- Expected to finalise soon is the technical assistance in LCA Mk1A (to be inducted in sufficiently large order) project by DA and agreement of AMCA assistance by DA between GOI and French government bodies during Prez Macron Visit.
Safran Kaveri
For a half life of present M88 and moving towards 1/3rd of the life, the net trade off resulting from stable thrust at all different zones is mind boggling.
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Confirm stability now above 100Kn and another 1XXKn plus. Officially may be advertised a little lower specs (residual military specs only to the user)
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It's much beyond the so called public 13 Indian specific enhancements
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LCA MK2 work will commence only after future maturity of MK1A.
If I understand clearly we will need few things from a plane which will be out in 2024-25 time. A version under development.
That goes into MK2 and is critical in nature.
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- There are almost 150+ improvements planned from LCA Mk1 to LCA MK1A. (more than what is being said in public)
- Few include air intake, aerodynamic shaping, subsystem structure, performance, and size. This is as of now very wide and will be shortlisted further to trim it down with most parts planned initially from F-16 and Rafale. With no clarity for F-16, the chance of Rafale parts inside has increased a lot more. The performance parameters of Mk1A is now much better (as targeted) then before (details to be out in coming months).
- LCA Mk1A aerodynamic performance changes need metallurgical changes which are taking time, so the timeline is a challenge which HAL is not ready to admit in public
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- Safranised Kaveri Engine deal semi finalised owing to some differences rising in particular tech aspect.
- Safransied Kaveri V1.0 Engine deal semi-finalized, the core is M8X-X based But without full passage of TOT.
- The TOT and IPR holders want a share of the pie which has caused the delay in finalisation.
- MK1 as per files is still open as lockin for most of the new changes is not done at all.
- Mk2 file mentions an explicit dependency on a MII program for a quicker plan or being ready or else a longer time schedule if its going alone.
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- Systems beyond scope of this forum but is said to be the ones which team Dassault is researching and which puts the Rafale systems to be at par with an evolved version of older hardware of F22 and a new generation F35.
- Interesting to note that such systems potentially will nullify almost all ADs for at least 2 decades. That is a potential crown jewel which is being talked about..
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