LCA MK2 a disaster waiting to happen!

[Icewolf]

By this rate, world will have 10th gen fighters before India finishes its 3rd gen LCA....

 

[dray]

We should have bought the Mirage production line here. Now we are left with some Mig29s, Mirages, and Sukhois, and some Jaguars for A2G role, we can safely discount other series of Migs. And our neighbors are becoming more aggressive with each passing day.

Now what? Sign the damn Rafale deal quickly with more aircrafts directly from France as soon as possible, and induct the LCA MK1 without anymore fuss, and open multiple production lines to support the falling Mig21s!!

But please don't make it a fish market with more and more opinions without any action, opinions won't fight the war for us.

 

[Capt.Popeye]

Parvez Khokhar is just stating the obvious which is know to most enthusiasts of LCA.

Old engine dint work, new engine brought in, Air frame not suitable, not enough power, newer engine, modification of airframe to accommodate that ...voila MK2.

Only valid input was about maintenance and that should have been addressed by IAF via requirements, Long before the specs. were frozen.

IAF is squarely responsible for not being part of the design bureau or design review. DRDO did the best it could under the circumstances. HAL too should have been part of the PDR, CDR, maybe it was. But it is always the buyers responsibility. IAF should have been the coordinating body insisting on bringing all the relevant partners into the picture. A responsibility they abdicated (for whatever reasons). Again they can learn a few lessons from IN.

ADA with no experience in developing such a complex program did a Fantastic job. Dr. Kota Harinarayana did a fantastic job with Program Management too. I don't know how much exp. you have in design & development, but it is not like normal Proj. Mgmt.

IIM will be lucky if they get to learn from such real life R&D project. Don't be so keen to dismiss their incredible effort.

Parvez Khokhar article brings nothing new into the debate except stating the obvious. No one knows what is the current status of the Mk2 so no one can really say when it will be ready, except for the people who are actually building it. Its as simple as that. No one else gets to have their say in it.

Again your sheer lack of information is showing through that post.

1.Maintenance or more correctly speaking "Maintainability" ought to be built into the Design itself and by the Designer. Now who ist the Designer in this case? Is it the IAF? And its not even HAL......
2.The DRDO did not allow the IAF to even monitor the project. While sucessive RM's got taken in by the 'mantra of indigenisation' repeatedly sung by DRDO to allow any other 'third-party monitoring' of the project.
3.I will avoid speaking about Kota Harinarayana's qualities here, and for obvious reasons. But I'll just remind you that HAL Ozhar (where he used to be) was happy to see his back. Why? Is/Was HAL an entusiastic and full participant in the project?
No IIM will take this up as a case-study; because they usually prefer to only deal with success stories! There is nothing incredible about it. What can be considered incredible, I'll not speak about; that is more charitable.
4.Finally A/Cmdre. Parvez Khokar has not even said all that can be said about the project, not even all the obvious things. In the light of what I wrote earlier to (slightly) amplify what he has written; would you hazard the consideration that a major re-design may even be called for? Read into my post and think that over.

If you were me; you would mull over all of it again. As I said earlier; there is a lot that is good in the program, but equally there are matters of great concern too just to ensure that everything is made 'ship-shape' again.

 

[Ping]

The prime focus will have to be on ensuring that the rated thrust is allowed to be produced by the engine. The Swedish version of the F404 is the RM 12, made by Volvo. Some tweaking by Volvo has enhanced the dry thrust from 49.9 kN to 54kN and in the after burner regime, from 78.7kN to 80.5kN. It has also strengthened fan modules to withstand bird strikes. The F404-IN-20 also incorporates these modifications, but the Tejas Mk I intake design does not allow this full thrust to be built up. Hence, it is mandatory to redesign the intakes. Both the Gripen and the older version of the F-18 have air intakes that permit optimum pressure recovery. Can ADA not consult both Saab and Boeing to overcome this problem?

For fighters like the MiG-29, F-15 and the Su-27/30/33/35 the engine thrust capacity is the same as installed capacity, but for Fighters like the Tejas, F-16, JF-17 and the J-10 the engine which is hidden from the direct airflow, the inlet shaping and the subsequent shaping of the ducts are of paramount importance. As a result, the installed trust is always lesser than the engine thrust. How much less it is, is the question. My obvious take would be F-16 would have the least difference between engine and the installed thrust. How much thrust is lost for the LCA, JF-17 and J-10 is open to anyone's guesses. As a result all Thrust to Weight Calculations done taking into account the engines thrust as the base, becomes void and null for these 4 fighters and other fighters of such types.

So the most shocking parts of this Article is
1] Tejas' inlet design is bad so lot of thrust is lost. That with an already underpowered engine make LCa an overweight fighter in IAF's eyes.

2] 200kgs of dead weight are added just like that, to bring the center of gravity within respectable limits.

3] Engine takes 2 days to replace!! Compared to Grippen's 33 minutes and 2-3 hours for the MiG-29B/S engines.

 

[Capt.Popeye]

For fighters like the MiG-29, F-15 and the Su-27/30/33/35 the engine thrust capacity is the same as installed capacity, but for Fighters like the Tejas, F-16, JF-17 and the J-10 the engine which is hidden from the direct airflow, the inlet shaping and the subsequent shaping of the ducts are of paramount importance. As a result, the installed trust is always lesser than the engine thrust. How much less it is, is the question. My obvious take would be F-16 would have the least difference between engine and the installed thrust. How much thrust is lost for the LCA, JF-17 and J-10 is open to anyone's guesses. As a result all Thrust to Weight Calculations done taking into account the engines thrust as the base, becomes void and null for these 4 fighters and other fighters of such types.

So the most shocking parts of this Article is
1] Tejas' inlet design is bad so lot of thrust is lost. That with an already underpowered engine make LCa an overweight fighter in IAF's eyes.

2] 200kgs of dead weight are added just like that, to bring the center of gravity within respectable limits.

3] Engine takes 2 days to replace!! Compared to Grippen's 33 minutes and 2-3 hours for the MiG-29B/S engines.

Just add to point No.3- 45-65 mins to change engines on the Rafale.

By this rate, world will have 10th gen fighters before India finishes its 3rd gen LCA....

But still your "HELICOPTER?" will not be flying, dude..........

 

[fast]

Isn't LCA MK1 supposed to finish by Nov this year? I remember Antony sworn on the head of his son that LCA MK1 FOS will be done by November. Or is it just the usual delaying tactic from the India government?

 

[Thirdfront]

Our public sector defense organizations, including DRDO and ADA are joke, period (only exception I can think of is ISRO). Until they prove they can do something useful other than just working as contract manufacturers, we will have to go with a lot of skepticism with their claims. Air Cmde. (retd.) Parvez Khokhar is spot on in expressing his concerns.

 

[Slayer786]

Its a lost cause. it is a failed plane. IAF does not want it. But eh! We dont mind you guys using it. After all only the indian pilots are going to suffer.
So no big issue.

 

[sankranti]

Again your sheer lack of information is showing through that post.

1.Maintenance or more correctly speaking "Maintainability" ought to be built into the Design itself and by the Designer. Now who ist the Designer in this case? Is it the IAF? And its not even HAL......
2.The DRDO did not allow the IAF to even monitor the project. While sucessive RM's got taken in by the 'mantra of indigenisation' repeatedly sung by DRDO to allow any other 'third-party monitoring' of the project.
3.I will avoid speaking about Kota Harinarayana's qualities here, and for obvious reasons. But I'll just remind you that HAL Ozhar (where he used to be) was happy to see his back. Why? Is/Was HAL an entusiastic and full participant in the project?
No IIM will take this up as a case-study; because they usually prefer to only deal with success stories! There is nothing incredible about it. What can be considered incredible, I'll not speak about; that is more charitable.
4.Finally A/Cmdre. Parvez Khokar has not even said all that can be said about the project, not even all the obvious things. In the light of what I wrote earlier to (slightly) amplify what he has written; would you hazard the consideration that a major re-design may even be called for? Read into my post and think that over.

If you were me; you would mull over all of it again. As I said earlier; there is a lot that is good in the program, but equally there are matters of great concern too just to ensure that everything is made 'ship-shape' again.

Funny statement, considering you are pulling facts out of thin air and claiming them as 'true information'.

1. Maintainability gets built into the design is when design's mature and when the designing team matures and when the designing organization matures. This kind of process improvement is called a Maturity Model. Someone who Understanding this simple reality is called a mature thinker. People who do no understand this are considered immature theoreticians.

Among ADA, HAL & IAF which is the Oldest and supposedly a more Mature organization ? ...its the IAF. And how did IAF handle this responsibility ? by abdicating from it.

2. DRDO controlled the program because they showed Leadership in developing the Program. As in life, One who shows initiative, leadership gets to call the shots. Rest of them lie at the roadside and b!tching about the other, or write 'expert opinion' when they retire.

If IAF had shown maturity and Leadership (words which I dont use lightly) then they would have been the one calling the shots, but they are content 'defending the border' at peacetime to do anything more dynamic and useful. Now I am being 'charitable'.

3. I will ignore your unsubstantiated comment about Dr. Kota and HAL. Dr. Kota has shown incredible leadership in putting together the LCA program and making it successful in a nation with limited technical ability, paucity of funds, political uncertainty, dodgy support and an unwilling End user.

LCA is an incredible success story from the POV of indigenous development and future generations will look back and remember the day India's indigenous effort at Aircraft design took off again. The same way people who laughed at Prithivi missile by calling it a failure, today admire the Agni -V, BMD etc. once the program Matured.

I repeat, IIM will be lucky if they can lean in detail how LCA fought against odds and won and set the foundation for India's Aerospace design and development. For that matter any top notch 'management' institute will be lucky since there are only a handful of such program under development world wide.

4. The people who designed and built the LCA Mk1 are well qualified and intelligent enough to understand the design changes required for Mk 2. That is what I would like to believe. Rather than believe an all knowing 'test pilot' can tell them how to design aircrafts. Think about that too.

Finally, there are always 'concerns' about ANY program and those 'concern's will never go away. That is the nature of humanity and the nature of R&D and forging new paths. That is where Leadership comes in to stand firm against such 'concerns' and do what they believe is the right thing to do. For better or for worse.

What is required is for those scientists to know is that the Nation is behind them.

I do happen to believe even failure are stepping stones to success. Now when you start to believe that too, we will be on the same page.

 

[sankranti]

@Capt.Popeye I do appreciate your post and am aware of the limitations of the LCA program and its failures.

But this is the real world. There are no programs without failures or limitations. Rather than behaving like Arvind Kejriwal who just mourns about how bad everything is, its better to do something about it. DRDO is doing something about it, so it earns my respect.

Doers always command more respect than talkers, don you agree ?

We don't live in a perfect world and there are no perfect ways to designing an Aircraft.

 

[HariPrasad]

The points mention are not very worrisome if correct at all . I see a lots of change in air intact of previous models of LCA (PVS) and LSP8. I do not know why he states that ADA is shying away to change the design of air intac. Afterall MK2 is design to overcome all shortcomings of MK1 design. It will have a lots of Design changes, It will have batter aerodynamics, More thrust, More speed, 400 to 500 KG reduced weight, More payload carrying capacity etc. Mk2 is going to be an awesome aircraft.

But still LCA MK2 is not going to exploit its full potential of the frame. Had it been prolonged by 56 inches and fitted with 108 KN GE 404 engine, It would have emerged as a fighter with MMRCA capabilities. But that would have taken a long time for testing. Since IAF need this plane urgently, they took a pragmatic approach to increase length by half a meter and widen the fuselage marginally to avoid long testing.(learn from a blog from a guy involve in LCA design)

 

[cirr]

Scrap the whole programme and start afresh。

In 30 years，and after many billions of dollars，India may come up with a 3rd gen fighter jet that might be actually useable。

In fighting African tribes。

 

[HariPrasad]

Scrap the whole programme and start afresh。

In 30 years，and after many billions of dollars，India may come up with a 3rd gen fighter jet that might be actually useable。

In fighting African tribes。

Like J 10????

MK 2 is is going to be an *** kicker to anything we have in our neighborhood.


Sorry that is not our way of doing the thing.

 

[janon]

He would have had a lot more credibility if he had applied his mind and had informed us what role IAF can play in the program. Instead he has applied his ego and has become a self proclaimed expert. God save us from such experts. All talk and no walk.

So the answer to him is, No, nobody is listening (to you).

So he is a "self proclaimed expert" while you are presumably the real expert? Here is some bio about him:

35 years in Indian Air Force
Flown 60 types of aircraft, accident free
Project Director Flight Test of Tejas (LCA) programme


Specialties

Fighter Pilot with combat experience in war
"A" Category Flying Instructor
Experimental Test Pilot, Member Society of Experimental Test Pilots, Lancaster, USA
Taught Defence Studies at A Post Graduate Level
Soldier-Diplomat in Pakistan for four years
Flew with Iraqi Air Force for two years during the Iran-Iraq war

He is a war veteran, AND the project director of the LCA flight tests. If you want to know more, here:

|| Bangalore International Centre ||

I'd say he is more than qualified to opine about the LCA. And anybody smart enough to listen to an authoritative voice is listening to him.

 

[faithfulguy]

The best solution to all these problems is to buy the planes off the shelf. India do not have enough industrial base to build anything advanced really quickly. Things will always take more time. If that is the case, the only solution to get things more quickly is to buy planes directly off the shelf.