HAL, Egypt Tejas aircraft contract in the works – Military Africa
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LCA Tejas Mk1 & Mk1A - News and discussions
- Thread starter Ashwin
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Look at the confidence of IAF to send Tejas in such a high value exercise so far. And yet many people think Tejas MK1 is useless and laughed when I suggested all 2-seat trainers to be fully combat coded.
Tejas is an awesome plane, soon the world will realise it.
Some time back we were planning to send a Tejas contingent to UK for exercises. But it didn't work out.
Yes because of Ukraine war we cancelled the exercise where Tejas was supposed to take on Eurofighter Typhoon.
So what is it? extra rwr everyone says.
and I want to know what is that streamlined white jet vapor thing, have we seen this before on mk1?
and I want to know what is that streamlined white jet vapor thing, have we seen this before on mk1?
wanted to know that streamlined vapor thing was on f35 wingtips & someone said no other jets make that during aero show 
The Indian Air Force's (IAF's) plan to order 50 more HAL Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Mk 1As comes at a time when the service is trying to address the depletion of its fighter aircraft squadron strength.
India redoubles efforts to make up fighter squadron shortfall | Shephard
Mindful of the need to defend its border with China, India is evaluating how to overcome a shortfall of 12 fighter aircraft squadrons over the next decade.
www.shephardmedia.com
NOTE: RWR near the wing tips
Looks like we are looking at the Mk1A - Nice !!!
Looks like we are looking at the Mk1A - Nice !!!
The biggest question is what will be the new empty weight of the production models.
I hope weight reduction has been achieved.
The LCA Mk1 weighs 6550Kg. Best case, but impossible is a reduction of 1000Kg, and bring it to the original 5500Kg goal. There's about 250Kg of ballast and the landing gear is over-engineered. Removing the ballast, some other dead weight and reducing the weight of the landing carriage can reduce up to 1000Kg at least. Radar and EW suite could add 100Kg more though, above what's in the Mk1. So a 900Kg reduction is ideal. But it would be great if they reduce even by half that value, even 400Kg would be great.
Since the engine is for life, we need to reduce airframe weight before production in order to compensate for increases in weight in the future, when upgrades and structural fixes are introduced.
Of course, the alternative is they won't do anything to the landing carriage and the the ballast weight is negated by new electronics in a 1:1 ratio, then we won't see any weight reduction.
I think @lcafanboy posted links here w.r.t weight reduction of the Mk-1a the last time a discussion around the topic was initiated. If I'm not mistaken a reduction of some 3-400 kgs was already achieved & the TTSL of the airframe was certified for 3000 hrs with work on to enhance the life & testing for the same.
Majority of Weight reduction has already been achieved. LCA mk1 LSP aircrafts weight was around 7500 kgs with telemetry equipments which weighed around 500kgs which were removed in production fighters and brought down to 6950kgs and now further reduced to 6560kgs which is very good but LCA mk1 still carries 300to400kgs of balast. One thing more to keep in mind they have also increased fuel capacity to 2950kgs. Further weight reduction is almost difficult to achieve as whatever weight they remove from excess ballast weight will be negated by internal electronic warfare suit, aesa radar, and many more other capabilities which will be added to the airframe.
For comparison Gripen C weighs 6800kgs with 2400kg internal fuel capacity, Kai 50 weighs 6450kgs with 2690 kg internal fuel capacity both of which have GE404 with 80kn power while LCA mk1 itself carries a 85kn engine giving it a better TWR.
As for TTSL airframe life it's already well above 6000hrs and should be comparable to any modern fighters like Gripen and Eurofighter typhoon as LCA has highest percentage of carbon composite materials and is being increased more to bring down the weight of LCA. HAL has already started Airframe stress test for LCA Airframe last year which will last 8to9 years which will establish the actual life of airframe which should be more than 8000 hours due carbon composite materials used...
Also the weapons payload has been been increased from 3600kgs to 4350kgs now which again is very good and comparable to jaguars and combat radius which is better than jaguar fighters.
So LCA mk1 itself is a beast now and mk1a would be a step ahead with aesa radar and electronic warfare suit..