Stealth version of India's Light Combat Aircraft [LCA] Tejas, Mk. 3 on the

[Sergi]

India's indigenously developed supersonic fighter aircraft to be developed into a stealth platform.

Dr. V.K Saraswat, presently the Scientific Advisor to India's Defence Minister, delivered a keynote address at the recently held Aerospace Forum in Sweden that concluded on the 3rd of June, this year. Titled, 'Vision for India’s Future Aerospace and Defence', he spoke of some of big ticket Aerospace development projects currently underway or are to commence shortly.

Among these would be a programme to integrate technologies developed as part of India's Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft [AMCA] programme into the Light Combat Aircraft [LCA], Tejas. This variant would be identified as Mark III.

"Many of these technologies could also find their way into the Light Combat Aircraft Mk. 3 that is to be more stealthy than the current Mk. 2 version, which is due to fly in the next two years with the General Electric F414 engine and be ready for operational trials in 2016. The Mk. 3 is to have up to 70% composite content, almost double the current version's level, and could be powered by India's Kaveri turbofan, if that troubled program gets back on track."

Considering this aircraft was not developed from the outset to be stealthy, the final outcome of this particular venture would, therefore, be more of having improved the aircraft to exhibit greater reduction in its Radar Cross-Section [RCS] than its previous iterations [Mk. I & II]. Having a small-sized airframe [smallest for its class], inherently gives it a fair degree of that advantage even now. Add to it reduced metallic surfaces by replacing it with increased composites, and you should have a fine aircraft whose chances of detection on the radar would be that much closer

To what degree..
Its not been built from the ground up to meet those standards. All "actual" stealth has been purpose built..
DRDO is wasting its time on the LCA now.. the AMCA beckons.. spend a good time on it.. devote all that has been learnt.. and make that a succesful reality.

I don't think he meant STEALTH PLANE like F22. Please read the article.
You have a point but India is anyway going to have MARK 2 in good number whenever they are ready. At that time making value addition into it won't be bad idea.

Still he should have talked about it after First flight of Mark 2

 

[Skull and Bones]

why not build an extra prototype or a tech demonstrator..

What's the use of it, Prototype of Tejas Mk III will not appear before 2017, and little cosmetic change of aerodynamics and application of composites won't bring any radical change in mission profile and RCS characteristics. Whole airframe has to be changed.

Is it worth it when we'll have AMCA Mk I prototype by 2019-2020?

 

[KRAIT]

What's the use of it, Prototype of Tejas Mk III will not appear before 2017, and little cosmetic change of aerodynamics and application of composites won't bring any radical change in mission profile and RCS characteristics. Whole airframe has to be changed.

Is it worth it when we'll have AMCA Mk I prototype by 2019-2020?

Exactly stop as MKII, put AESA, IRST, FLIR and what not on it.....and build them in numbers..load them with ASTRA, R77, Derby...we are good to go for countering JF-17.

 

[karan21]

What's the use of it, Prototype of Tejas Mk III will not appear before 2017, and little cosmetic change of aerodynamics and application of composites won't bring any radical change in mission profile and RCS characteristics. Whole airframe has to be changed.

Is it worth it when we'll have AMCA Mk I prototype by 2019-2020?

well whats bad in it, right now hal and drdo is earning massive profits. soon they r getting orders for lch, awacs and bunch of other stuff. these companies are now not short of money and wont be in near future. btw there is something called for export.

Mr. saraswat is a genius in my opinion and believe it or not he has the best media skills. until he took over drdo was a underdog, look now everthing has changed. deadlines are met and budgets are met. drdo is on a roll. mk3 might just be for export.

 

[Ajaxpaul]

reallyy, how u know that??? stealth is not something sci-fi, there are studies done in the field of stealth, which includes angles of the outer body and the material it is made of. it is not something very hard and on organisation like drdo with 9000 scientists and 3 billion budget has about 20 bill doll of projects at hand. do u think they cant find ways to get this tech.. if u think so ur an idiot...

What is the point of making pointy aircrafts without engines ? If DRDO makes stealthy aircrafts...IAF will definitely change the definition of stealth.

Otherwise IAF should give DRDO a picture of F22 and say we want this.

 

[karan21]

What is the point of making pointy aircrafts without engines ? If DRDO makes stealthy aircrafts...IAF will definitely change the definition of stealth.

Otherwise IAF should give DRDO a picture of F22 and say we want this.

iaf is a ***** agreed, they want the best. they like a profit making company. they should be forced by goi to aceept it. wtf are mg21s doing in the iaf apart from faling down. lets be claear india cant make a simple engine forget a stealth engine. even china cant make it and is waiting for russia to make it so it can be loaded on j-20. india has no chance.

 

[Mani2020]

I dont want to sound offensive but DRDO is very good at big mouthing , i mean if we make of the list of projects they have publicized and compared to what they have actually done and then compare the specifications of those done with the anticipated or publicized specification it portrays a horrible image .

The reason is most of them (in public) are ignorant that dont know much about aviation so they believe in whatever DRDO says ,thus no one criticized DRDO so widely but for those who know the aviation or are interested in defence issues and those comprise of a small chunk. Thats why DRDO has sustained so far .

Same can be said by Pakistan that we have many lay men who dont know anything about aviation so they perceive anything on their own but thanks to ALLAH in our case PAC or for that matter any other defence organization has never big mouth and we only came to know about the projects officially when they are either completed or the final product is introduced. The missile tests or any induction is as surprising for us as to any alien except if they are not disclosed by some insiders

 

[Skull and Bones]

well whats bad in it, right now hal and drdo is earning massive profits. soon they r getting orders for lch, awacs and bunch of other stuff. these companies are now not short of money and wont be in near future. btw there is something called for export.

Mr. saraswat is a genius in my opinion and believe it or not he has the best media skills. until he took over drdo was a underdog, look now everthing has changed. deadlines are met and budgets are met. drdo is on a roll. mk3 might just be for export.

They're earning profit because they're betting on right projects at a right time. Tejas MK III will be grossly delayed to fetch them any profit.

DRDO could have earned more profit from Bhim Howitzer or light tank, but those projects were discarded by Army. So they're loosing money too.

 

[Break the Silence]

iaf is a ***** agreed, they want the best. they like a profit making company. they should be forced by goi to aceept it. wtf are mg21s doing in the iaf apart from faling down. lets be claear india cant make a simple engine forget a stealth engine. even china cant make it and is waiting for russia to make it so it can be loaded on j-20. india has no chance.

Enough said, Mr. Dear , hon'able Dr. V.K. Saraswat recently agreed to upgrade my car to F-22 raptor standards.

I agree with you, Instead of making routine statements, DRDO should seriously work towards developing the tecnologies. News will automatically generate.

 

[karan21]

I dont want to sound offensive but DRDO is very good at big mouthing , i mean if we make of the list of projects they have publicized and compared to what they have actually done and then compare the specifications of those done with the anticipated or publicized specification it portrays a horrible image .

The reason is most of them (in public) are ignorant that dont know much about aviation so they believe in whatever DRDO says ,thus no one criticized DRDO so widely but for those who know the aviation or are interested in defence issues and those comprise of few chunk. Thats why DRDO has sustained so far .

Same can be said by Pakistan that we have many lay men who dont know anything about aviation so they perceive anything on their own but thanks to ALLAH in our case PAC or for that matter any other defence organization has never big mouth and we only came to know about the projects when they are either completed or introduced. The missile tests or any induction is as surprising for us as to any alien

dont try to pretend very smart. we know drdo better than u guys do. building a nuke sub and combat plane like hal lch and arjun taks are not jokes. agni missile was said to be tested in 4 yrs and it did. lch was told to fly in 3 yrs and it did.. and sitara flew before time. all abm tests successfull. all this was called big mouthing go check the threads, and look what hapened.

what r u talkinga about dude.

every country has hard times in developing complex techs, but india now has overcome all of them or atleast most of them.

 

[Skull and Bones]

iaf is a ***** agreed, they want the best. they like a profit making company. they should be forced by goi to aceept it. wtf are mg21s doing in the iaf apart from faling down. lets be claear india cant make a simple engine forget a stealth engine. even china cant make it and is waiting for russia to make it so it can be loaded on j-20. india has no chance.

No one perfected manufacturing Jet engine other than USA, UK and Russia, even French Snecma Jet engine has a tad below required thrust rating. It's not as easy like posting a post on PDF. I'm glad India succeed in making a jet engine of 80Kt thrust.

 

[karan21]

They're earning profit because they're betting on right projects at a right time. Tejas MK III will be grossly delayed to fetch them any profit.

DRDO could have earned more profit from Bhim Howitzer or light tank, but those projects were discarded by Army. So they're loosing money too.

some big ticket projects can get them so much money that now drdo can build many projects in the side. hstdv is one such project. there is no immediate use of it, but they r going crazy on it. as i said Mr. Saraswat has made drdo more proactive in buisness world.

 

[Skull and Bones]

some big ticket projects can get them so much money that now drdo can build many projects in the side. hstdv is one such project. there is no immediate use of it, but they r going crazy on it. as i said Mr. Saraswat has made drdo more proactive in buisness world.

Unless these projects are serially produced and ordered in number by our armed forces, they won't fetch a penny in profit.

 

[Mani2020]

dont try to pretend very smart. we know drdo better than u guys do. building a nuke sub and combat plane like hal lch and arjun taks are not jokes. agni missile was said to be tested in 4 yrs and it did. lch was told to fly in 3 yrs and it did.. and sitara flew before time. all abm tests successfull. all this was called big mouthing go check the threads, and look what hapened.

what r u talkinga about dude.

every country has hard times in developing complex techs, but india now has overcome all of them or atleast most of them.

Then good for you and i dont want to derail this thread by naming the projects that got delayed or cancelled neither i want to go by the projects which are completed and the kick backs they faced or are facing in term of required/desired specification.

What i said was what i felt and most importantly i haven't tried to derail the thread neither i will so i will end the discussion here before this thread becomes a troll bate

 

[karan21]

Enough said, Mr. Dear , hon'able Dr. V.K. Saraswat recently agreed to upgrade my car to F-22 raptor standards.

I agree with you, Instead of making routine statements, DRDO should seriously work towards developing the tecnologies. News will automatically generate.

i agree, keep their mouth shut. but did u notice that is what they r doing. do u know by any source what r the avionics that went into hal lch. i tried couldnt find any informative source. do u know whats inside ins arihanth. if k4 was tested or not. they started building amca intakes and no one was told or no news published. drdi aura didnt make any news. any specifications about awacs plane? we know these projects exist coz they cant hide it but no inside news is known to us. only tejas and arjun are 2 projects that drdo big mouths about and blasts out specifications like idiots.
and yeah we are not told the exact range of agni 5??

Then good for you and i dont want to derail this thread by naming the projects that got delayed or cancelled neither i want to go by the projects which are completed and the kick backs they faced or are facing in term of required/desired specification.

What i said was what i felt and most importantly i haven't tried to derail the thread neither i will so i will end the discussion here before this thread becomes a troll bate

thanks i agree we faced setbacks, but we try and keep trying like idiots..

No one perfected manufacturing Jet engine other than USA, UK and Russia, even French Snecma Jet engine has a tad below required thrust rating. It's not as easy like posting a post on PDF. I'm glad India succeed in making a jet engine of 80Kt thrust.

the engine itself is not a loss for sure. but i think india should make another try. for an even bigger engine and not hang on russia for a 5th gen engine.