Indian Air Force : Updates & Discussions

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Bordering Two Countries, This Indian Region Becomes Air Force's New 'Makeshift' Base

Guwahati in Assam, Aizawl in Mizoram and Kolkata and Durgapur in West Bengal have been considered by the IAF for round-the-clock operations of Sukhoi Su30s — India's most advanced fighter jets.
Tulika Devi | News18
Updated:May 2, 2019, 9:22 PM IST

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Guwahati: In a first, Sukhoi Su30 fighter jets took off from the civilian airports in Assam, Mizoram and West Bengal on Thursday. The Indian Air Force (IAF) said that the arrangement would improve wartime preparedness and would help in emergency.

The Eastern Air Command (EAC) had conducted the aircraft operational exercise in Kolkata and Durgapur airports also.

All the SU-30MKI aircraft took off from Chhabua and Tezpur air base in Assam to take part in the operational exercise, which was held after a gap of two-three years in Eastern Air Command Area of Responsibility (AoR).

Guwahati in Assam, Aizawl in Mizoram and Kolkata and Durgapur in West Bengal have been considered by the IAF for round-the-clock operations of Sukhoi Su30s, which are currently India's most advanced fighter jets, an official said.

For a Sukhoi Su30 class aircraft, this is the first time that a drill has been conducted from Guwahati airport. The IAF conducted the exercise with an aim to use the civilian airports for strategic purposes in case of war-like situation and attack from the enemy.

As part of the exercise, fighter pilots and crew will coordinate and train to operate from major civilian airports. This was also done to be fully prepared for an eventuality where the IAF may need to shift operating bases at a moment's notice from a military air field to a civilian airport, the official said.

Wing Commander Shashank Mishra said that the aim of the exercise was to validate fighter operations from civil airfields.

Bordering Two Countries, This Indian Region Becomes Air Force's New 'Makeshift' Base
 
India has finalised the plan to acquire 30 weaponised Sea Guardian (or Predator-B) drones in yet another proposed mega defence deal with the US, even as New Delhi remains steadfast about going ahead with its deal inked for the Russian S-400 Triumf missile systems despite mounting pressure from the Trump administration.

Top sources say the tri-service procurement proposal for the Sea Guardian remotely piloted aircraft – with 10 drones each for the Navy, IAF and Army to hunt and destroy targets on land and sea – is now “being vetted” before it is sent to the Defence Acquisitions Council (DAC) for approval.

Once this “acceptance of necessity” is granted by the DAC, India will issue “the letter of request” to the US for the government-to-government deal under Pentagon’s foreign military sales programme. “Several rounds of bilateral discussions have already taken place. It should take about a year for the actual contract to be inked,” said a source. India is already in an advanced stage to acquire 24 naval multi-role MH-60 “Romeo” helicopters for $2.6 billion and the National Advanced Surface-to Air-Missile System-II for almost $1 billion, with the contract for the former set to be inked by September-October.

With the US having already bagged military contracts worth $17 billion from India just since 2007, while also remaining in contention for several other major projects, Delhi is upset with Washington’s intransigence over the $5.43-billion deal inked for the S-400 systems with Russia in October 2018. India has made it clear that it has “no plans to scrap” the S-400 deal, as was reported by TOI last week.

The acquisition of the “hunter-killer” Sea Guardians, with advanced ground control stations, launch and recovery elements, air-to-ground missiles, smart bombs and the like, will be a huge capability upgrade for the Indian armed forces.”The platform will be the same for the Army, Navy and IAF, while the payloads can be tweaked a little to suit individual service requirements,” said another source.

Much like fighter jets, armed drones are capable of firing missiles and precision-guided munitions on enemy targets before returning to their home bases to re-arm for the next mission. With a greater flying endurance than fighters, they can undertake long-range intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions as well as silently hover over targets before letting loose their missiles.

The Navy, for instance, can deploy the Sea Guardians to monitor “choke points” from the Persian Gulf to Malacca Strait in the Indian Ocean Region. The Sea Guardians, which have a maximum range of 5,500 nautical miles with an endurance of 35 hours for ISR missions, will greatly help to enhance India’s overall maritime domain awareness in its strategic backyard.

India’s inking of the bilateral military pact with the US called Comcasa (Communications, Compatibility and Security Arrangement) in September 2018 has paved the way for greater access to advanced military technologies with encrypted and secure communications and data links.

The Sea Guardian, for instance, has Comcasa-protected equipment like an advanced GPS, identification friend or foe receiver and VHF system, which is immune to jamming and spoofing from enemies.

AMCA- India's first indigenous stealth fighter
 
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Gautam said:
India has finalised the plan to acquire 30 weaponised Sea Guardian (or Predator-B) drones in yet another proposed mega defence deal with the US, even as New Delhi remains steadfast about going ahead with its deal inked for the Russian S-400 Triumf missile systems despite mounting pressure from the Trump administration.

Top sources say the tri-service procurement proposal for the Sea Guardian remotely piloted aircraft – with 10 drones each for the Navy, IAF and Army to hunt and destroy targets on land and sea – is now “being vetted” before it is sent to the Defence Acquisitions Council (DAC) for approval.

Once this “acceptance of necessity” is granted by the DAC, India will issue “the letter of request” to the US for the government-to-government deal under Pentagon’s foreign military sales programme. “Several rounds of bilateral discussions have already taken place. It should take about a year for the actual contract to be inked,” said a source. India is already in an advanced stage to acquire 24 naval multi-role MH-60 “Romeo” helicopters for $2.6 billion and the National Advanced Surface-to Air-Missile System-II for almost $1 billion, with the contract for the former set to be inked by September-October.

With the US having already bagged military contracts worth $17 billion from India just since 2007, while also remaining in contention for several other major projects, Delhi is upset with Washington’s intransigence over the $5.43-billion deal inked for the S-400 systems with Russia in October 2018. India has made it clear that it has “no plans to scrap” the S-400 deal, as was reported by TOI last week.

The acquisition of the “hunter-killer” Sea Guardians, with advanced ground control stations, launch and recovery elements, air-to-ground missiles, smart bombs and the like, will be a huge capability upgrade for the Indian armed forces.”The platform will be the same for the Army, Navy and IAF, while the payloads can be tweaked a little to suit individual service requirements,” said another source.

Much like fighter jets, armed drones are capable of firing missiles and precision-guided munitions on enemy targets before returning to their home bases to re-arm for the next mission. With a greater flying endurance than fighters, they can undertake long-range intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions as well as silently hover over targets before letting loose their missiles.

The Navy, for instance, can deploy the Sea Guardians to monitor “choke points” from the Persian Gulf to Malacca Strait in the Indian Ocean Region. The Sea Guardians, which have a maximum range of 5,500 nautical miles with an endurance of 35 hours for ISR missions, will greatly help to enhance India’s overall maritime domain awareness in its strategic backyard.

India’s inking of the bilateral military pact with the US called Comcasa (Communications, Compatibility and Security Arrangement) in September 2018 has paved the way for greater access to advanced military technologies with encrypted and secure communications and data links.

The Sea Guardian, for instance, has Comcasa-protected equipment like an advanced GPS, identification friend or foe receiver and VHF system, which is immune to jamming and spoofing from enemies.

AMCA- India's first indigenous stealth fighter
Click to expand...
Any idea if we are working on any turboprop engine above 500 HP? I feel Rustam could have easily done similar job if it can be equipped with above 300-400 hp engines.
 
Gautam said:
India has finalised the plan to acquire 30 weaponised Sea Guardian (or Predator-B) drones in yet another proposed mega defence deal with the US, even as New Delhi remains steadfast about going ahead with its deal inked for the Russian S-400 Triumf missile systems despite mounting pressure from the Trump administration.

Top sources say the tri-service procurement proposal for the Sea Guardian remotely piloted aircraft – with 10 drones each for the Navy, IAF and Army to hunt and destroy targets on land and sea – is now “being vetted” before it is sent to the Defence Acquisitions Council (DAC) for approval.

Once this “acceptance of necessity” is granted by the DAC, India will issue “the letter of request” to the US for the government-to-government deal under Pentagon’s foreign military sales programme. “Several rounds of bilateral discussions have already taken place. It should take about a year for the actual contract to be inked,” said a source. India is already in an advanced stage to acquire 24 naval multi-role MH-60 “Romeo” helicopters for $2.6 billion and the National Advanced Surface-to Air-Missile System-II for almost $1 billion, with the contract for the former set to be inked by September-October.

With the US having already bagged military contracts worth $17 billion from India just since 2007, while also remaining in contention for several other major projects, Delhi is upset with Washington’s intransigence over the $5.43-billion deal inked for the S-400 systems with Russia in October 2018. India has made it clear that it has “no plans to scrap” the S-400 deal, as was reported by TOI last week.

The acquisition of the “hunter-killer” Sea Guardians, with advanced ground control stations, launch and recovery elements, air-to-ground missiles, smart bombs and the like, will be a huge capability upgrade for the Indian armed forces.”The platform will be the same for the Army, Navy and IAF, while the payloads can be tweaked a little to suit individual service requirements,” said another source.

Much like fighter jets, armed drones are capable of firing missiles and precision-guided munitions on enemy targets before returning to their home bases to re-arm for the next mission. With a greater flying endurance than fighters, they can undertake long-range intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions as well as silently hover over targets before letting loose their missiles.

The Navy, for instance, can deploy the Sea Guardians to monitor “choke points” from the Persian Gulf to Malacca Strait in the Indian Ocean Region. The Sea Guardians, which have a maximum range of 5,500 nautical miles with an endurance of 35 hours for ISR missions, will greatly help to enhance India’s overall maritime domain awareness in its strategic backyard.

India’s inking of the bilateral military pact with the US called Comcasa (Communications, Compatibility and Security Arrangement) in September 2018 has paved the way for greater access to advanced military technologies with encrypted and secure communications and data links.

The Sea Guardian, for instance, has Comcasa-protected equipment like an advanced GPS, identification friend or foe receiver and VHF system, which is immune to jamming and spoofing from enemies.

AMCA- India's first indigenous stealth fighter
Click to expand...

24 Romeo costs 2.6 billion $, but

6 Apache Costa 1 billion $... Costly Apache.
 
sid4587 said:
Any idea if we are working on any turboprop engine above 500 HP? I feel Rustam could have easily done similar job if it can be equipped with above 300-400 hp engines.
Click to expand...
The updated engines for Rustom will be an 4 cylinder inline internal combustion aero-engine. Providing around 180-200 HP each upto 11,000 ft, operational ceiling is set at 32,000 ft. Each engine will weigh slightly less than 270 kgs and of course there is going to be two engines.

We have never built a tuboprop in this country. But the success of this will make it very easy :
1560791826255.png


Turboshaft and Turboprops do have some differences but it wouldn't be anything major. Of course the engine would need to be down rated and reduced in mass and bulk.

I doubt we will do that though. Rustoms problem isn't engine, it's the design. Dragy and inefficient, normal for any ab initio development. I do have my hopes pinned for the upcoming HAL/NewSpace Unmanned wingman drone though.

Sathya said:
24 Romeo costs 2.6 billion $, but

6 Apache Costa 1 billion $... Costly Apache.
Click to expand...
I'll never understand FMS deals.
 
_Anonymous_ said:
Helicopter expansion outgrowing fighter planes' indicates Indian Military Aviation reorienting | The Dispatch
Click to expand...

There's no reorientation happening in that respect. Our helicopter inductions look better because our fighter inductions have atrophied, nothing else. Our overall fixed wing inductions have been quite pathetic this decade, and I'm not talking about fighter jets alone. Look at transports, refuellers and AWACS. And the IAF in particular is only now talking about introducing dedicated EW and JSTARS class aircraft. Basically all our future force multipliers are only in the "Holy sh!t, we gotta buy these" phase.

And the coming decade is going to look even better for helicopters because of the coming induction of a large number of Apaches and LCH. Army aviation's gonna look really good in a few years.

If there is some form of reorientation happening it will be defined by the induction of medium and long range SAMs and also UCAVs, neither of which we operated a decade ago.
 
Gautam said:
India has finalised the plan to acquire 30 weaponised Sea Guardian (or Predator-B) drones in yet another proposed mega defence deal with the US, even as New Delhi remains steadfast about going ahead with its deal inked for the Russian S-400 Triumf missile systems despite mounting pressure from the Trump administration.

Top sources say the tri-service procurement proposal for the Sea Guardian remotely piloted aircraft – with 10 drones each for the Navy, IAF and Army to hunt and destroy targets on land and sea – is now “being vetted” before it is sent to the Defence Acquisitions Council (DAC) for approval.

Once this “acceptance of necessity” is granted by the DAC, India will issue “the letter of request” to the US for the government-to-government deal under Pentagon’s foreign military sales programme. “Several rounds of bilateral discussions have already taken place. It should take about a year for the actual contract to be inked,” said a source. India is already in an advanced stage to acquire 24 naval multi-role MH-60 “Romeo” helicopters for $2.6 billion and the National Advanced Surface-to Air-Missile System-II for almost $1 billion, with the contract for the former set to be inked by September-October.

With the US having already bagged military contracts worth $17 billion from India just since 2007, while also remaining in contention for several other major projects, Delhi is upset with Washington’s intransigence over the $5.43-billion deal inked for the S-400 systems with Russia in October 2018. India has made it clear that it has “no plans to scrap” the S-400 deal, as was reported by TOI last week.

The acquisition of the “hunter-killer” Sea Guardians, with advanced ground control stations, launch and recovery elements, air-to-ground missiles, smart bombs and the like, will be a huge capability upgrade for the Indian armed forces.”The platform will be the same for the Army, Navy and IAF, while the payloads can be tweaked a little to suit individual service requirements,” said another source.

Much like fighter jets, armed drones are capable of firing missiles and precision-guided munitions on enemy targets before returning to their home bases to re-arm for the next mission. With a greater flying endurance than fighters, they can undertake long-range intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions as well as silently hover over targets before letting loose their missiles.

The Navy, for instance, can deploy the Sea Guardians to monitor “choke points” from the Persian Gulf to Malacca Strait in the Indian Ocean Region. The Sea Guardians, which have a maximum range of 5,500 nautical miles with an endurance of 35 hours for ISR missions, will greatly help to enhance India’s overall maritime domain awareness in its strategic backyard.

India’s inking of the bilateral military pact with the US called Comcasa (Communications, Compatibility and Security Arrangement) in September 2018 has paved the way for greater access to advanced military technologies with encrypted and secure communications and data links.

The Sea Guardian, for instance, has Comcasa-protected equipment like an advanced GPS, identification friend or foe receiver and VHF system, which is immune to jamming and spoofing from enemies.

AMCA- India's first indigenous stealth fighter
Click to expand...

If IAF, IA and IN get 10 Sea Guardians each, then I suppose the US has decided they won't be selling the Avengers to us yet.

Hopefully they come around. Having a turbofan powered UCAV is much better than a turboprop.
 
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randomradio said:
If IAF, IA and IN get 10 Sea Guardians each, then I suppose the US has decided they won't be selling the Avengers to us yet.

Hopefully they come around. Having a turbofan powered UCAV is much better than a turboprop.
Click to expand...

They are 2 separate deals/requirements being discussed.
 
suryakiran said:
They are 2 separate deals/requirements being discussed.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but first it requires clearance from the US. So nothing is actually being 'discussed' as such.

Both IA and IAF are interested in procuring the Avenger. All we can do is send out an LoR and then wait for the US to reply back with an LoA, then we can discuss.

Until LoA is issued, all we can do is apply pressure from the top.
 
randomradio said:
Yeah, but first it requires clearance from the US. So nothing is actually being 'discussed' as such.

Both IA and IAF are interested in procuring the Avenger. All we can do is send out an LoR and then wait for the US to reply back with an LoA, then we can discuss.

Until LoA is issued, all we can do is apply pressure from the top.
Click to expand...

The problem was India did not have clearance for something called Category 1 security clearance for UAVs. With this sale, that is now available. The Avenger requires the same level of clearance. The ground based tech,systems and control are the same for both the B and C versions.

As per Financial Express, the US has already begun the work for the sale of 100 C versions to India. But, this will take time. The US itself has only 9 of these. We probably will end up ordering more than the US, because they are going to continue with the current Bs and do not see a need to replace the same.
 
suryakiran said:
The problem was India did not have clearance for something called Category 1 security clearance for UAVs. With this sale, that is now available. The Avenger requires the same level of clearance. The ground based tech,systems and control are the same for both the B and C versions.

As per Financial Express, the US has already begun the work for the sale of 100 C versions to India. But, this will take time. The US itself has only 9 of these. We probably will end up ordering more than the US, because they are going to continue with the current Bs and do not see a need to replace the same.
Click to expand...

Even with a Category 1 clearance, they will still have many other bureaucratic hurdles.

For example, the Avenger uses a stealth design with IWB, so it will likely have many more steps compared to just buying the Predator B. There will be many other technologies also which would have gone on the original Avenger meant for the USAF, but may be denied to India, like the HELLADS laser weapon.

To put it in perspective, IN sent out the LoR for 22 Sea Guardians back in 2016, whereas IAF sent out the LoR for 100 Avengers back in 2015 itself. Even after Category 1 clearance, there's been no movement on the Avengers.

They had also put up roadblocks for the armed version of the Sea Guardians. It's likely the US would have told us to wait for the Sea Guardian sale to finish before going for the larger and more advanced UCAV.

I suppose we are enticing them with large orders instead. 100 for the IAF and a significant number for the IA should make it very appetising and make the program fully viable without American orders.

Honestly, I hope we get the deal moving before a Tapas Mk2 becomes a threat to it. DRDO can easily reconfigure the base design of the Tapas into an Avenger class UCAV mated to HAL's HTFE 25. While I would most definitely support such an endeavour, but it shouldn't come at the sacrifice of the Avenger. DRDO has a habit of killing off important imports.
 
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randomradio said:
If IAF, IA and IN get 10 Sea Guardians each, then I suppose the US has decided they won't be selling the Avengers to us yet.

Hopefully they come around. Having a turbofan powered UCAV is much better than a turboprop.
Click to expand...
then it means they know we are near to design one such drone as htfe 25 wl be more powerful engine than the currently used in avenger though not sure about how good it is in its dimension
 
sid4587 said:
then it means they know we are near to design one such drone as htfe 25 wl be more powerful engine than the currently used in avenger though not sure about how good it is in its dimension
Click to expand...

Strictly speaking, the dimension won't matter. We will just make a much bigger and more capable drone. DRDO could in fact push that as a selling point.

Anyway, HAL is making the engine for civilian use, so it should have acceptable size and weight.

Also, HAL's engine has superior characteristics compared to the PW545B. For example, the currently used American engine's TWR is 5 whereas HAL's engine is more than 5.6.
 
randomradio said:
Strictly speaking, the dimension won't matter. We will just make a much bigger and more capable drone. DRDO could in fact push that as a selling point.

Anyway, HAL is making the engine for civilian use, so it should have acceptable size and weight.

Also, HAL's engine has superior characteristics compared to the PW545B. For example, the currently used American engine's TWR is 5 whereas HAL's engine is more than 5.6.
Click to expand...
yeah because of extra +7kn thrust probably ......i guess even pratt's is above 350 kg? what's the wieght of HAL's one 440+ kg?
 
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