Maritime Patrol Aircraft : P-8I Neptune, Dornier-228 : News & Discussions
- Thread starter Ashwin
- Start date
Intersting thing to note is that in the 312 P8I and Tu142MK flew together during the transition. But instead of doing the same with 315 which flies the Il38SD , a new squadron has been raised. Although only 3 out of 7 Il38 are still flying.
By next year end 315 will likely be number plated.
By next year end 315 will likely be number plated.
are we still running after this deal? what happened to all those bombastic statements about indigenous UAV programs.
Army can do with a 15-18 hour long surveillance mission, it can have its UAV take off from one base and land at another.
Navy doesn't have this option. Flying from INS Baaz , upon completion of its mission it needs to return back to that base. Therefore a longer endurance of 30+ hours is needed.
Reapers will never be bought. Unnecessary and too costly. But Sea Guardians are necessary. Once bought they will operate on a similar model our P8I does.
Seems so, A good proven uav that navy already operating on lease as a trial run usually follow up with a concrete acquisition. Not blaming our own uavs made by HAL, but those will take time to mature into a very good suitable platform. Given the cost of foreign products, an indigenous drone will also be procured at some point. We are just too eager to see it way early. I see it in same way how other products come into force. Tapas seems to have cleared the 28000ft trials well. Lets see how it does in user trials in future.
MQ-9 is a must have for navy. There is no indigenous program with comparable capabilities.
Tapas is a failure before starting production. It's ADE's fault not HAL. That underperforming DRDO lab is yet to deliver anything meaningful in the last two decades.
Also, there is no comparison with MQ-9. Basic features and capabilities are way too different.
First obviously we have a security issue allowing foreign operators on our soil, our elint will be more or less compromised.
Second is obviously the cost, we invest (r & d) way too less in our own programs which keep dragging forever while at the same time pay a huge cost to procure it from outside. Either we need to accept we cannot develop niche technology or invest the same amount to speed up the local development. We need to put up with less capability for some time , this thing cant keep continuing forever.
This means for 57% of time for past 2 years, we have had a MQ9 in air.
With just 2 airframes, this is spectacular.
With just 2 airframes, this is spectacular.
BRF guys & their chellas on Twitter are reporting that as impressed as the IN were with this performance , apparently they're considering 2 proposals internally :
1.) The IAI Adani group's offering of Heron which at ~ 40 million USD is less than half that of the MQ-9s along with TOT & MII.
2.) The other is a mix of Heron + 5 MQ-9 ( after purchasing the 2 leased ones ) instead of the 10 nos as was initially mooted .
The Israeli firm having tieup with Adani is Elbit. They own the Hermes UAV range. They are in the class of Tapas BH only.
Only Heron TP matches the MQ9 in performance (payload, altitude, endurance and range).
Instead of buying 10 Reapers each for 3 services, we should try to get 10-15 Sea Guardian variant (on lease for 10-15 years) for Indian Navy.
For other services, buy Heron MK2 for interim and hope Tapas BH gets certification by 2024.
Indeed. It's Elbit. Read those tweets some time back on the go.
Yes. Didn't have the details of the Heron make on my fingertips ,hence listed only the generic.
If the Herons TP can perform most of the roles of the Sea Guardians why not the former . I prefer the hybrid procurement not the hire lease system now in operation or what you propose.
Besides why exactly does the IAF need those drones & why's MoD / GoI not putting it's foot down at least in this matter after the entire hptr operations & Apache procurement saga is beyond me .
Go in for a 3 pronged approach with 5 MQ-9 + 15-20 Heron TPs for the IN & a mixture of TPs & Tapas BH for the IA .
Keep upgrading the Tapas & come out with both land & sea surveillance variants & armed iterations. More importantly deploy resources & set tight deadlines like 2030 for induction of these advanced variants.
We have an active proposal for Heron MK2 licence production in Nashik. Let's see where it goes.
For MQ9B, my bias is only because this platform was created to compete with MQ4C Triton for USN. So purely for ocean surveillance, its preferred. But if cost benefits reside with Heron TP platform, then we should definitely look at it too.
There is a version under testing for carrier operations. No equivalent from the Israelis.