It's the counterpart to the Ghatak, a UCAV that will escort Ghatak and engage enemy fighters.
They are calling it Futuristic Unmanned Fighter Aircraft, FUFA.
It's the counterpart to the Ghatak, a UCAV that will escort Ghatak and engage enemy fighters.
They are calling it Futuristic Unmanned Fighter Aircraft, FUFA.
I think its a Super sonic dog fight capable UCAV that will work along with AMCA.
The bidding company is expected to do the design, fabrication & testing by themselves ? Only HAL is capable of doing all 3. ADE would verify the design & hold on to the IPR of the design. The wind tunnel is the NWTF at IIT Kanpur, the same place where the Ghatak UCAV was designed.
I thought the airforce variant of the HAL-NewSpace CATS Warrior UCAV was supposed to do that. Remember the Warrior would carry a radar & ASRAAMs. That HAL test pilot, I forget his name, mentioned in an interview to DDR that the Warrior was supposed to assist the Tejas & other fighters in dogfight through both weapon firing & as a sensor amplifier. The UCAV would be pushed ahead of the pack of manned fighters at the leading edge of the formation to reduce risks to the pilots.
When he said Tejas & other fighters I presume AMCA would eventually be in that list too. The CATS Warrior is supposed to have its 1st flight in 2022. Why do we need another UCAV for the same role ?
FUFA ji.
As per one guy in other Forum who worked in IIT kanpur there is supersonic dog fight UCAV for AMCA.The bidding company is expected to do the design, fabrication & testing by themselves ? Only HAL is capable of doing all 3. ADE would verify the design & hold on to the IPR of the design. The wind tunnel is the NWTF at IIT Kanpur, the same place where the Ghatak UCAV was designed.
I thought the airforce variant of the HAL-NewSpace CATS Warrior UCAV was supposed to do that. Remember the Warrior would carry a radar & ASRAAMs. That HAL test pilot, I forget his name, mentioned in an interview to DDR that the Warrior was supposed to assist the Tejas & other fighters in dogfight through both weapon firing & as a sensor amplifier. The UCAV would be pushed ahead of the pack of manned fighters at the leading edge of the formation to reduce risks to the pilots.
When he said Tejas & other fighters I presume AMCA would eventually be in that list too. The CATS Warrior is supposed to have its 1st flight in 2022. Why do we need another UCAV for the same role ?
Yeah, that's the main purpose. It's the reason why AMCA and F-35 have smaller weapons bays. Most of the AAMs necessary will be carried by such UCAVs instead. Plus these UCAVs do not need as sophisticated avionics as needed on fighters.
So this is seperate from the Warrior UCAV ? How many UCAVs do we have under development ? Ghatak, Warrior, Hunter, Tapas & the new variant of the Rustom-1.
CATS is a HAL project based on their own requirements. Based on the specs I have seen, it's not suitable for combat alongside fast jets. For example, FUFA needs to be capable of very high G performance along with high speed dash, supercruise, stealth etc. But Warrior is simply a weapons mule meant to enhance the weapons payload of a sister jet or as a kamikaze weapon if necessary. It has low range, is subsonic, not stealth etc.
Whatever DRDO is working on will be based on what the IAF actually needs.
Anyway there's timeframe. FUFA is not gonna be available for at least 10 more years. IUSAV will need 3-4 years just to begin flying, and then 3-4 years before induction. FUFA could take a few more years after that. But Warrior, MAX etc should become available much earlier than that.
DRDO's fascination with acronyms...
For a mule the Warrior wont carry a lot of weapons: 2 internal & 2 external. I thought the design of the Warrior is pretty stealthy. I wonder what this new FUFA ji will look like.
For next gen requirement at the high end, I have heard of four. IUSAV for strike, FUFA for air combat, and one each for ISR and EW. The one meant for EW could be divided further, one for standoff and the other for penetration, but I don't know this yet, or even the scale of the division, could be a whole family of EA drones. Rustom family is fine for peacetime operations, it's for the low end requirement.
A HALE is also planned based on HAL's new engine, along with the psuedo-satellite UAV, but both are under HAL, not DRDO.
That's fine. 2 LCAs and 2 Warriors escorting Jaguars will give you 8 BVR and 8 WVR missiles, that's double the normal escort payload.
I have seen one design. The wing looks like the one from X-47B, but the fuselage is a lot more smaller and sleeker.
regarding the UCAV, multiple configurations are being studied by HAL, ADA and a start-up (probably you can guess the name
). It will be equipped with ACID that will enable it to operate with full autonomy. There are three configurations, one with delta canard, one traditional design and one radical new design. But the new design has some unwanted moments which needs to be investigated extensively further one.ISR and EW both will have separate designs right.
I think for ISR HALE UAV is under Development by DRDO.
I don't have it with me.
Don't break your head over it though, it could have been an artist's release rather than the actual drone. Or just an experimental prototype.
regarding the UCAV, multiple configurations are being studied by HAL, ADA and a start-up (probably you can guess the name
Yeah, looks like a post 2030 program.
Definitely. ISR requires flying wing stealth, like the RQ-170/180.
EW will require various designs for different needs, even swarm drones. It doesn't require as much stealth.
Then I suppose there's CATS HALE and a second design from ADE.
They don't operate at the same altitude.
ISR is for 12-20/30Km altitude, whereas Ghatak is for below 12Km.
A penetrative ISR is needed to support Ghatak.
No, a flying wing ISR drone.
Since there's no pilot, drones can fly higher than the Armstrong limit.
TE - Great.
Tailless delta - Ugh.
If there's a tailless delta being considered, there should be a canard version as well. But I don't think it's a good idea to go for delta over lambda, unless the plan is to keep it simple.
I recall the Americans were showing off diamond winged drones with the F-35. So that's an option too.