HariPrasad
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Tejas Mark II – Aeronautical Development Agency needs to have realistic goals
Published July 9, 2015 | By admin
SOURCE: NITICENTRAL
I read two articles with great interest – “First Tejas Mark II engine to arrive in September” and “From Tejas to AMCA” – on July 6, both by Ajai Shukla of the Business Standard. As a retired Colonel of Indian Army, Shukla speaks with a certainty that comes from experience and in these articles he rails against “self-appointed patriots who see no irony in their advocacy of expensive foreign weaponry”. I suppose Shukla means this description to include Indian Air Force Ex-Chiefs of Air Staff Fali Major and PV Naik who certainly are advocating buying foreign combat aircraft. Let us be realistic, every combat aircraft ever flown by the IAF so far was foreign made i.e. Russian or French. So it is hypocrisy for Shukla to deride foreign weaponry when India has been relying on foreign weaponry for the last 67 years.
In the first article Shukla essentially argues that modifying the Tejas to create the Mark II using the GE-414 will be easy as “F-414 is no larger than the F-404?. Keep in mind that the Tejas was designed to use the F-404 engine except the weight and drag of the Tejas is too high and so it appears underpowered. The Gripen which was considered by the IAF uses the same F-404 engine as the Tejas except the weight and drag of the Gripen was properly optimised. It may be true that with another 3 years of redesign of the Tejas to use the more powerful F-414 engine will yield a good cheap Tejas Mark II combat aircraft but until it is actually tested no one will know for sure, so can the IAF really wait another 3 years on just the promise that Tejas Mark II will work properly?
Regarding the AMCA Shukla argues that it will be a success because the IAF is part of the project from day one, and that once clearance is obtained for spending $4 Billion and design work is started, then in approximately 15 years time, the AMCA will be reality, even though so far the engine which will power the AMCA has not been decided on.
There is absolutely no harm in having an optimistic vision of the future but what about the present? War is not like a cricket match, it carries real consequences. So, if India were in a war with Pakistan or China in a few years it is not possible to tell them that India is not ready yet, please attack again in a few years time. The depletion in numbers in the IAF is happening right now, and maybe increasing production of Su-30MKI will buy some time, but it will not buy the 3 more years to design the Tejas Mark II plus another 3 years to build and induct sufficient number of Tejas Mark II.
For the IAF pilots it is a matter of life and death, for the citizens of India it is a matter of protecting your sovereignty. The minimum role of the commentator is simply to be realistic and it does seem that relying on the Tejas Mark II is not being realistic, so India definitely needs to reduce the risk by importing foreign combat aircraft, at least until you have a Tejas Mark II that really works well and that you know you can manufacture in large numbers. Regarding the AMCA, of course India needs to work on the design and prototyping anyway, but India still has to consider other options as well, i.e. wait until the AMCA is actually working and then you can rely on it. To put it another way, of course India should spend the money to design the Tejas Mark II and also the AMCA, but just don’t rely on them until you have fully functioning prototypes with initial operational clearance (IOC). Try not to repeat the ongoing misery of the IAF for the last 5 years waiting for the Tejas to get IOC.
The biggest problem that India has is that every project is funded only when the politicians think there is a practical need for it. For example this design and prototype of Tejas Mark II should have been completed 10 years ago along with the initial prototype of Tejas, because the F-414 engine is from the same family as the F-404 engine and has been in existence for 20 years now. Yes, I am aware that it sounds like hindsight, but the fact is that India should have designed and prototyped Tejas and Tejas Mark II at the same time so that you could have selected whichever version works better i.e. find the problems earlier so you can make the choices earlier. Indeed any engineer in any branch of engineering will tell you that the best way to fully understand a design is to to make two or more versions and compare them.
That is why I really believe that India should not finalise the design for the AMCA right away.
Instead of shooting for the goal of the stealth capable 5th generation AMCA with a pair of 110 kN engines (which India does not have right now anyway) to be built in the next 15 years, India needs to aim for an intermediate goal to be delivered in 5 years. The intermediate goal will be a much simpler twin-engine combat plane without stealth in two configurations at the same time i.e. a first small configuration using a pair of 79 kN F-404 engines and a second slightly larger configuration using a pair of 98 kN F-414 engines. Then you can compare the two configurations and learn how to scale the airframe in size based on the power of the engines. Indeed, these configurations are test beds for the final design which will be the largest in size and complexity. Also you can practice applying stealth technology on the small and medium planes to begin with. Once India has successfully done that, then India is ready for the next design/prototype step i.e to get the best configuration using the more powerful 110 kN engines which hopefully by that time India will have obtained from USA or Europe.
In other words the 5th generation AMCA project will be much easier to implement if you take it in steps. In addition the smaller twin-engine combat plane designs which were developed as intermediate goal can be adapted as combat aircraft in lesser roles. If India takes the project in steps, the chance of success is much higher. But until India is successful in doing this, you obviously also have to keep buying enough foreign combat planes to keep the IAF fully operational.
Published July 9, 2015 | By admin
SOURCE: NITICENTRAL
I read two articles with great interest – “First Tejas Mark II engine to arrive in September” and “From Tejas to AMCA” – on July 6, both by Ajai Shukla of the Business Standard. As a retired Colonel of Indian Army, Shukla speaks with a certainty that comes from experience and in these articles he rails against “self-appointed patriots who see no irony in their advocacy of expensive foreign weaponry”. I suppose Shukla means this description to include Indian Air Force Ex-Chiefs of Air Staff Fali Major and PV Naik who certainly are advocating buying foreign combat aircraft. Let us be realistic, every combat aircraft ever flown by the IAF so far was foreign made i.e. Russian or French. So it is hypocrisy for Shukla to deride foreign weaponry when India has been relying on foreign weaponry for the last 67 years.
In the first article Shukla essentially argues that modifying the Tejas to create the Mark II using the GE-414 will be easy as “F-414 is no larger than the F-404?. Keep in mind that the Tejas was designed to use the F-404 engine except the weight and drag of the Tejas is too high and so it appears underpowered. The Gripen which was considered by the IAF uses the same F-404 engine as the Tejas except the weight and drag of the Gripen was properly optimised. It may be true that with another 3 years of redesign of the Tejas to use the more powerful F-414 engine will yield a good cheap Tejas Mark II combat aircraft but until it is actually tested no one will know for sure, so can the IAF really wait another 3 years on just the promise that Tejas Mark II will work properly?
Regarding the AMCA Shukla argues that it will be a success because the IAF is part of the project from day one, and that once clearance is obtained for spending $4 Billion and design work is started, then in approximately 15 years time, the AMCA will be reality, even though so far the engine which will power the AMCA has not been decided on.
There is absolutely no harm in having an optimistic vision of the future but what about the present? War is not like a cricket match, it carries real consequences. So, if India were in a war with Pakistan or China in a few years it is not possible to tell them that India is not ready yet, please attack again in a few years time. The depletion in numbers in the IAF is happening right now, and maybe increasing production of Su-30MKI will buy some time, but it will not buy the 3 more years to design the Tejas Mark II plus another 3 years to build and induct sufficient number of Tejas Mark II.
For the IAF pilots it is a matter of life and death, for the citizens of India it is a matter of protecting your sovereignty. The minimum role of the commentator is simply to be realistic and it does seem that relying on the Tejas Mark II is not being realistic, so India definitely needs to reduce the risk by importing foreign combat aircraft, at least until you have a Tejas Mark II that really works well and that you know you can manufacture in large numbers. Regarding the AMCA, of course India needs to work on the design and prototyping anyway, but India still has to consider other options as well, i.e. wait until the AMCA is actually working and then you can rely on it. To put it another way, of course India should spend the money to design the Tejas Mark II and also the AMCA, but just don’t rely on them until you have fully functioning prototypes with initial operational clearance (IOC). Try not to repeat the ongoing misery of the IAF for the last 5 years waiting for the Tejas to get IOC.
The biggest problem that India has is that every project is funded only when the politicians think there is a practical need for it. For example this design and prototype of Tejas Mark II should have been completed 10 years ago along with the initial prototype of Tejas, because the F-414 engine is from the same family as the F-404 engine and has been in existence for 20 years now. Yes, I am aware that it sounds like hindsight, but the fact is that India should have designed and prototyped Tejas and Tejas Mark II at the same time so that you could have selected whichever version works better i.e. find the problems earlier so you can make the choices earlier. Indeed any engineer in any branch of engineering will tell you that the best way to fully understand a design is to to make two or more versions and compare them.
That is why I really believe that India should not finalise the design for the AMCA right away.
Instead of shooting for the goal of the stealth capable 5th generation AMCA with a pair of 110 kN engines (which India does not have right now anyway) to be built in the next 15 years, India needs to aim for an intermediate goal to be delivered in 5 years. The intermediate goal will be a much simpler twin-engine combat plane without stealth in two configurations at the same time i.e. a first small configuration using a pair of 79 kN F-404 engines and a second slightly larger configuration using a pair of 98 kN F-414 engines. Then you can compare the two configurations and learn how to scale the airframe in size based on the power of the engines. Indeed, these configurations are test beds for the final design which will be the largest in size and complexity. Also you can practice applying stealth technology on the small and medium planes to begin with. Once India has successfully done that, then India is ready for the next design/prototype step i.e to get the best configuration using the more powerful 110 kN engines which hopefully by that time India will have obtained from USA or Europe.
In other words the 5th generation AMCA project will be much easier to implement if you take it in steps. In addition the smaller twin-engine combat plane designs which were developed as intermediate goal can be adapted as combat aircraft in lesser roles. If India takes the project in steps, the chance of success is much higher. But until India is successful in doing this, you obviously also have to keep buying enough foreign combat planes to keep the IAF fully operational.
