India first needs one fully functional fking manufacturing unit that can churn out at least 2 aircraft/month. These chaps are struggling with 8 aircraft per year as of now. No work is being done on ground to ensure that HAL grows bigger balls to get their act right.
Sukhoi Su-30MKI
- Thread starter Ashwin
- Start date
No, MSA SE is a class in itself with no competition from LCA. I expect a maximum of 10 sqns for LCA and If I go thru with MSA SE, I expect over 15 sqns for MSA SE.
max fuel figure for Jaguar as shown above includes even the payload of 4500kgs. The internal fuel capacity of Jaguar is 3300kgs.
It's funny you bring in specs when you don't bring cost figures.
How much does it cost to upgrade a Jaguar with a new AESA radar and engine with 20 years left in them versus a new MKI with AESA radar and new engine?
That is not the question, I asked. What is a decent payload for a strike mission according to you across the western border? and I posted the specs to be on the same page if you agree with the validity of those specs.
You are comparing this incorrectly. The Jaguar is a light fighter, the MKI is a heavy fighter. It's obvious the MKI will carry more.
But it's not simply about payload. If it can deliver even one bomb, I will accept the aircraft versus being able to drop nothing.
You put the Jaguar and MKI in the same scenario against the J-20, both will die. So both aircraft are unacceptable.
Can't we close that gap by upgrade program of su 30 mki, if we can make a nice deal on upgrading 6 squadrons of su 30 mki to match 4+++ gen then wont it be enough to close the gap, considering we can achieve it in next 5 years?
Again, I just asked you a very simple question. if you agree that the mentioned specs are acceptable then we can calculate the fuel fractions to guestimate what payload the Jag can deliver at what range.
Your contention has been that Jag outranges the MKI, my guess is to come close to MKI's range Jaguar has to take a huge payload penalty, thus wanted to confirm with you if the specs are acceptable for the discussion.
So again repeating same question , what is a decent strike payload for a mission across western border with no altitude hurdles like the himalayas?
It's pointless to debate that because we do not know how much of a range hit either aircraft will take even if both are carrying 2 500Kg bombs and nothing else.
The reason why the Jaguar has greater range is because it can also carry 2 or 3 drop tanks apart from its regular payload.
Well I doubt that. Jaguar can carry two or three droptanks, but not apart from it's regular payload, but sacrificing it's payload for fuel.
For range hit , lets use your own Fuel Fraction idea.
First off On internal fuel Jag has better Fuel fraction than MKI, (0.39 vs 0.308).
Now lets look at your 2500 KG payload,
The centerline and inboard pylons were rated at 1,130 kilograms (2,500 pounds) each, while the outboard pylons were rated at 565 kilograms (1,250 pounds) each. Total stores load was 4,540 kilograms (10,000 pounds). The centerline and inner wing stores pylons were "wet" and could be used to carry up to a total of three external RP36 tanks, with a capacity of 1,187 liters (313 US gallons) each. A retractable inflight refueling probe was fitted on the right side of the nose.
ref https://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/row/jaguar.htm
So for your scenario of two Ext DT, you have three stores left lets say you have 1130kgs at the center, and then out board at 565kg. So Jag in the two ext DT config can only carry upto 2260 and not 2500kg even if it wanted to.
(And in three DT config it can only carry 1130 Kgs at outboard. )
For sake of simplicity lets say your strike combat load is 2260KG.
Now lets look at the fuel weight, internal fuel of as rightly pointed out by @The enlightened , in liters for the Jag is 4120 liters i.e 3254.8kgs
And the external tanks are 1187 liters = 937.73kg but afaik you cannot have a DFT and additional munitions on a multi rack at the same store(correct me if I am wrong) So although rated for 1130, you wont get more than 937.73 kg of fuel on the wet station.
So with two full external tanks = 1875.46 Kgs, Possible payload 2260Kg and empty weight of 7000 kg and filling up the entire internal fuel 3254.8 kgs, the gross weight of a 2260kg Payload in strike config will be 14389.8 kgs.
As far as range estimates from Irkut we know both cruise altitude range and the low altitude range for the MKI.
Су-30МК: летно-технические характеристики -Су-30МК -Продукция
For Jaguar, we know the Low altitude range with ext fuel, but no specific high altitude range, the closest is the 1410km is Hi-Lo-High, so to discount LO aspect of the number, the assumption for the calculation I made is high altitude range for the Jag of 1762 (Half of it's ferry range).
Given we have have some info of the ranges (assumed clean for both) we can calculate the Fuel Fraction for both clean with full fuel.
Given a 2.26 ton strike payload, we can also calculate the Fuel fraction for both and estimate the range hit.
Based on fuel fractions MKI might outrange the Jag by almost twice.
in addition it will have exceptional maneuverability and speed compared to the jag with a TWR of almost 0.5 compared to 0.3 for jag at dry and almost 0.83 compared to Jags 0.46 after burner TWR.
Using the same calculations as above
Now in a strike role if we want a sluggish MKI, which can at worst go to a 0.39 twr dry, MKI can carry an additional 8.7 Tons of Strike munition than the Jag and still get a 789 Km range based on a 0.248 Fuel Fraction.
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Many times it's mentioned in different forums that Su-30's air frame is not certified for low altitude strike role by the manufacturer and it's designed for air superiority only. How far the above statement is correct ?
I am not sure, atleast DGQA doesn't have any such certification for low altitude and high altitude strike missions.
As far as my opinion goes, the entire low altitude strike is a bit over-rated in todays scenario, unlike a terrain hugging cruise missile, a low alt strike aircraft is not going to drop a bomb on terrain hugging mode it will still need enough clearance between the blast zone, making it quite vulnerable to VSHORAD, ack ack and shoulder fired sams at those altitude, even more vulnerable than cruise altitude where it will at least have the reaction time to deploy counter measures.
Mig27's Dare 3 upgrades was to get away from low altitude bombing and go back to cruise altitude ranges (incidentally with the same NAVWASS developed for the jaguar). Also look at any real air interdiction (deep strike) mission footage, you will never see a PGM, A2G missile or a large bombs being delivered on a low altitude run but rather from standoff distance that are now where close to "low altitude". So the real question is can MKI deliver it's payload at the same altitude as Jaguar, I don't know of the reasons why it couldn't. From day one MKI was an Air Superiority+Air interdiction platform.
this sure as hell seems to be a strike configuration to me.
Here are some rafales on a strike mission:
Check out the altitude
IAF Jaguars Strike in excersice
MKI's at Iron fist
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Final nitpicks.
Jaguar range in cruise mode is 3700 km while 908km is low altitude mission radius. MKI low altitude range of 1270km means it is significantly worse.
Also MKI maneverabilty turned into that of a cargo mule with 2 wingtip pods. 2000lb'ers on inboard station shouldn't be far behind.
Any reference for a 3700 KM range.
Hi-lo-hi range 1410 km
ref The SEPECAT Jaguar
MKI
ref: http://eng.irkut.com/upload/Su-30MKI_eng.pdf
pg9
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Mission radius not range.
EDIT: NOPE. Will have to check the wiki citation for 3700. Nevertheless it should certainly be more than twice of radius.
Edit 2: So it's 3500 according to wiki with no direct reference but this does the job
Thunder & Lightnings - SEPECAT Jaguar - History
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