LCA Tejas Mk1 & Mk1A - News and discussions
- Thread starter Ashwin
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mate - please dont confuse me with these random abbrevs. what is MCA? not AMCA?
MMRCA II, MCA, MSA, LSA -> will these ever happen?
MCA will most likely be the new designation of the LCA Mk2. Since its MTOW will be above 16T, it is a medium weight aircraft now. The LCA Mk1's MTOW is 12.5T and the original Mk2 is at 13.5T.
LCA, MCA and MMRCA II will happen as long as nothing new comes up.
LSA, MSA etc, you will have to ask @vstol Jockey, since only he knows its progress. If Vstol's LSA and MSA become real, then it will kill all our existing programs. So that's a dark horse in the scheme of things. Of course, right now, it's a unicorn.
we already went through LOTS of speculation of LCA Mk 2 will ever happen. now you are converting the LCA mk2 to MCA - is this your own terminology or is this used somewhere in official notifications?
Not yet. But that's where the jet is going towards.
The Mk1A and Mk2 projects were run by HAL and ADA resply. The Mk2 was simply a properly done Mk1. Meaning, Mk2 was designed as an aircraft that can fulfill the IAF's ASR since the Mk1 had become overweight. So it wasn't anything special compared to the Mk1. But when HAL decided to go for the Mk1A, they took the Mk1 design and basically made it as good as the Mk2. So Mk2 became irrelevant because of the Mk1. This old Mk2 was dead on the drawing board.
This was obviously not lost on the designers, so ADA is now making changes to the Mk2. Now, we have a new LCA Mk2 Version 2. Instead of 0.5m long, it is now 1m long, and it will also include either canards or LEVCONS, most likely canards. This new aircraft will have more range and will be more capable than the Mk1A.
So LCA Mk1 and Mk1A will be below 13.5T and will be light aircraft. Whereas the new Mk2 will compete with Gripen E and will be in the higher MCA class, above 16T.
Basically, the LCA Mk2 is no longer a Light Combat Aircraft. It's a Medium Combat Aircraft. Hence MCA.
Gripen E does not have 2500km range. Its final specification itself is not yet clear. It was initially said to weigh 7tons but now it is 8ton empty weight. Gripen E is unreliable plane.
Tejas MK2 can have 3.5ton fuel as the size is going to be similar to Naval variant - 14.2m in length. The empty weight will be 7.5tons and engine thrust 100kN. It is likely to even have canards for better control and slower landing on carriers.
The total MToW will likely be 16tons with 5Tons payload. It is not going to be MCA by any means. Mirage 2000 had empty weight 7.5tons and MToW 16.5tons. Will you call it MCA? Don't keep changing names
LCA MK2 will have canards based on inputs coming from DA. But it will be yet another disaster as the aspect ratio of the present wing is too low to get any benefits from canards and the wing itself has to be lowered to a low wing design to get max benefit of canards. For CCC, you need to have a vertical difference between wing and canards of atleast 0.25MAC and the difference between canard and wing AC has to be atleast 1.1-1.25 of wing MAC. LCA is too small in size to comply with these requirements and its highly swept outer wings will make it even more difficult to get any benefits from canards. Have a look at Rafale, they achieved it by giving positive dihedral to canards and negative dihedral to wings in such a manner that at the MAC of the wing, the separation between canard and wing is proper as per the aerodynamic requirements.
If the size of LCA Mk2 is increased to 14.2m from current 13.2m without changing the size of the wings, we will get 1 metre extra length to keep the canards. Or the canards may be kept adjacent to the cockpit. With current size, it is difficult to have canards but with increase in size it is possible. That is why empty weight will be 7.5 tons from current 6.6tons, 15% increase
N-LCA Mk2 is 14.56m. It will come with LEVCONS.
AF-LCA Mk2 is either 13.7m or 14.2m, and this depends on which design they will finally choose. Even the decision to go for canards is still pending.
Gripen E's range was given by SAAB themselves. It is 15.2m long and has 3.4T of fuel. It's natural for it to have such a range. You are also confusing the empty weight of Gripen E with Gripen Demo. Gripen E's empty weight will be 7.2T.
Gripen E, M-2000, F-16, N-LCA Mk2, AF LCA Mk2 V2 qualify as single engine MMRCA.
Why the heck are we taking advices from DA for LCA MK2? They are not asked to be advising on LCA Mk2. It just feels that IAF just wants our defence industry to be working for foreigners and as per foreigners orders. Seems they have not gotten over the colonial "Laat Sahab" sickness
Look at Pakistan, already going the China way, Recently some Chinese labour had the guts to fight Pakistan police in pakistan and they even cut the electricity to the police station,.
Look at Pakistan, already going the China way, Recently some Chinese labour had the guts to fight Pakistan police in pakistan and they even cut the electricity to the police station,.
It is not input from DA. ADA is not stupid. They wanted to have a plane that is capable of carrying decent loads and fuel,, have sufficient maneuvering and be able to land on carrier. So, it required canards. Canards help in better maneuvering and breaking while landing on a carrier. Delta wing planes generally have high landing speed as they can't get stable at lower speeds. In this case, canards can help slow down the speed
What a stupid design. They want to carry a Litening pod just to deliver two LGBs. and the positioning of SPJ is again wrong. If the outer pylon can withstand the weight of two WVRs, why not carry two SPJs on the outer side each side and the WVR on the inner side of this pylon.