Indian Air Force - Exercises Discussions

[Munir]

Please look at the title of the topic, The exercises were long over. When Indians
replied with proper sources you have started to complain. This was not any anti-pak topic.

Sure the indians are super.

NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 12: It is the Defence Research and Development Organisation’s most prestigious undertaking. Yet the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP) remains a venture matchless for its repeated and expensive failures.

Of the five missile families that the DRDO announced at the IGMDP launch in July 1983, two ballistic missiles, the tactical Prithvi and long-range Agni, have been inducted into the Services. But investigation by The Indian Express reveals that even these are far from operational readiness. Among the other three missiles, the situation is worse.

DRDO claims its first success, Prithvi-I, is fully operational. However, the missiles were forced upon the Army even before crucial terminal accuracy trials were complete, according to a 2003 report by one of DRDO’s own top scientists. Even now, despite DRDO’s claims, the Army does not rely on the Prithvi as an effective deterrent and cannot do so unless serious technological issues affecting launch preparedness are resolved.

Former deputy director of the Prithvi project and now DRDO’s chief controller of missiles and strategic systems Dr V K Saraswat’s report RCI/PGT/PGM/1 admits: “Accuracy of missiles like Prithvi is acceptable in surface-to-surface theatre role, but precision strike without collateral damage is not possible with this system.”

Agni-I and Agni-II, the only strategic delivery systems in the Army’s arsenal, are considered risky. DRDO has told the Parliamentary panel, in testimonies available to The Indian Express, that the missiles have been successfully tested five times. What it conveniently leaves unsaid is the fact that this is out of at least 10 tests. Either way, the Army feels a handful of tests is not enough to prove a missile’s worth.

The Agni-III, which plunged into the sea after just five minutes of flight in July, will be tested again only towards mid-2007 as the teams at DRDL and the Integrated Test Range in Chandipur try to unravel the disaster.

As for the remaining three, anti-missile system Trishul is a closed chapter proving to be only a technology demonstrator, by former Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s own recent admission, after it was decided that persistent beam guidance glitches could not be put behind the project.

Even though the system’s radar is ready and functional, the Trishul team has never been able to correct the missile’s flawed trajectory — in all tests it has escaped out of its envelope. The project’s manpower has already been distributed among PSU Bharat Dynamics Ltd in Hyderabad, the Indo-Israeli Barak-II next generation missile project, the Project Nag and the submarine-launched missile, designated K-15.

A notional one-year extension granted to the project till December 2007, after hectic lobbying, is being seen as an outrage by the Army and Navy.

The Akash medium range surface-to-air missile, which DRDO publicly claims “is in the process of induction” will, according to the Ministry in testimony to a Parliamentary Standing Committee, only begin Phase-II user trials in December on a T-72 platform, a change that could pile up the massive time overrun further.

An exasperated IAF, which calls Phase-I user trials unsatisfactory, has decided to buy Israeli Spyder missile systems instead.

Realisation of the ramjet propulsion system has crippled the Akash programme, which continues to flounder when the missile is fired at its ceiling range of 25 to 27 km. The IAF, in fact, has certified the missile to a range of just 16-18-km, virtually declaring it a dud at maximum capacity. Officers in the IAF fear the Akash may go the Trishul way, but Natarajan claims: “The Akash missile defence system has been successful.”

The third missile, the anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) Nag, which DRDO brags as an “imminent success,” has not been accepted by the Army. After 57 flight trials, it has encountered unforeseen problems with its Imaging Infrared (IIR) seeker, rendering it inaccurate until the seeker is properly miniaturized for use. User trials are slated for June-December 2007. Saraswat’s report calls for integrating Nag’s seeker with Prithvi to make the latter a precision-guided munition (PGM) but that hasn’t worked either, since the Nag’s seeker is far from ready.

The result: After over two decades of research in seeker technology and expenditure of upto an estimated Rs 800 crore, all Indian missiles, even the Indo-Russian BrahMos,fly with foreign seekers. This is especially troubling since the North Korean and Chinese missiles are known to fly with far superior terminal guidance technologies.

The IGMDP should have wrapped up each of the projects by December 1995 using Rs 388.83 crore, but it got a 10-year extension from the then Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao after the then DRDO chief APJ Abdul Kalam managed to convince him that only a two-three year extension was not acceptable. Its revised funding: Rs 1771.43 crore, a budgetary overrun of Rs 1,382.6 crore. The time line has been further extended to December 2007 under the current chief M Natarajan.

“The Akash was to come at a certain time, and it didn’t. I had to change everything to make up for the delay.”
Air Chief Marshal SP Tyagi

“It was a troubling scenario. On the one hand, DRDO assured us of Trishul’s success, and on the other our Western fleet was sitting completely vulnerable to a Pak missile attack.”
Admiral Sushil Kumar (retd)

 

[Munir]

Then we know Arjuns fate...

And here we have the other imaginative world of the superpower...

XPRESS INVESTIGATION: DELAYED RESEARCH, DERAILED ORGANISATION PART FOUR 23 yrs and first fighter aircraft hasn’t taken off
AMITAV RANJAN / Siv AroorPosted online: Wednesday, November 15, 2006 at 0000 hrs Print EmailLCA: By its new deadline 2010 (thrice revised), project would have cost Rs 4000 crore extra; radar, engine still not in place, IAF says it’s not ready to certify LCA’s technology until 2008 clearance
New Delhi, November 14: At its last meeting in December 2005, the General Body of the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA), the society developing the indigenous Light Combat Aircraft with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, recorded one fact: the Indian Air Force, despite official plans to ultimately buy 220 LCAs, would order only 20 aircraft.


The IAF had more than a reason.

According to latest official figures that will shortly be tabled by the Standing Committee on Defence in a report for Parliament, available with The Indian Express, DRDO’s 23-year-old indigenous fighter aircraft programme, taken as a whole — including the radar, jet engine and Naval variant — would have wiped away a minimum of Rs 9444.5 crore by 2010. Aggregate cost over-run: Rs 4,094 crore. Delay: 12.5 years and counting.

By DRDO’s own testimony in June to the same committee, there are still “certain complexities,” although it claims it will produce the 20 LCAs on order from the IAF by December 2011. But that would still be understandable if the LCA was in any way ready.

Five months after the ADA meeting, Air chief S P Tyagi communicated in no uncertain terms to then Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee that his force could not depend on the programme in the short term. Shortly thereafter, he told The Indian Express: “We have to see if it is a suitably modern aircraft when it is complete. Right now we just cannot take any decisions. We can only wait for initial operational clearance (in 2008).”

The implication: the IAF is not sure if the LCA would have slipped down a few generations by the time it’s inducted. But the Standing Committee only had this to say: “The Committee are constrained to note that, keeping in view the ever-increasing delay in operational clearance of LCA, early induction of the same as IAF squadrons seems to be an unrealistic proposition.”

Just how unrealistic it is is something that has come to characterize the LCA programme ever since its inception in August 1983, and culminating now in a gravely unready fighter aircraft that the IAF could have no choice but to induct in large numbers from 2012.



Consider the following: Despite a battery of nine test pilots who have been embedded with the LCA programme, the IAF has refused to officially certify any technological aspect of the LCA apart from its structural strength, until initial operational clearance (IOC). Air Headquarters said so, in a written reply to this newspaper. The clearance should have been achieved by 2007 but its new schedule is 2008.

After a four-year wait following the rollout of the LCA technology demonstrator in 1997 for a first flight, former Air chief S Krishnaswamy made out an official case in 2003 for a “limited series induction” of the aircraft to give the IAF a chance to familiarize itself. He told The Indian Express, “The LCA is not full in any way, each prototype is different. I was a staunch supporter of indigenisation but am also very critical. How long can you keep on developing a product?”

The eight promised Limited Series Production fighters, envisaged as a part of the Rs 3,301.78 crore second phase of the programme, are nowhere in sight. The LCA, which should have undergone weapons trials by 2003, will now only undergo “dummy” trials in December 2007 according to DRDO chief M Natarajan, putting a big question mark on the possibility of IOC by 2008.

The real problem: the HAL-DRDO multi-mode radar, the very brain that will guide the LCA’s weapons, is not ready. After spending Rs 166.8 crore since 1997, HAL has decided to bring in a foreign technical partner to bail it out. The radar has been tested on an HS-748 Avro, but persistent problems with software and its signal processor have forced HAL and DRDO to admit their failure.

DRDO has justified the delays and their impact on the IAF’s preparedness by pointing to a revision of the development strategy because of a foreign exchange shortage in the 1990s, US sanctions, re-designing composite wings for weapon definition after January 2004 and extensive on-ground and independent evaluation.

After a cost and time overrun of Rs 2,456 crore and 13 years since 1996, DRDO admitted to the Standing Committee in June that it could complete the Kaveri engine only under a foreign joint venture. Problems that have crippled the Kaveri, according to the latest DRDO testimony, include critical glitches in aerodynamic, aero-mechanical, combustion and structural integrity.

Most significantly, DRDO has admitted to the Committee that to improve performance and safety issues, a JV could be attempted. Former DRDO chief V K Aatre said: “When I retired (in August 2004), there were some loose ends in the programme involving the radar and jet engine. But I am surprised they have still not been resolved.”

The DRDO was pulled up in January by the Standing Committee to explain how the LCA’s delays would impact the IAF’s modernization. Their reply: “IAF only can state the possible impact of delay on modernization exclusively due to LCA.”

But at Air HQ, an unofficial and approximate damage analysis of the LCA’s delay, shared with The Indian Express, is to the tune of Rs 11,440 crore in forced upgrades (some variants of the MiG-21 that the LCA was to replace will be forced to serve till 2019-2021 at least) and stop-gap acquisitions.

This does not include the purchase of 126 fighters potentially worth Rs 30,000 crore that the IAF will shortly begin an acquisition process for. In an unusual move, the Naval LCA will use air data systems from Russia’s state-owned Rosobornexport, which will also create a shore-based test facility for the Rs 948.90 crore development. MiG Corporation will conduct a design review and be DRDO’s chief consultant.

LCA: By its new deadline 2010 (thrice revised), project would have cost Rs 4000 crore extra; radar, engine still not in place, IAF says it’s not ready to certify LCA’s technology until 2008 clearance
New Delhi, November 14:

Leaves the reaction to the beating of USAF... Well if the AFM tells that Mig21 planes are more on the ground then even a low cost airforce would achieve then surely IAF would beat the hell out others...

 

[Goodperson]

I thought you were discussing regarding the topic , How convineintly you changed the topic no wonder the thread will degrade you start changing the context.

It looks so pathetic hearing that IAF would swoop USAF. Somehow the forum degrades towards BRF level. On every forum where Indians are acting like virusses the forum ends like a crappy, onesided, untrue and arrogant media.

It happened with airforcesmonthly forum and now even here...

 

[Munir]

Calling yourself goodperson doesn't mean you are the good poster. If people tend to promote fake reality (India being superpower and beating USAF) then we can continue laughing. Get a grip. Indian products do not shine even with foreign assistance. Indian planes do not fly as often as BRF or Keymag doggies promote and to be honest... I deeply think that the Indian press with so called win over USAF is also just Bollywood reality.

I do not haev to show you evidence cause you present unrealistic biassed onesided view.

 

[Goodperson]

Calling yourself goodperson doesn't mean you are the good poster. If people tend to promote fake reality (India being superpower and beating USAF) then we can continue laughing. Get a grip. Indian products do not shine even with foreign assistance. Indian planes do not fly as often as BRF or Keymag doggies promote and to be honest... I deeply think that the Indian press with so called win over USAF is also just Bollywood reality.

I do not haev to show you evidence cause you present unrealistic biassed onesided view.

Do not go personal dude, I know you from PDF you were Mod there.
By the sticking to the Topic is the normal forum ettiqates.

BTW USAF conducted exercise with IAF and IAF got appreciation from there Pilots Pakistan should not be anyways concerned about the results. Anyone who is reading posts can judge who is biased.

 

[Munir]

Do not go personal dude, I know you from PDF you were Mod there.
By the sticking to the Topic is the normal forum ettiqates.

BTW USAF conducted exercise with IAF and IAF got appreciation from there Pilots Pakistan should not be anyways concerned about the results. Anyone who is reading posts can judge who is biased.

Dude? Please. Talking about etiquettes....

Wherever you know me doesn't matter. I am here therefore I am.

If the topic is purely imagination then sticking to that might be intresting for daydreamers. In reality it is nothing more then waste of bandwith.

Every pilot thinks his plane is the best. Telling here that IAF beated USAF and thinking it is objective is pathetic. I showed you more then a few Indian products. We know how Indians on the net takl about them. We know the reality. Same about your pathetic topic. Either give real info or stop replying.

 

[Goodperson]

I did not create the topic Yes this topic is pure imagination be Adnan and the topic starter since it was related to IAF I replied. Read my replies
I cannot force you to read them.

If you want to prove it otherwise its acceptable but prove with sources. I should not bother whom i am replying I normally reply to posts contents.

 

[Munir]

Then we can conclude and close this topic by saying that IAF will never win over USA. The tests was biassed cause US needed to secure funding and the F15's were seriously handicapped.

 

[Contrarian]

Then we can conclude and close this topic by saying that IAF will never win over USA. The tests was biassed cause US needed to secure funding and the F15's were seriously handicapped.

We can THUS conclude and close this topic by saying that though the IAF did not and will not win any war against USAF in the forseable, they did manage to shock the USAF pilots with their skills who had come here seriously underestimating the Indian pilots and their AF. They had expected a third world, undertrained AF with planes in bad conditions on the lines of the old soviet af, and they got a rude awakening w.r.t that assumption. Thats all. Thankyou.

 

[vnomad]

Then we can conclude and close this topic by saying that IAF will never win over USA. The tests was biassed cause US needed to secure funding and the F15's were seriously handicapped.

The aim of joint-exercises is never to test the AFs against each other. The objective is to familiarize yourself with each others tactics and operating systems. They also train for future joint operations. Why do you think the Americans were requested to limit the engagement range simulated for their AMRAAMs? Obviously because Pakistan back then didn't have Amraams. It was never USAF vs IAF. The aim was to gain knowledge.

 

[Munir]

The aim of joint-exercises is never to test the AFs against each other. The objective is to familiarize yourself with each others tactics and operating systems. They also train for future joint operations. Why do you think the Americans were requested to limit the engagement range simulated for their AMRAAMs? Obviously because Pakistan back then didn't have Amraams. It was never USAF vs IAF. The aim was to gain knowledge.

It was just to get funding for F22. The rest of the conclusions... Well, Pakistan doesn't have F15's either... They could easily get F16a/b up there for training cause those planes are readied for Pakistan and right now flying aggressor squadrons.

All the Indian press is talking about beating USAF and now a poster tells us it is all about training joint operations? The longer this topic becomes the more I see that onesided info or personal ideas are seen as reality.

 

[vnomad]

It was just to get funding for F22. The rest of the conclusions... Well, Pakistan doesn't have F15's either... They could easily get F16a/b up there for training cause those planes are readied for Pakistan and right now flying aggressor squadrons.

All the Indian press is talking about beating USAF and now a poster tells us it is all about training joint operations? The longer this topic becomes the more I see that onesided info or personal ideas are seen as reality.

The Indian press told the public what they wanted to hear. And the aim of joint exercises is to familiarize yourself with the others operations. That is known to everybody.

 

[Munir]

The Indian press told the public what they wanted to hear. And the aim of joint exercises is to familiarize yourself with the others operations. That is known to everybody.

Indian webnights post wat the want to hear. The fact that US funding for F22 was in danger and the way to get that altered was to show negative results for USA by training with "latest" Russian opponents (Bison with BVR/Su30)... Every engineer can understand the ridiculous parameters the F15 had to obey. But the political agenda was pretty obvious and clear to everybody except Indian posters/Indian press...

The fun part is that keymag forum has SOC and Harry as mod and their comment towards China and Pakistan are that onesided that one can conclude that this forum is way above that one... That should be something we should remember...

 

[Bull]

USAF mighthave been restricted by the request of IAF so that they can mock the PAF/
And also it was not abt IAF beating USAF or viceversa,it was a DACT.

 

[Goodperson]

Then we can conclude and close this topic by saying that IAF will never win over USA. The tests was biassed cause US needed to secure funding and the F15's were seriously handicapped.

We conclude IAF may never win over US, But it did surprise US in Cope India exercises.