LCA Tejas MK 1 VS Gripen C/D

[Ping]

JF-17 is a spectacular looking plane, I can jerk off of it

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Golden quote!

Talk about utter desperation for a mediocre plane. Literally clutching on to the last straw.


PS: The new engine thrust for LCA is indeed 20,200lbf. However there is confusion whether this is the regular afterburner thrust or the emergency afterburner thrust. If this is the emergency then regular afterburner would be 19100lbf. This is similar to JF-17's 18300lbf regular and 19000~19200lbf emergency. And afterburner thrust is mainly useful for dogfights and generally gaining altitudes faster or reaching top speeds during a intercept. No idiot dogfights with just the military thrust. Emergency is mainly employed to gain altitude faster after a scramble take-off, and generally cannot be used for dogfights, but there are exceptions like the MiG-21Bis/Bisons which can use them reaching Thrust to Weight ratios matching to that the latest F-16s! Not bad for a 1950s plane. And no, Chinese knock-off MiG-21s dont have this feature. This is unique to the Bis variant of which Bison is an upgrade.

 

[HariPrasad]

Somewhere i saw for better landing of N-LCA ,fuselage and undercarriage streangthened as a result payload decreased to 3.5t.. Tejas mk1 may have more payload..

This is because of additional weight of Structure and landing gear. Landing gear was very heavy initially.
They had planned it to bring it at par with Air force version Tejas i.e 600 KG. So payload was decreased which in the fact is much more than 4.0 tons.

 

[HariPrasad]

Has it? I don't think so, otherwise it would be in operational service today. LCA has the potential to carry around 4t of payload, since the maximim take off weight leaves that much, even if the emptyweight is higher than planned, but the MK1 is limited to 3.5t according the official ADA specboards of Aero India 2011:

You are very selective in reference. One official website figure is typo for you and other is authentic.

Now let us check

Maximum take off weight;13.5 tons

Weight of aircraft as per you: 6.5 tons

Fuel weight: 2468 KG Say 2.5 tons

So (13.5-6.5-2.5)=4.5 tons. Which is the load carrying capacity of Tejas.

If you claim it 3.5 tons than explain that missing 1 ton.

Don't blame others, blame those that are responsible for unrealistic developments, overstimations and silly project management. Whenever we will start to take our scientists and managers accountable for their mistakes and failures, we will see progress. But as long as we ignore that, keep blaming politicians and others, or simply celebrate any babystep for no reason we won't improve ourself.

Of course I will blame.

After all this is not the only unrealistic looking project we undertook. Our Integrated Missile Development Program was equally unrealistic so as Arihant but the Mud slugging done Tejas is exceptional. We have bridged a gap of over 30 years in technology by this plane. Ofcourse politicians were responsible. They removed Raj Mahindra from the program than they didn't fund the program than they couldn't manage Pokharan fall out.

Project management skill comes when you execute complex projects (We show in case of Agni 5). It is a learning phenomena. The so called Super Eurofighter just got some addition in capability. When it was operationalized, it was not having ground bombing ability.

Eurofighter Typhoon |

So much hyped plane of china do not have even a half of capability of Tejas. J15 do not carry more than 2 tons of payload and J 10 is unable to complete complete vertical loop today.

In fact Tejas has put us in a league of the Nation who makes such sophisticated planes.

indiAn can compare
LCA Tejas MK 1 VS Gripen C/D

You are right Dubby. When Baby borns, It has to learn to walk before it runs. But some time people adopts a 20 years baby and than claims that our baby runs directly without learning to walk. This is the difference. I hope you got my point.

 

[Lil Mathew]

Has it? I don't think so, otherwise it would be in operational service today. LCA has the potential to carry around 4t of payload, since the maximim take off weight leaves that much, even if the emptyweight is higher than planned, but the MK1 is limited to 3.5t according the official ADA specboards of Aero India 2011:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3Ypw_Ma1gug/TVeFu_sULnI/AAAAAAAAAHM/zKh2MylRys4/s1600/DSC03688.JPG

Lca is one of the smallest aircraft with max composites.. But its empty wt is 6.5t almost equal to bigger all metal frame jft.. What is the reason?? Earlier the empty wt quoted as 5.4t.. Why lca's empty wt increased from previous 5.4t to 6.5t ??

 

[HariPrasad]

Lca is one of the smallest aircraft with max composites.. But its empty wt is 6.5t almost equal to bigger all metal frame jft.. What is the reason?? Earlier the empty wt quoted as 5.4t.. Why lca's empty wt increased from previous 5.4t to 6.5t ??

6.5 is very old figure of PV 2. Weight is been reduced a lot since than. Wait till IOC 2. Perhaps we shall get an answer.

 

[sancho]

You are very selective in reference. One official website figure is typo for you and other is authentic...
...If you claim it 3.5 tons than explain that missing 1 ton.

Yes I am, because I want the most reliable specs and as I said earlier, ADA/DRDO as the developers simply have the most reliable infos on the changes and specs. HAL is only the manufacturer and I have 2 other specboards of them, with other specs than what the website says, so they don't rank very high on my list of a reliable source for LCA.

I don't have to claim 3.5t, that is given by ADA in the specs that I gave you and I already explained that the LCA has the payload potential of around 4t, exactly for the same reasons that you pointed out, but that doesn't mean it is cleared for that from the start!
Just like the flight envelope, the payload capabilities will be increased with further upgrades steps and will not be at maximum from the begining. This is even pretty logical since fighters normally will increase the load capabilities only in steps too. Starting with A2A load configs (which in LCAs case however went differently) and later addition of heavier A2G capabilities. Currently LCA's heaviest load is:

1 x LDP = 200Kg
2 x wing fuel tanks = 1920Kg
2 x 500Kg LGB = 1000Kg
2 x SR missiles = 210Kg
=> 3330Kg

When you add the weight of the fuel tanks and pylons you will come to the 3.5t that is possible so far. With the centernline fuel tank, or additional LGBs, the payload will be around the 4t limit LCA MK1 has in general, with the MK2 hopefully puts it up around 5t.


Btw, since the topic is comparison to Gripen:

Gripen A/B ( single / twin seater) – around 4t payload
Gripen C/D – around 5t
Gripen E/F – around 6t

We have bridged a gap of over 30 years in technology by this plane. Ofcourse politicians were responsible.

Sorry, but that's just denial of the reality!

We failed to develop a 4 th gen engine, our 4 th gen puls doppler radar is not ready either, so where did we have bridged anything when these core developments went wrong? The problem btw is not that they went wrong, but that we made LCA dependent on them, instead of using foreign radar and engines from the start. Then at least LCA as a fighter program would had been a success today.

And again we simply can take the Gripen as a project for comparison! Although Sweden had much more experience in fighter, radar, engine and avionic developments, they judged their capabilities and needs far more realistically. That's why they didn't went for the risk of developing an engine alone from scratch, but used a proven US GE 404 as the base and "modified" it according to their needs. Similarly, they took assistance of other European partners for design, subsystems, weapons..., to reduce development time and costs.

We know that the Gripen has a fair ammount of foreign parts in it, which doesn't mean that it wouldn't be an indigenous development of course, but they took the easy way to develop the fighter and succeeded. We started at the same time, wanted way too much and did it as complicated as we could, mainly for pride reasons and this attitude is that we have to change if we want to improve ourself!

The rest of your post is based on wrong points and there is no need to drag other fighters into this topic here, so lets leave it at that.

Lca is one of the smallest aircraft with max composites.. But its empty wt is 6.5t almost equal to bigger all metal frame jft.. What is the reason?? Earlier the empty wt quoted as 5.4t.. Why lca's empty wt increased from previous 5.4t to 6.5t ??

Big nose, big wings, several parts that were heavier than expected, several parts that had to be changed compared to the initial plans... and 5.5t were only the planned weight, but was never achieved.

 

[HariPrasad]

1 x LDP = 200Kg
2 x wing fuel tanks = 1920Kg
2 x 500Kg LGB = 1000Kg
2 x SR missiles = 210Kg
=> 3330Kg
When you add the weight of the fuel tanks and pylons you will come to the 3.5t that is possible so far. With the centernline fuel tank, or additional LGBs, the payload will be around the 4t limit LCA MK1 has in general, with the MK2 hopefully puts it up around 5t.
Btw, since the topic is comparison to Gripen:
Gripen A/B ( single / twin seater) – around 4t payload
Gripen C/D – around 5t
Gripen E/F – around 6t

See your logic has a lots of flaws. You attach some weapon of your choice to arrive at a figure of 3300 KG. That itself has a lots of flow. e.g You calculated weight of 2 fuel tank as 1920. It is an absolute bulshit. The weight of fuel itself is 1920 KG or more (1200 liters*X2XSp gravity of kerosine(0.80 to 0.82). Now where is the weight of tanks? . It is 350x2=700 KG. so your calculation itself shows the that Tejas can carry 4000 KG. We show the same in July 2013 Video. So from now onward pl do not try to justify wrong. Pl accept the truth.

And most important thing is that we do not know whether what we show and you mentioned is the highest weight carrying capacity of Tejas. As tejas took off in just 11 to 12 second with this load. So Tejas can carry much more than that. There is no doubt about it.

13500-6500-2500= 4.5 tons is the minimum payload of Tejas.

We failed to develop a 4 th gen engine, our 4 th gen puls doppler radar is not ready either, so where did we have bridged anything when these core developments went wrong? The problem btw is not that they went wrong, but that we made LCA dependent on them, instead of using foreign radar and engines from the start. Then at least LCA as a fighter program would had been a success today.
And again we simply can take the Gripen as a project for comparison! Although Sweden had much more experience in fighter, radar, engine and avionic developments, they judged their capabilities and needs far more realistically. That's why they didn't went for the risk of developing an engine alone from scratch, but used a proven US GE 404 as the base and "modified" it according to their needs. Similarly, they took assistance of other European partners for design, subsystems, weapons..., to reduce development time and costs.
We know that the Gripen has a fair ammount of foreign parts in it, which doesn't mean that it wouldn't be an indigenous development of course, but they took the easy way to develop the fighter and succeeded. We started at the same time, wanted way too much and did it as complicated as we could, mainly for pride reasons and this attitude is that we have to change if we want to improve ourself!
The rest of your post is based on wrong points and there is no need to drag other fighters into this topic here, so lets leave it at that.

Again you are posting BS.

We failed to Developed engine so as SAAB. They are also using Same engine as we do. Our MMR has our own Air to ground mode and rest modes are in collaboration with Isreal until we develop it ourself. We have a much higher degree of Indiginization in Tejas compare to Grippen (In avionics and LRUS). As per me (Pl correct me if I am wrong), We have to work on aerodynamics only to make Tejas a super plane. If we can cross Mach 1.8. It will be good. If we can cross Mach 2.0 and 9 G it will be awesome. I am sure that we shall be able to have a full indigenous Tejas by 2018 or 20 (Bar Engine about which I am not very sure)

 

[HariPrasad]

Lca is one of the smallest aircraft with max composites.. But its empty wt is 6.5t almost equal to bigger all metal frame jft.. What is the reason?? Earlier the empty wt quoted as 5.4t.. Why lca's empty wt increased from previous 5.4t to 6.5t ??

Big nose, big wings, several parts that were heavier than expected, several parts that had to be changed compared to the initial plans... and 5.5t were only the planned weight, but was never achieved.

That hardly increases the weight. Weight figure was arrived only after considering all this. But weight increase because of over suspicion and lack of confidence in LRUS. EG when Naval Tehas was designed and tested, they need a new landing gear. Now until they get the confidence in new low weight design of new landing gear, they used a very heavy landing gear to avoid any break down. Once the new low weight landing gear is ready and tested weight will reduced by several hundred KGs.

Same is true for Airforce version of Tejas also. Many LRUs were heavy because of lack of confidence and testing facility and time. They are replacing them with lighter one.

The other area is structural weight. Philip Rajkumar proposed structural optimization study but put off because of a long time required in testing and optimization. It will take place in MK2.

 

[sancho]

See your logic has a lots of flaws. You attach some weapon of your choice to arrive at a figure of 3300 KG.

Really?

That's the usual strike load that LCA has tested in the weapon trials!

You calculated weight of 2 fuel tank as 1920.

No, I calculated the fuelweight and even stated right below the calculation:

When you add the weight of the fuel tanks and pylons you will come to the 3.5t

You even quoted that part, but since I only showed the weight to added payloads and not the full MTOW, you I didn't added it, because then you would have to calculate with the loaded weight of the fighter and not the emptyweight, which includes all necessary fluids, the weight of the pilot and usually 2 x SR missiles too. Feel free to do it, but with more realistic figures, since the fuel tanks don't even weight 350Kg including the pylons. They are made of light weight composite materials and LCA's biggest fuel tank is for 1200l only, even bigger fuel tanks of US or European fighters weigh less than 300Kg and please don't create theories based on videos!
The fact remains, that 3500Kg is the official payload for external loads so far, no matter if you like it or not and I prefer to stick with the most reliable official figures.

We failed to Developed engine so as SAAB. They are also using Same engine as we do.

Wrong, all the over 200 x produced Gripen use the Volvo RM12 engine, only the Gripen NG Tech Demonstrator uses a GE414 engine, while not a single LCA has the Kaveri integrated so far. They have own radar, avionics and partially even weapons for the Gripen, while the MK1 will still get the Israeli EL 2032 radar, several other Israeli parts and it needs to be seen when Astra or Sudarshan will be ready for integration as well. We will constantly increase the ammount of indigenous parts, but the Gripen C/D clearly has a bigger part, since they are technically ahead of our capabilities.

Same is true for Airforce version of Tejas also. Many LRUs were heavy because of lack of confidence and testing facility and time. They are replacing them with lighter one.

The one has nothing to do with the other, since the N-LCA gears were an own development, which again showed how less know how ADA and DRDO had. They simply oversized the gears and needed to get EADS as a consultat to reduce the weight again, that however will still remain only a change for the N-LCA since that gear is still heavier than what the air force LCA uses.

 

[HariPrasad]

Really?
That's the usual strike load that LCA has tested in the weapon trials!

Isn't it really?

I show you a clear cut calculation. I can agree with your figure but you are not counting the weight of tank at all. Pl post a credible link of weight of tank and replace 350 KG with the weight which should be there according to you. It will always be over 4000 KG.

You can also show your calculation as I show it on forum.


13500KG(Maximum Take off weight= Weight of plane 6500 KG(As per you)+Fuel weight (2468 KG)+Pilot and support equipment load Say 200 KG+X (Weight of weapon) = 4300 KG.

Now change the figures which are true as per you and derive weight 3.5 Tons as claimed by you.

No, I calculated the fuelweight and even stated right below the calculation:

I accept that but you skipped the weight of tank to arrive at 3300 KG weight.

Wrong, all the over 200 x produced Gripen use the Volvo RM12 engine, only the Gripen NG Tech Demonstrator uses a GE414 engine, while not a single LCA has the Kaveri integrated so far. They have own radar, avionics and partially even weapons for the Gripen, while the MK1 will still get the Israeli EL 2032 radar, several other Israeli parts and it needs to be seen when Astra or Sudarshan will be ready for integration as well. We will constantly increase the ammount of indigenous parts, but the Gripen C/D clearly has a bigger part, since they are technically ahead of our capabilities.

Volvo engines are nothing but license produced GE engines. We does same with Su 30 MKI engine and we are going to do that with GE 414 engine.

The one has nothing to do with the other, since the N-LCA gears were an own development, which again showed how less know how ADA and DRDO had. They simply oversized the gears and needed to get EADS as a consultat to reduce the weight again, that however will still remain only a change for the N-LCA since that gear is still heavier than what the air force LCA uses.

Those gears were used for time being. Gear weighing 600 KG (Same weight as airforce version is planned) Initially the designs will be conservative. As we get confidence, the light LRUS will replace heavy LRUs.

 

[Indrajith]

Once upon time every body viewd japanees & korean technology as inferior to US, but what happend now they have stunned the westerners LG, Samsung, Toyota, Hyundia, Kia etc .. but none of the wealthy countries in middle east tried to do any thing with their wealth like the people in thread they were comfortable with buying than the hardship of building - that is the story of TEJAS

 

[he-man]

tejas may not be good vs gripen now,,,but wait for mk2 guys

 

[HariPrasad]

tejas may not be good vs gripen now,,,but wait for mk2 guys

It is Tejas MK1 Against Gripen C/D and not NG man.

 

[Kompromat]

@HariPrasad

More 'fairer' comparison would be Tejas VS F/A-50 Golden eagle, which is the fighter version of the trainer golden eagle.

IMHO Gripens are in the same weight class as the Mirage 2000, JF-17s, J-10s and F-16s.

If you want to debate the 'wing' and flight characteristics then further argument can be made since both jets have a 'simmilarish' delta wing.

 

[gslv mk3]

@HariPrasad

More 'fairer' comparison would be Tejas VS F/A-50 Golden eagle, which is the fighter version of the trainer golden eagle.

IMHO Gripens are in the same weight class as the Mirage 2000, JF-17s, J-10s and F-16s.

If you want to debate the 'wing' and flight characteristics then further argument can be made since both jets have a 'simmilarish' delta wing.

I dont know if you are trolling,asking us to compare a fighter with a trainer...

If I am right JF 17 & LCA have almost same MTOW,almost same as the gripen.F 16 and J 10 belong to a heavier class.