IAF’s Su-30 MKI may get radar upgrade

[RPK]

IAF’s Su-30 MKI may get radar upgrade | Russia & India Report

High-level defence talks will be held between Indian and Russian officials in New Delhi this week, mainly focussing on the maintenance of India’s Russian-made arms and ammunitions.

Officials from Russia and India will discuss the upgradation of the radar of the Su-30 MKI, one of the most advanced fighter jets of the Indian Air Force (IAF), the Deccan Herald reported on its website. The officials will meet in Delhi on June 5-6, the paper added.


Indian indigenous missile successfully test-fired from Su-30MKI

The sides have already held a few rounds of initial discussions on the fighter jet, according to the paper. “We will demand further improvement in the radar system,” the paper quoted a source as saying

The Indian delegation will be headed by Defence Secretary R K Mathur and will have representatives from the India army, navy and air force, according to the report, which added that the Russian side will have representatives of the military industry and the government. Problems related to maintenance of Russian arms and ammunition will be discussed at the meetings.

The Deccan Herald added that the discussions come in the wake of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited saying there are critical problems in some of the Su-30 mission computers and head-up display systems. A HAL official had informed Irkut Corporation on multiple cases of “repeated failure of mission computer,” the paper said, adding that the head up display multi-function display too were blanked off in flight. Such problems were visible in two configurations of the aircraft.

HAL Chairman R K Tyagi told the paper that “very few aircraft reported the problem of mission computer failure and blanking-off HUD which was of initial batch.” He added, “The issue was intermittent in nature and related to old software version. The issue has been addressed by upgrading the software version by Russian side and by replacement of the mission computer and head up display wherever they have been found un-serviceable during ground checks. Till date no such incidence has been reported from any IAF base with upgraded software version.


Sukhoi to set up India maintenance facility for Su-30MKI

Sources tell RIR that the potential sale of Mi-35 helicopters to Pakistan will be taken up India’s defence secretary during the talks. Several media outlets reported that Russia lifted its embargo on sales of military equipment to India’s neighbour. Yesterday, the Rostec Chief Executive Sergei Chemezov clarified that there was no such ban in the first place. While a deal between Russia and Pakistan is not imminent, sources tell RIR that Moscow is merely looking at leveraging bargaining power with Delhi in future negotiations. “Russia will not risk the future of defence ties with India over one contract with Pakistan,” a source told RIR. “But if India can justify defence ties with the West and speak of national interests, what’s to stop the Russians,” the source close to this week’s defence talks in Delhi, added.

 

[he-man]

thank god,,,,,time to get rid of old and weary n011m bars

 

[AUSTERLITZ]

thank god,,,,,time to get rid of old and weary n011m bars

Whats ur choice as replacement?

 

[he-man]

Whats ur choice as replacement?

aesa.
we have really no choice except the one being made for pakfa i.e n036 aesa.
if not then it will take some years to get a custom made aesa for mki and will only delay the things further.

if not aesa then at least get the irbis-e pesa of su-35 which i think highly unlikely

 

[sancho]

thank god,,,,,time to get rid of old and weary n011m bars

Oh man, you really can't go beyond your biased opionion of the MKI do you? Btw, who told you that they get rid of the BARS? They are talking about upgrade of the radar, which either means they go for the possible change to an AESA version of the BARS, or to upgrade the BARS PESA to the IRBIS-E level of capabilities. The latter is what the manufacturer of the BARS is proposing as a stop gap solution, to upgrade MKIs later with an AESA developed from the FGFA AESA.
So it's highly likely that IAF will remain with the BARS for quiet some time and for good reasons, no matter if you like it or not.

 

[he-man]

Oh man, you really can't go beyond your biased opionion of the MKI do you? Btw, who told you that they get rid of the BARS? They are talking about upgrade of the radar, which either means they go for the possible change to an AESA version of the BARS, or to upgrade the BARS PESA to the IRBIS-E level of capabilities. The latter is what the manufacturer of the BARS is proposing as a stop gap solution, to upgrade MKIs later with an AESA developed from the FGFA AESA.
So it's highly likely that IAF will remain with the BARS for quiet some time and for good reasons, no matter if you like it or not.

u are overestimating bars as usual,,,we had this discussion a while ago and i will state gain for ur convenience.
bars is old and weary and needs urgent upgrade.

on ur upgrading bars to irbis e level,,,,that won't happen.

either we will get full replacement with irbis-e which looks like a stupid option to me as apart from range irbis e offers nothing else over bars or we will get n036 or n079 whatever u call it.

the problem is that n036 production is too slow at the moment,also it hasen't even finished trials and after it does the first priority will be pakfa so i am not sure on the timeline of the said upgrade.

The only reason u think bars is good is that u are not looking at future where chinese are gonna change all their radars to aesa as soon as they complete the testing(like j-10b aesa for example).They have no problem on tech as their aesa will be indigenous and certainly no problem wrt to money and manufacturing capability.

Similarly the irst of mki is old,so are the bloody al-31f engine with shitty tbo and no fadec.
So is the seemingly unsolvable problem of huge rcs which won't be reduced dramatically with use of radar adsorbent paint only as many believe(lol).

The truth is mki was good at the time we acquired it around 2000's but at the moment untill modernized its just an average overall fighter with good close combat capabilities.

On the other hand if it gets the engine of su-35s,irst of su-35 s and an aesa then it increases the capability manyfolds and will be a true 4.5 gen fighter.

 

[sancho]

we had this discussion a while ago and i will state gain for ur convenience.
bars is old and weary and needs urgent upgrade.

Yes and I proved several of your estimates to be wrong back then, while your only argument against it now, or the current MKI as a whole is just the age. You ignore however that it is the most advanced radar and fighter around India today. So the situation is by far not as bad as you show it, at least in our threat perception and against our opponents.

on ur upgrading bars to irbis e level,,,,that won't happen

That's just your "opionion", which is not based on anything. The IRBIS-E was developed based on the BARS, which makes similar upgrades nothing but logical and probably the most cost-effective upgrade choice at the moment. As you might have noticed, IAF already made a deal for follow orders of the AL 31FP engine (possibly with some upgrades) and not for the 117S of the Su 35, which tells us that they don't want to change everything, but to increase the capability of the existing stuff. So if they are ok with PESA, they will surely opt for the upgrade of the BARS rather then integrating the IRBIS-E from scratch.

The only reason u think bars is good is that u are not looking at future where chinese are gonna change all their radars to aesa as soon as they complete the testing

As I already showed you in the comparison to RBE 2 AESA, my opinion about BARS is based on actual facts and capabilities, not only on the believe that AESA = better than PESA in every aspect, that you sadly still have. Lets assume the J10B comes with an AESA against an upgraded BARS PESA, who will most likely have the longer detection range, who will be able to scan far wider aera, who will be able to detect more targets at the same time, who can engage more targets at the same time???
All questions that needs to be answered before you can say the one radar offers an advantage over the other, but you completely ignore these things and just say that the J10 with AESA must be better, because it is AESA, but that's simply not true.

 

[he-man]

Yes and I proved several of your estimates to be wrong back then, while your only argument against it now, or the current MKI as a whole is just the age. You ignore however that it is the most advanced radar and fighter around India today. So the situation is by far not as bad as you show it, at least in our threat perception and against our opponents.



That's just your "opionion", which is not based on anything. The IRBIS-E was developed based on the BARS, which makes similar upgrades nothing but logical and probably the most cost-effective upgrade choice at the moment. As you might have noticed, IAF already made a deal for follow orders of the AL 31FP engine (possibly with some upgrades) and not for the 117S of the Su 35, which tells us that they don't want to change everything, but to increase the capability of the existing stuff. So if they are ok with PESA, they will surely opt for the upgrade of the BARS rather then integrating the IRBIS-E from scratch.



As I already showed you in the comparison to RBE 2 AESA, my opinion about BARS is based on actual facts and capabilities, not only on the believe that AESA = better than PESA in every aspect, that you sadly still have. Lets assume the J10B comes with an AESA against an upgraded BARS PESA, who will most likely have the longer detection range, who will be able to scan far wider aera, who will be able to detect more targets at the same time, who can engage more targets at the same time???
All questions that needs to be answered before you can say the one radar offers an advantage over the other, but you completely ignore these things and just say that the J10 with AESA must be better, because it is AESA, but that's simply not true.

u need to get some serious info on whats pesa and whats aesa.

in any comparison with similar power an aesa will always trump a pesa,its not even a competition here.
on upgraded bars vs j-10b aesa .................j-10b aesa is likely to have a range of at least 150-200 km at least looking at the size of nose and within that range it will indeed trump irbis e or any bars pesa in ecm,jamming,noise levels etc proving far superior on any front u wish to take.

the only advantage irbis e may have is detection range which is immaterial as we are not gonna use a missile with 200-300 km for a fighter jet target.

On ur point regarding bars,indeed its the most advanced radar in indian inventory and indian radars are overall pretty shitty whether u take zhuk-me of mig-29 which is a complete joke or rdy-2 which will come with mirage 2000 upgrade which is an equally disappointing radar for a frontline fighter.

Whether u believe it or not pesa is plain inferior to an aesa,,,the earlier we admit it,the better off we are