Multi-Role Carrier Borne Fighter For The Indian Navy - Updates & Discussions

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Turns out the Uttam radar was very much on the IN's wishlist for the Rafale. They dropped the idea after Dassault said it would take 8 years to fully integrate and push up costs. The integration of Astra-1 and Rudram is also being deferred to keep costs down.

Astra MK1/2 & NGARM will be integrated with both IAF & IN's Rafales. That's a given!

And we should continue to have French AESA radars in Rafale even in MLU( RBE2-XG as per me). Uttam will be integrated with rest of our coming fleet. That's enough.
 
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Turns out the Uttam radar was very much on the IN's wishlist for the Rafale. They dropped the idea after Dassault said it would take 8 years to fully integrate and push up costs. The integration of Astra-1 and Rudram is also being deferred to keep costs down.

"takes 8 years" is indirectly saying no.
 
Turns out the Uttam radar was very much on the IN's wishlist for the Rafale. They dropped the idea after Dassault said it would take 8 years to fully integrate and push up costs. The integration of Astra-1 and Rudram is also being deferred to keep costs down.


It was a nonsensical demand. Avionics commonality between TEDBF/Mig-29K and Rafale is impossible. And Rafale via MRFA is required for weapons commonality.
 
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Price bargainings.
There is not a single purchase not bargained indefinitely by you. After that you are crying for delay... see F404 engine purchase (et least not a french exemple...)
It's called being a demanding customer. You want an example ? Here's why India & China will never be friends . From 1:34 to 5:00 .


Now are you saying you can't handle demanding customers ? Well then you've the likes of Indonesia who will sign up for a deal get you to make stuff & in the midst of it when the time comes to cough up money will go ahead & shamelessly tell you they've no money only palm oil to barter like they did the South Koreans on the submarine deal which ostensibly got cancelled.

On the other hand if you're open to such barter system SAFRAN , Thales , Dassault & the entire French aerospace ecosystem will end up trading on commodities exchange in Paris or wherever it is you trade commodities in Europe .

Don't be surprised if you see Dassault issuing employment advertisements in French dailies for aerospace engineers & traders in commodities in the same advertisement & eventually from an aerospace company morphs into a commodities trading company because hey , the margins are higher in commodities & you get to tell your grand children or great grandchildren , listen here Dassault used to make planes to their utter disbelief . You don't want that do ?

On the other hand you could go ahead & reject participation in Indian tenders forever like what Honeywell did when we were supposed to upgrade the RR Adour TFs with Honeywell & they held on to the prices for nearly 6-7 years IIRC with no response from our MoD & one fine day when MoD chose to sign the agreement Honeywell coolly informed them the price escalated by some 40% or thereabouts.

Eventually IAF scrapped plans to up engine the Jaguars & instead of upgrading some 120 Jaguars eventually decided they'd do so for only 60 nos retiring the rest. So you see neither IAF lost out nor did Honeywell except Honeywell would no longer be welcome at MoD but they've earned our respect here.

You can do so too. Otherwise you can internalize the axiom -

# The customer is always right .

## in case the customer is wrong please refer to # .
 
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It was a nonsensical demand. Avionics commonality between TEDBF/Mig-29K and Rafale is impossible. And Rafale via MRFA is required for weapons commonality.
I though it was just misreported news. The cost of integration would have been astronomical. What the IN is getting is an IAF spec ac with additional naval mods. That would cost quite a bit already.
 
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I though it was just misreported news. The cost of integration would have been astronomical. What the IN is getting is an IAF spec ac with additional naval mods. That would cost quite a bit already.
IN's thinking wasn't misplaced except their reach exceeded their grasp. One of the primary reasons the IN's going in for the Rafale M in a hurry apart from the usual blah offered i.e replacement of the MiG-29Ks on the INS Vikrant is the threat the A&N island chain faces from China across Myanmar from bases in Yunnan.

You can check online on the number of wargames / exercises PLAAF has conducted to this effect.

Our security managers & planners have concluded the Rafale are the best bet to take on the J-20 + J-16 combination. The IN seems to be of the impression , which I'm in agreement with , a GaN based AESA which we're developing for the MKI will be much more potent in such encounters with the Chinese.

However the damn thing is still to be realised then comes the modifications for the Rafales before the actual ITC which would probably take a decade & cost a bomb. IN finally concluded bhagte bhoot ki langot sahi & decided we get the Rafales pronto & we'd think of how to ameliorate the lack of a GaN based AESA radar later .
 
IN's thinking wasn't misplaced except their reach exceeded their grasp. One of the primary reasons the IN's going in for the Rafale M in a hurry apart from the usual blah offered i.e replacement of the MiG-29Ks on the INS Vikrant is the threat the A&N island chain faces from China across Myanmar from bases in Yunnan.

A&N needs to be turned into a fortress, Guam-style. That'll require investments in A2/AD, BMD and ISR+ hardened infra all around. It is an unsinkable carrier for us and we must make the best of it.

Our security managers & planners have concluded the Rafale are the best bet to take on the J-20 + J-16 combination. The IN seems to be of the impression , which I'm in agreement with , a GaN based AESA which we're developing for the MKI will be much more potent in such encounters with the Chinese.
I'm just thinking out aloud here. How hard would it be for BEL to switch the TRMs it's making for the Rafale to GaN, as a sort of interim upgrade. I imagine the back end would remain the same?
 
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A&N needs to be turned into a fortress, Guam-style. That'll require investments in A2/AD, BMD and ISR+ hardened infra all around. It is an unsinkable carrier for us and we must make the best of it.


I'm just thinking out aloud here. How hard would it be for BEL to switch the TRMs it's making for the Rafale to GaN, as a sort of interim upgrade. I imagine the back end would remain the same?
It's not just simply about putting our Uttam radar into Rafale. Rafale has got integrated avionics, where SPECTRA fuses entire data from RWR, Radar, DDM-NG and OLS to create a comprehensive 360° situational awareness for its pilot.

You swap RBE2-AESA with Uttam and all the above just goes for a toss. We're going to have enough jets with Uttam radar. Putting all our eggs in one basket is never good.
 
It's not just simply about putting our Uttam radar into Rafale. Rafale has got integrated avionics, where SPECTRA fuses entire data from RWR, Radar, DDM-NG and OLS to create a comprehensive 360° situational awareness for its pilot.

That's there. I was wondering if it would be feasible to add a small segment of GaN elements to the RBE-2AA antenna as a low cost Block 0.1 upgrade. This could even be made to work as a hyrbid EW/EA array (like Captor-E), improve range and keep the power requirement to a manageable level. But now that I think about it, it would probably need a more powerful cooling system.

Plus there may be IP issues with Thales that could not have been foreseen in the current contract. Just my imagination running wild!
 
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That's there. I was wondering if it would be feasible to add a small segment of GaN elements to the RBE-2AA antenna as a low cost Block 0.1 upgrade. This could even be made to work as a hyrbid EW/EA array (like Captor-E), improve range and keep the power requirement to a manageable level. But now that I think about it, it would probably need a more powerful cooling system.

Plus there may be IP issues with Thales that could not have been foreseen in the current contract. Just my imagination running wild!
Only in the MLU, unfortunately. Looks like GaN will only be available with Rafale from F5 version onwards, so after 2030, IMO.

And there is no way, we're going to modify Rafale's radar by putting DRDO GaN TRMs. Just won't be feasible, IMO.
 
Only in the MLU, unfortunately. Looks like GaN will only be available with Rafale from F5 version onwards, so after 2030, IMO.

And there is no way, we're going to modify Rafale's radar by putting DRDO GaN TRMs. Just won't be feasible, IMO.

There is a way, if MRFA is awarded to Rafale,
And if we MLU older Rafale in collaboration with France.

France is going to upgrade to GAN trms anyways... Uttam & GaN RBE radars may both be ready at same time.
We should either delay the order for F5 or Update older Rafales early.

Most likely we ll get limited source code for Indian weapons like IAF + some specific naval missiles. Regarding GaN radars we ll most likely to follow France.

Option to change entire electronics of Rafale with indigenous systems can happen only if..
1. We award MRFA with TOT to tinker systems
2. Our electronics reach atleast on par with French.

Above happened with Russians, we could do that to Su 30mki upgrades.
 
There is a way, if MRFA is awarded to Rafale,
And if we MLU older Rafale in collaboration with France.

France is going to upgrade to GAN trms anyways... Uttam & GaN RBE radars may both be ready at same time.
We should either delay the order for F5 or Update older Rafales early.

Most likely we ll get limited source code for Indian weapons like IAF + some specific naval missiles. Regarding GaN radars we ll most likely to follow France.

Option to change entire electronics of Rafale with indigenous systems can happen only if..
1. We award MRFA with TOT to tinker systems
2. Our electronics reach atleast on par with French.

Above happened with Russians, we could do that to Su 30mki upgrades.
Su-30MKI is literally our own jet without us owning its IP(big mistake). That's why we can upgrade it as we want.

Rafale is different. French have very well defined upgrade path for it. First they will introduce GaN for SPECTRA then for RBE2 AESA. Then there is plan for conformal radars all across its body and even MUM-T.

I don't see a point in putting our own avionics in it. Just integrating our weapons like Astra series, RudraM series and BrahMos-NG shall suffice, IMO.

Putting our avionics in Rafale(no matter how advance), takes the charm away from the package. However, in the end it's upto IAF to decide which route they'll want to go regarding Rafale's upgrade future.

About MRFA, I've always believed that it's between Rafale F5 and F-35 Block 4. No other jet will give us a tech advantage over our adversaries or even our desi-jets like MK2/MKI UPG.
 
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Life's hard when your carrier is forced to operate beyond the horizon.

Even AWACS are no longer safe.

“Example areas these concepts may address include, but are NOT limited to, methods to increase lift, reduce drag, increase fuel available, reduce fuel usage on the deck, increase engine performance; and/or adjustments to subsystem integration and/or architecture or advanced flight controls,” it adds.
They just have to take the Rafale M and they will have all these improvements at the same time, plus the capacity to add CFTs without structural problems.
 
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"takes 8 years" is indirectly saying no.
Because it's all but not easy !

If the new radar has a different weight you may have to adjust FBW (or at least chek it).
Have you seen that RBE2 has a dedicated space at his back so as to receive the OSF system ? Do the new radar has the same space free? Big doubt.
The new radar do have the same fixing points ? if not a modification to be made on the frame...
The new radar do have electrical power input, the same coolong needs? if not other modicitions to developp and test.
What about the electronic disturbances between the new radar and Spectra and the other devices, in the 2 directions.
What about the data link between the new radar and the medium and long range missiles (mid course refreashing) ?
you have to modify the sensor fusion system to adapt the new radar.

And probably a lot of other things.

It costs, it takes time to give the force a potent and reliable whole system.

RBE2 PESA, RBE2 AESA, RBE2 XG were, and will all be studied with all these dates in mind. UTAAM can't.
 
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New Ways To Stretch F/A-18 Super Hornet’s Range Sought By Navy

The Navy halted work on conformal fuel tanks for its Super Hornets years ago, but now adding more range is becoming even more important.
The SH18 problem is that it's not a successfull evolution of F/A18 (and even at its time, the F/A 18 never gave the range expected by US Navy).

The "simple" homothetical evolution of a proven design is not always a success. They struggle to reduce the buffer problem withe the wings, problem badly solved, they had to tilted outward the wings hard points....

The result can be seen in the export deals : deceptfull for a US jet.
 
Only in the MLU, unfortunately. Looks like GaN will only be available with Rafale from F5 version onwards, so after 2030, IMO.

And there is no way, we're going to modify Rafale's radar by putting DRDO GaN TRMs. Just won't be feasible, IMO.
I think it is possible to have a GaN antenna on RBE2AESA, so you may have it before F5, if you agree to pay.

It is rumored that Spectra antennas already are in GaN, so it is possible, but :
- GaN modules remain expensive, and a radar antenna has far more T/R, so cost ++
- The range of a GaN antenna is bigger than the one of a AsGa. If your hardware is not powerfull enough to scan the bigger space seen by the antenna, it is not optimum.

So the french decided to study a complete new radar, with a GaN antenna, a far more powerfull hardware behind, and a pinch or two of IA to help : XG one.