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LCA Tejas Mk1 & Mk1A - News and discussions
- Thread starter Ashwin
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in other words,
ALH - ARDC HAL
LCA - ADA DRDO.
sorry, couldn't stop.
The main focus for LCA was indigenisation, almost 100%, while that wasn't the case with ALH, its goal was 50%.
And HAL's program was definitely better managed when it came to ALH. The same with what's happening with LCA Mk1A. Having a labour force with production knowledge plays such a huge part. Dunno why HAL couldn't bring that experience into LCA Mk1.
Main disconnect was in the Production design of the system, ADA while designing the aircraft paid no attention to ease of manufacturing, jigs and fixtures for subsystems , some of the stamping's for air-frame literally needed a shift of machining on a vmc to get it to profile and to the next machining station, which is ridiculous. Individual components of air-frame had hand wet lam composites which is almost impossible to be in spec. All russian systems have always focused on poke-yoke for cables and harnesses, LCA's early prototypes literally had point to point connections on the harnesses, can you imagine tracing a cable on the controller to the llid on an enclosed airframe. ADA has made such mess of the aircraft, it is not even funny. On contrary look the MKI or the ALH/LCH platform, even before the prototype was fabricates, Wire-lengths, harness design, standard connectors all of it was scoped , specified, and procured. These seem to be trivial in discussion, but it's magnitude in actual assembly and then subsequent maintenance is paramount.
HAL plans 3rd LCA line to keep workforce engaged
BENGALURU: Conceding that its employees trained to work on fixed wing aircraft will see a reduction in work once it delivers the remaining Su-30 MKI planes Su-30 planes, HAL has now decided to open a third manufacturing line of Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas at its Nashik facility, which so far has only made the Su-30. The last Su-30 will be delivered by March 2020.
TOI had reported earlier that with the Hawk and Jaguar projects already completed and just 23 of the Su-30s pending delivery, thousands of HAL workers will have little or no work until new orders come. HAL CMD R Madhavan, on Friday said: “While the repair and overhauling work at Nashik will still be there, it is true that a section of those workers will have no work. So we’ve decided to start a third LCA line at Nashik.”
The operation of the third line, however, depends on HAL getting the orders for 83 Tejas cleared by the Defence Acquisition Committee (DAC), which is currently stuck with the Cost Committee set up by the Centre, which feels that the cost quoted by HAL is too high.
“We’ve submitted all clarifications to the committee. You cannot compare the cost of the IOC (initial operational clearance) configuration, which had nothing to the FOC (final operational clearance) configuration which has a lot of new equipment added. The cost has gone up because of that. Now, if you want the moon, you will have to pay for it,” Madhavan said.
He did not, however, give out details of what HAL had quoted for each Tejas. HAL is already spending Rs 1,300 crore to augment LCA production and make 16 aircraft annually, and the third line will be part of this. “With that we hope to achieve an annual production rate of 20 planes a year,” he said.
At present HAL has orders for 40 Tejas—16 in IOC configuration and the remaining in FOC configuration—and orders for the 83 is important for the PSU to keep its production going. Madhavan said that on the rotary wing side, the PSU has enough orders to keep its workforce engaged, as reported by TOI earlier.
“We are also hopeful of bagging order for the light combat helicopter (LCH) and the light utility helicopter (LUH) in the future besides the Kamov helicopters which will be a joint venture with Russia,” he said.
IAF pays due partly
Madhavan also confirmed that the PSU has more than Rs 7,000 crore dues owed by the armed forces—more than 70% of which must come from cash-strapped Indian Air Force (IAF)—and that this payment would make its cash position better.
“Just a few days ago the IAF paid Rs 2,000-odd crore which has helped our cash position, and we will be in a better position once the remaining is paid too...the army and navy owe us a negligible amount,” he said.
Order Books
While conceding that the company could do with more orders than its book reflects, Madhavan said: “We generally like to have an order book that would take care of sales for about five to seven years, but the Rs 62,000 crore or Rs 64,0000 crore we have now is enough only for three-and-a-half years. That said, we are hopeful that the LCA and LCH orders come through soon,” he said.
HAL plans 3rd LCA line to keep workforce engaged - Times of India
BENGALURU: Conceding that its employees trained to work on fixed wing aircraft will see a reduction in work once it delivers the remaining Su-30 MKI planes Su-30 planes, HAL has now decided to open a third manufacturing line of Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas at its Nashik facility, which so far has only made the Su-30. The last Su-30 will be delivered by March 2020.
TOI had reported earlier that with the Hawk and Jaguar projects already completed and just 23 of the Su-30s pending delivery, thousands of HAL workers will have little or no work until new orders come. HAL CMD R Madhavan, on Friday said: “While the repair and overhauling work at Nashik will still be there, it is true that a section of those workers will have no work. So we’ve decided to start a third LCA line at Nashik.”
The operation of the third line, however, depends on HAL getting the orders for 83 Tejas cleared by the Defence Acquisition Committee (DAC), which is currently stuck with the Cost Committee set up by the Centre, which feels that the cost quoted by HAL is too high.
“We’ve submitted all clarifications to the committee. You cannot compare the cost of the IOC (initial operational clearance) configuration, which had nothing to the FOC (final operational clearance) configuration which has a lot of new equipment added. The cost has gone up because of that. Now, if you want the moon, you will have to pay for it,” Madhavan said.
He did not, however, give out details of what HAL had quoted for each Tejas. HAL is already spending Rs 1,300 crore to augment LCA production and make 16 aircraft annually, and the third line will be part of this. “With that we hope to achieve an annual production rate of 20 planes a year,” he said.
At present HAL has orders for 40 Tejas—16 in IOC configuration and the remaining in FOC configuration—and orders for the 83 is important for the PSU to keep its production going. Madhavan said that on the rotary wing side, the PSU has enough orders to keep its workforce engaged, as reported by TOI earlier.
“We are also hopeful of bagging order for the light combat helicopter (LCH) and the light utility helicopter (LUH) in the future besides the Kamov helicopters which will be a joint venture with Russia,” he said.
IAF pays due partly
Madhavan also confirmed that the PSU has more than Rs 7,000 crore dues owed by the armed forces—more than 70% of which must come from cash-strapped Indian Air Force (IAF)—and that this payment would make its cash position better.
“Just a few days ago the IAF paid Rs 2,000-odd crore which has helped our cash position, and we will be in a better position once the remaining is paid too...the army and navy owe us a negligible amount,” he said.
Order Books
While conceding that the company could do with more orders than its book reflects, Madhavan said: “We generally like to have an order book that would take care of sales for about five to seven years, but the Rs 62,000 crore or Rs 64,0000 crore we have now is enough only for three-and-a-half years. That said, we are hopeful that the LCA and LCH orders come through soon,” he said.
HAL plans 3rd LCA line to keep workforce engaged - Times of India
he is referring to the LCA as "if you want the moon"?
so all the hue and cry of not disclosing Rafale's price - we dont know the price of our own LCA as well?
"We are increasing the capacity from producing eight aircraft a year to 16 a year. We are spending Rs 1,380 crore to increase production and can even take it to 20 aircraft per year by running extra shifts. A third line is also being planned at Nashik in case we get larger orders. In fact, we have already ordered the jigs and fixtures for Nashik. Even though we can make 16 aircraft a year, we cannot sell more than seven as the final operational clearances are still stuck. The aeronautical development agency is in talks with stakeholders to resolve that"
Still works for me. Content was, that the 3rd line us not new, but was approved before and that only the location changed.
There is no offcial statement but this might give a hint:
Report of Anantha Krishnan M from 2015:
- Refuelling trials just started
- gun trials awaited
- HSLD bombs were tested, trials complete?
- new supersonic tank, not available yet
- Derby integration finished, Python V integrated, but reportedly with issues
- envelope expension within the limitation of the MK1 airframes was shown some time ago
na thā kuchh to ḳhudā thā kuchh na hotā to ḳhudā hotā
Duboyā mujh ko hone ne na hotā maiñ to kyā hotā
if there's a roadblock, you can expect a delay, if there isn't one, you can expect a delay nonetheless.Meanwhile, The existential saga of the ADA and it's child the LCA continues.
We've barely a few more weeks to go before the end of this calendar year and the proverbial FOC to materialise. If you still haven't heard from official sources on whether we'd be meeting this milestone, your guess is as good as mine, as to whether we'd be ending this year on a good note as far as the FOC is concerned.
We aren’t in offsets; please don’t bring HAL into Rafale deal row: R Madhavan
By Manu Pubby, ET Bureau | Updated: Nov 06, 2018
Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) is not in the offsets business and is not contending for offsets in the Rafale deal, R Madhavan told ET in his first interview since taking charge as the chairman of the state-run aerospace and defence company in September. At a time when opposition parties are accusing the government of wrongfully denying HAL the offsets contract in the deal with France for fighter aircraft, Madhavan said HAL had told its employees not to get involved with any political party on the issue. He said HAL was augmenting its LCA (light combat aircraft) production line and gearing up to secure more orders.
Excerpts:
What is HAL’s position on the attempt to address its employees amid controversy over the Rafale deal?
Our message is clear — please do not bring HAL into it. Our job is to maximise our output for the stakeholders. We have told our people not to get involved with any political party on the issue because the whole thing has a negative impact on HAL. Our own unions have made statements that they are not party to any of it — neither on one side nor the other. These statements have been made even without us telling them to do so.
One charge being levelled is that HAL got deprived of offsets contract worth thousands of crores of rupees from the Rafale deal that went to a private company…
We are not in the offsets business. We are into manufacturing of aircraft. A transfer of technology and production are different from offsets. While some part of the offsets could come to HAL (in different programmes), we are basically not an offsets partner. In fact, we are not even contending for the offsets. We do not plan, for example, to have a line to make a foreign civilian jet. Our prime business is manufacturing, not offsets.
How would you respond to questions on capability of HAL to manufacture fighter jets?
HAL has been supporting the air force and even today 75% of the Air Force’s flying equipment are made or maintained by us. In any of the technical areas, our capability cannot be under question. Capacity could be an issue, and we are in the process of augmenting our capacity through our vendors. HAL has partnered with four private sector companies — Larsen and Toubro, VEM Technologies, Alpha Design and Dynamatics — who will be making almost the entire structure of the LCA. We only want to do the final integration. HAL would like to focus on design, integration, flight testing and support.
HAL has announced a partnership with Mahindra Defence Systems and Boeing for an upcoming Make in India order for 110 fighter jets. Does that still stand?
Yes, we have the partnership, but it all depends on whether Boeing gets the order. If Boeing is declared a winner, there is an exclusivity clause for us to partner. But if it isn’t, we can go with any other contender. In fact, we have been getting feelers from many as there is one basic problem that all will face. And that is the requirement of 40% indigenisation for the order. This is a big requirement and HAL will have to be involved, no matter which platform is chosen. There are some things that only HAL can deliver with its 20 divisions.
How do you see HAL’s export prospects in the near future? The UAE recently evinced interest in the LCA programme…
We have a certain number of target countries, mostly in Southeast Asia and some in West Asia and Africa. We now plan to take our products to these potential customers. We will take them for flight demonstrations and we have in-principle approval from the air force for this as well. Recently, the UAE defence minister also visited our facilities and showed keen interest in not only the LCA but also the advanced light helicopter. We plan to now take this further.
What are HAL’s plans on augmenting the LCA line and integrating it with a new AESA radar?
We are increasing the capacity from producing eight aircraft a year to 16 a year. We are spending Rs 1,380 crore to increase production and can even take it to 20 aircraft per year by running extra shifts. A third line is also being planned at Nashik in case we get larger orders. In fact, we have already ordered the jigs and fixtures for Nashik. Even though we can make 16 aircraft a year, we cannot sell more than seven as the final operational clearances are still stuck. The aeronautical development agency is in talks with stakeholders to resolve that. On the AESA (active electronically scanned array) radar, the technical aspects and commercial negotiations with a foreign vendor are now complete. We are hoping to place the order very soon. Of course, whenever an indigenous radar is ready, we will be happy to integrate it.
We aren’t in offsets; please don’t bring HAL into Rafale deal row: R Madhavan
Doesn't seems like they are meeting December deadline, not with those many open items.