TimeToScoot
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I must state at the outset, that the title of this post is a tribute to B.Harry, a true geek whose wantonly premature demise was a major loss to the analysis and archival of Indian military research and development (R&D). Needless to say, he is greatly missed by Indian military buffs, though his writings live on, such as this excellent two-part document (http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/downloads/Tejas-Radiance.pdf) on the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) published in 2004.
Ten years have passed since that paper came out, and today deliveries of combat standard units of the HAL Tejas Mk-I are beginning with the first 'series production' aircraft, SP-I taking to the air in late 2014. SP-I therefore marks the arrival of India's first indigenous combat capable fourth generation fighter that boasts the extensive use of carbon composites (more than 70 per cent of the airframe by weight) an indigenous quadruplex digital flight control system, indigenous mission computers and a modern glass cockpit capable enabling all weather day/night operations and the carriage of precision guided weapons.
Seeding an aerospace eco-system
Indeed while the LCA program has endured waves of criticism, the fact is that it has helped grow a domestic aerospace eco-system in India that has the potential to be truly game changing. This was achieved starting from a situation in the late 1980s when India had lost most of its domestic capabilities for developing fighter aircraft on account of the HAL HF-24 Marut, India's first homegrown fighter, not being succeeded by a follow on program. Owing to that, a lot of standard test facilities such as the LCA mini bird & iron Bird for flight control system Integration, a dynamic avionics integration rig, brake dynamometer & drop test rigs, secondary power system & fuel system test rigs, engine test bed, mobile electromagnetic interference/compatibility test facility etc. had to be set up in India from scratch by the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) which manages the overall LCA/Tejas development program.
Today several domestic companies are involved in the Tejas program and some of them are now global Tier-II and III suppliers, having cut their teeth with this project which has seen the indigenous development and production of major sub-components such as aircraft-mounted accessories gearbox, carbon-carbon brake disc, heat exchangers, hydraulic & fuel valves etc. By value, 65 per cent of the components are now indigenous (although many are still built by HAL itself) and this is expected to climb to 80 per cent in the next few years.
All this has been accomplished with a total spend of about Rs 14,047 crores, spread over the Tejas Mk-I, MK-II and naval LCA programs (Note: I am looking at developmental costs only, not on what had been spent towards producing delivery standard aircraft). The total spend on the flagship Tejas MK-I program itself has been around Rs 8000 crores. That mind you is a rather modest amount for seeding a credible national aerospace capability, especially when you consider that almost 10 billion dollars was spent on the 2010 Commonwealth Games alone if all the related infrastructure development for that event is taken into account. And do not forget that the money for Tejas development was not sanctioned at one go. The full scale engineering development (FSED) phase-I for the Tejas program began only in 1993 with Rs 2188 crore being allocated to the program at the time which included the Rs 580 crore sanctioned in 1988 for the project definition phase (PDP). The delay in FSED allocation was in no small measure due to the fact that India had to go through the tumult of the balance of payments crisis of 1990-1991.
The scope of the 'spend' on FSED phase I was limited to building and flight testing two technology demonstrators only. One of which flew on 4th January 2001, overcoming American sanctions imposed post-Pokharan-II in 1998 which saw the whole LCA control law (CLAW) development team being thrown out of America. Undeterred by Lockheed Martin terminating its participation in the CLAW program, ADA scientists managed to develop flawless CLAW indigenously and the fact that the Tejas flight-test program has managed over 2000 flights without any incidents is a testimony to that effort.
Anyway, that first flight gave enough confidence to the government to sanction Rs 3301.78 crores for FSED Phase-II that involved the design, development and flight testing of 3 Prototypes and 8 Limited-Series. production (LSP) units. A final tranche of Rs 2475.78 crores was sanctioned as late as 2010, with the Mk-I heading towards Initial Operational Clearance-I (IOC-I) in 2011. What nobody tells you is that this staggered financial approval scheme entailed major delays which also contributed to increasing the need for several design upgrades towards obsolescence management. Indeed the entire Tejas program had to weather a time when India was emerging out of socialist stasis and going through the pangs of liberalization.
As far as I am concerned the program really materialized in the mid-1990s and the air staff requirement (ASR) of 1995 that was agreed to by ADA at the time broadly set the ultimate performance objectives for the project. With reference to the 1995 ASR, the Mk-I has already exceeded the angle of attack (AoA) requirement of 24 degrees, by some two degrees (i.e it has achieved 26 degrees), which is highly commendable and comparable to the best that the Mirage 2000 could do. This could even be increased to 28 degrees in the future. High alpha testing of course meant that parachutes and related systems developed by the Defence Development and Research Organization's (DRDO's) Aerial Delivery Research and Development Establishment (ADRDE) for spin recovery were integrated into test aircraft as a safety measure, though they were of course never required to deploy. The Mk-I has also demonstrated +7G and has flown at a maximum Mach number of 1.6 at altitude.
SP-2 meanwhile is expected to be ready by March 2015 and at least four units in all will be delivered to the Indian Air force (IAF) before the end of 2015 in order for it to form a mini-squadron in Bangalore itself. These aircraft are of course part of the initial 20 unit order for Tejas MK-Is and sport a configuration that received Initial Operational Clearance-2 (IOC-2) in December 2013. Once the full 20 unit order is executed, the IAF will operationalize a squadron at Sulur. A further 20 units will also be purchased by the IAF from HAL's production line, though these will be of a configuration that has been accorded final operational clearance (FOC).
Rest of the article can be read here
Saurav Jha's Blog : The Radiance of Tejas: A bright prospect for 'Make in India'
Ten years have passed since that paper came out, and today deliveries of combat standard units of the HAL Tejas Mk-I are beginning with the first 'series production' aircraft, SP-I taking to the air in late 2014. SP-I therefore marks the arrival of India's first indigenous combat capable fourth generation fighter that boasts the extensive use of carbon composites (more than 70 per cent of the airframe by weight) an indigenous quadruplex digital flight control system, indigenous mission computers and a modern glass cockpit capable enabling all weather day/night operations and the carriage of precision guided weapons.
Seeding an aerospace eco-system
Indeed while the LCA program has endured waves of criticism, the fact is that it has helped grow a domestic aerospace eco-system in India that has the potential to be truly game changing. This was achieved starting from a situation in the late 1980s when India had lost most of its domestic capabilities for developing fighter aircraft on account of the HAL HF-24 Marut, India's first homegrown fighter, not being succeeded by a follow on program. Owing to that, a lot of standard test facilities such as the LCA mini bird & iron Bird for flight control system Integration, a dynamic avionics integration rig, brake dynamometer & drop test rigs, secondary power system & fuel system test rigs, engine test bed, mobile electromagnetic interference/compatibility test facility etc. had to be set up in India from scratch by the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) which manages the overall LCA/Tejas development program.
Today several domestic companies are involved in the Tejas program and some of them are now global Tier-II and III suppliers, having cut their teeth with this project which has seen the indigenous development and production of major sub-components such as aircraft-mounted accessories gearbox, carbon-carbon brake disc, heat exchangers, hydraulic & fuel valves etc. By value, 65 per cent of the components are now indigenous (although many are still built by HAL itself) and this is expected to climb to 80 per cent in the next few years.
All this has been accomplished with a total spend of about Rs 14,047 crores, spread over the Tejas Mk-I, MK-II and naval LCA programs (Note: I am looking at developmental costs only, not on what had been spent towards producing delivery standard aircraft). The total spend on the flagship Tejas MK-I program itself has been around Rs 8000 crores. That mind you is a rather modest amount for seeding a credible national aerospace capability, especially when you consider that almost 10 billion dollars was spent on the 2010 Commonwealth Games alone if all the related infrastructure development for that event is taken into account. And do not forget that the money for Tejas development was not sanctioned at one go. The full scale engineering development (FSED) phase-I for the Tejas program began only in 1993 with Rs 2188 crore being allocated to the program at the time which included the Rs 580 crore sanctioned in 1988 for the project definition phase (PDP). The delay in FSED allocation was in no small measure due to the fact that India had to go through the tumult of the balance of payments crisis of 1990-1991.
The scope of the 'spend' on FSED phase I was limited to building and flight testing two technology demonstrators only. One of which flew on 4th January 2001, overcoming American sanctions imposed post-Pokharan-II in 1998 which saw the whole LCA control law (CLAW) development team being thrown out of America. Undeterred by Lockheed Martin terminating its participation in the CLAW program, ADA scientists managed to develop flawless CLAW indigenously and the fact that the Tejas flight-test program has managed over 2000 flights without any incidents is a testimony to that effort.
Anyway, that first flight gave enough confidence to the government to sanction Rs 3301.78 crores for FSED Phase-II that involved the design, development and flight testing of 3 Prototypes and 8 Limited-Series. production (LSP) units. A final tranche of Rs 2475.78 crores was sanctioned as late as 2010, with the Mk-I heading towards Initial Operational Clearance-I (IOC-I) in 2011. What nobody tells you is that this staggered financial approval scheme entailed major delays which also contributed to increasing the need for several design upgrades towards obsolescence management. Indeed the entire Tejas program had to weather a time when India was emerging out of socialist stasis and going through the pangs of liberalization.
As far as I am concerned the program really materialized in the mid-1990s and the air staff requirement (ASR) of 1995 that was agreed to by ADA at the time broadly set the ultimate performance objectives for the project. With reference to the 1995 ASR, the Mk-I has already exceeded the angle of attack (AoA) requirement of 24 degrees, by some two degrees (i.e it has achieved 26 degrees), which is highly commendable and comparable to the best that the Mirage 2000 could do. This could even be increased to 28 degrees in the future. High alpha testing of course meant that parachutes and related systems developed by the Defence Development and Research Organization's (DRDO's) Aerial Delivery Research and Development Establishment (ADRDE) for spin recovery were integrated into test aircraft as a safety measure, though they were of course never required to deploy. The Mk-I has also demonstrated +7G and has flown at a maximum Mach number of 1.6 at altitude.
SP-2 meanwhile is expected to be ready by March 2015 and at least four units in all will be delivered to the Indian Air force (IAF) before the end of 2015 in order for it to form a mini-squadron in Bangalore itself. These aircraft are of course part of the initial 20 unit order for Tejas MK-Is and sport a configuration that received Initial Operational Clearance-2 (IOC-2) in December 2013. Once the full 20 unit order is executed, the IAF will operationalize a squadron at Sulur. A further 20 units will also be purchased by the IAF from HAL's production line, though these will be of a configuration that has been accorded final operational clearance (FOC).
Rest of the article can be read here
Saurav Jha's Blog : The Radiance of Tejas: A bright prospect for 'Make in India'
