhead would mix the roles of the two; that is what you have done, at great length.
As I have already explained, but unfortunately without your absorbing it, I come from the private sector side of the aerospace industry. There is no question of my being a sarkari apologist; it is a question of setting right a twit who has no knowledge of the facts on the ground.
Fact.
More twittery.
Israel has several thousand times our resources. Having collaborated with Israeli firms, I know from first-hand experience. They do not lack for money. Their prototypes are tried and tested live by their armed forces, then and there, in preference to anything else. Their funding is arranged on the US stock markets.
The difference between them and everybody else is that their soldiers, airmen and sailors become their technicians after their military service. In the case of senior staff, they become managers. The integration between their battle experience and their practices, doctrine, technological direction, adaptation and manufacture is superb. Yet they too failed – most famously in the case of the Merkava.
Logic.
If you wish to abandon our clear and salient image of ethical commercial dealings, you are welcome to advocate it. I doubt that you will find many takers.
Neither fact nor logic, merely incomprehensible.
This has nothing to do with either public sector or private sector, and nothing to do with HAL and SNECMA’s dispute.
Fact.
This is curious.
And in what way have you disproved it?
On the subject of engines, have you stopped to ask yourself why there is a problem with tank engines, with helicopter engines, with aircraft engines, but not with truck engines or with marine engines? A little in-depth study might illuminate your area of interest better than jumping up and down and parroting silly defence journalists.
Faff, neither logic nor fact.
Please don’t pontificate.
First, get your facts right. Or even the fundamentals.
Logic.
There are, in fact, many options. These are in the process not of being identified, but at a far more advanced level of being stabilised.
If you read either the detailed analyses I have presented, or even if you read more on the subjects that you have mentioned, you will get the answers to these great mysteries.
First, we will never match China; it has manufacturing skills which are unmatchable, and which the whole world has recognised and accepted, even those masters of production technology, the Americans, the British, the Germans, the French, the Italians, the Japanese, or the Koreans.
Second, we will probably be competent in design, once there is a clear and transparent political road-map. This has never been present. We lack any kind of strategic thinking. Unfortunately, your effusions are not a substitute, although that may come as a vast surprise to you.
Third, when you take the example of other hostile nations, I trust that you have identified the changes in their doctrine. If you have not, you will forever be trapped in the comparison of numbers, a futile exercise. Try to understand these factors before jumping into speech or writing broadsides.
Fourth, while you have been raving and ranting, significant shipbuilding capacity has gone private sector. Not one, but two separate corporations are significantly involved. Shipbuilding and naval or maritime architecture and design is carefully tended by selected organisations, some known, some not so known, and has been since 2000, to my personal knowledge.
So, too, aircraft manufacturing technology; I have watched with awe as a private sector organisation has taken steady steps towards capacity building, and is poised today to make a difference. It is not one of the major houses. The major houses themselves, through their dedicated defence subsidiaries, have made significant progress in the last ten years; it is a different picture from the earlier decades, when their failure to see the huge opportunities in defence misled them into short-sighted and self-serving but ultimately self-defeating strategic blind alleys.
The really yawning gap is in engine technology. Here, too, answers are known, but are not implemented, again due to a failure of political will.
At the end of the day, returning to aerospace and aviation, we have mastered glass cockpit technology; composites in manufacture; flight control law design and development; mission computer design, development, including operating system development, and programming; visuals for simulator building; simulators for combat simulation; a very wide range of electronics applicable in military applications; metal-forming for aviation and maritime applications; and a host of other applications. This was in the teeth of political opposition from a leadership that was pacifist in its policy and denied legitimacy to any kind of industrial research associated with the military.
Of the technologies I have listed above, I have been personally associated with three. I don't need to lean on the strength of my relatives in the military, or on the strength of my batchmates now at general or flag rank, to prove my credentials, but can afford to do so on my own strength.
It is with that confidence that I say, even while remaining a critic of HAL in other respects, that it is not an HAL problem, it is a national policy problem, and the answer lies within the Ministry of Defence Production or within the Air Force.
Think before you write further.
