Ouch a 3.6km long missile with a diameter of 178mm!
Missile radar only being able to see a cross section of 5 square meters at a distance of 15km is pretty poor performance. Its going to have to be guided practically on top of the target if launched from 110km away.
$4.2bn in development costs (with US responsible for contributing a further 40%) Just under $100m per airframe falling to $90m though that was all in cost, F-16 block 50 was around $34m per airframe at the time. F-2 did have some advancements over the F-16 though, 25% greater wing area, longer fuselage for more fuel, two extra weapon stations, some stealth composites and an AESA radar. Early on in development was even going to have canards as well. Will all that factored I would say it was probably closer to 50% more expensive than just buying US though 60% of the cash would be recycled back into the Japanese economy meaning from their perspective it was probably ultimately a marginal difference.
Japan had to fund $4.2bn of that out of their own pocket, and they had a solid high tech industry base to start from.
Now is a particularly bad time to try to develop an aircraft in your own country, and it's only going to get worse. Stealth shaping (though I think modern computer graphics programs can play ECHO 1 for you), broadband stealth, range, supercruise, internal weapons bays, composite structures, networked systems...
Up through 4th generation aircraft, it wasn't too bad, you could just make a plane that flew well.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi flew a sortie on the Tejas, a locally-made Light Combat Aircraft, in a show of support for the nation’s defense technology.
So the Tejas Mk2 that as late as June this year the Indian government and HAL was saying would be rolled out this year and have a first flight this month, just been announced a fresh four year delay with first rollout now not expected until late 2026 or early 2027 and first flight not until 2028.
Reminds you of Soviet development times when no one wanted to admit a problem until the day it was supposed to be unveiled and they would hastily roll out a mockup as the finished article.
And as usual, you British will weaponize Martin Baker's ejector seats to make Argentina pay for that Falklands idiocy, more than 40 years ago...
(Nota bene: half-joking. Don't take that post too seriously).
Being objective the Argentinians should probably go with the second hand F-16, even the chief of the Indian air force said the Tejas is not a very good fighter. Its severely underpowered and reportedly struggles at altitude.
Being objective the Argentinians should probably go with the second hand F-16, even the chief of the Indian air force said the Tejas is not a very good fighter. Its severely underpowered and reportedly struggles at altitude.
OTOH Jeff Block 3 is already in serial production with an actual AESA radar and also has a long range, top of the line BVR missile(s) (PL-15E, SD-10/PL-12). It is also cheap enough to make a potential purchase worth the trouble. It's simply the most future proof option: it has the best cost effectiveness, the best sensors+weapons package and also the added benefit of not being a 2nd hand aircraft.
I think they should push themselves a little, operating ancient aircraft is also not cheap afterall.
And as usual, you British will weaponize Martin Baker's ejector seats to make Argentina pay for that Falklands idiocy, more than 40 years ago...
(Nota bene: half-joking. Don't take that post too seriously).
I cannot help but inject a true life episode from my younger days. When studying aerospace engineering at the University of Stuttgart in the early Nineteen Eighties, I had to spend a semester in an apprenticeship at an aerospace company, and as a consequence I, as well as a number of my fellow students, ended up in the Winter of 1981/1982 at the then (still) Dornier plant on the north shore of Lake Constance near Immenstaad. I was assigned to work in a space payloads clean room that at the time was processing the drive motors for the solar arrays of the Hubble Space Telescope as well as for the Spacelab Instrument Pointing System, but me and my university colleagues had a free run of the whole plant as well, which at the time also included an iron bird for the FMA IA-63 Pampa jet trainer. Imagine my surprise when one day while the Falklands Conflict was steadily escalating I witnessed the delivery of two wooden crates containing Martin-Baker ejection seats to be installed in that iron bird...
The in-flight rescue of pilots became a topic from the very start of war aircraft deployment. Dogfights, often resulting in a shot-down of one plane, usually called for the pilot’s bailout out of the cockpit. And while with the early biplanes the task was easy – open the canopy, unstrap from the...
aero-space.eu
. Currently, there are ejection seat manufacturers in the USA (Collins Aerospace), UK (Martin Baker), Russia (NPP Zvedza), China (Aerospace Life-support Industries) and the Czech Republic (Aero Vodochody Aerospace and Zlin Aircaft). As far as the market structure goes, the most dominant provider is the UK-based company Martin Baker, occupying just over fifty percent of the market. The remaining positions are held by Collins Aerospace and NPP Zvezda, with the Chinese manufacturer mostly responsible for the domestic market and the Czech companies playing a very local role with seats connected with out-of-production planes only (although some rebuilds were equipped with newly built seats).
What I mean is that maybe Argentina should start their fighter procurement... checking ejector seats. I'm not sure the HAL Tejas can escape Martin Baker "grasp" on ejector seats.
By this point, Argentina would be left buying either Russian or Chinese fighters... with indigenous ejector seats. This would make the British powerless.
And this makes the JF-17 an intriguing contender.
Not sure whether Milei, with his big grudge against (wasteful) government, would be the right guy to commit sums of money to military aircraft.
Buying the JF-17 would be a terrible mistake for Argentina.
Diplomatically they would be seen to be effectively taking China’s “side”, earning the suspicion and potentially outright hostility of the US. Potentially not absolutely the worst thing from a purely regional or domestic political perspective but really quite a bad idea given their current economic woes.
Plus apparently not at all aligned with their new president’s views?
And Argentina would be buying what objectively would be a rather dubious proposition; China doesn’t have many export customers for its non-MIG-21 derived fighter types so not much of a track record and, to be blunt, the JF-17 isn’t even a particularly good aircraft, not as good as a FA-50 or LCA, inferior to a new production or latest upgraded F-16 or Gripen A-D, yet alone versus Rafales or Gripen E-F or other more capable aircraft. Certainly not remotely worth the certain diplomatic hassle or potential operational uncertainties that would be associated with such a decision.
Anyone seriously advocating such a course of action is either seriously misjudging the relative qualities of the aircraft or is just blinded by the idea of having/ desperation to have “something”/ “anything”.
And given Argentina’s current serious economic problems it’s hard to see the decision being not to kick the can further down the road and not ordering anything (not a good time to be looking for the money for any of these options).
The most obvious productive course would be Argentina looking to actually improve its relations with the UK (i.e. create scope for the UK veto to be relaxed) plus with potential providers of objectively better equipment (with fewer unfortunate consequences) when the opportunity does come around for affording the purchase of combat aircraft (i.e. with the US, Sweden, France, South Korea, India etc).
The new Argentinian president is already sabre rattling and promised the Falklands will be Argentinian during his term. As the Falklands referendum gave a result of 99.8% wishing to stay British there will be no discussion on sovereignty. Argentina are very aware of this so what is the agenda, another invasion attempt? They don't have the money or forces or is it just to be annoying and just bleat about things. Going a China backed route, they may think it will give better financial support and good terms for a military upgrade. China would like more influence in S. America and India would love a sales success for Tejas, but how far would they go for a sale.....
For the chance to beat Pakistan's JF-17, a long way. This isn't simply India and China competing for sales, it's India and Pakistan, and that's an entirely different story.
For the chance to beat Pakistan's JF-17, a long way. This isn't simply India and China competing for sales, it's India and Pakistan, and that's an entirely different story.
For the chance to beat Pakistan's JF-17, a long way. This isn't simply India and China competing for sales, it's India and Pakistan, and that's an entirely different story.
From what I understand,
the Navy does not want to order the Tejas because the undercarriage needs improvement, and its T/W ratio is lacking.
But the existing Naval Tejas will continue to be used for testing
They would need to beef up the landing gear for the naval Tejas and that would probably be too costly, and they would also have to make changes to the rear fuselage as well not to mention for the tail hook.
The Naval Tejas programme was cancelled in 2016, with focus shifting to the Multi-Role Carrier Based Fighter programme, for which the HAL TEDBF - Twin Engined Deck Based Fighter - was selected in 2020. In the meantime the Naval Tejas programme was semi-revived in 2018, with the Naval Tejas prototypes carrying out landings and takeoffs onboard the Vikramaditya in January 2020.
The Naval Tejas programme was cancelled in 2016, with focus shifting to the Multi-Role Carrier Based Fighter programme, for which the HAL TEDBF - Twin Engined Deck Based Fighter - was selected in 2020. In the meantime the Naval Tejas programme was semi-revived in 2018, with the Naval Tejas prototypes carrying out landings and takeoffs onboard the Vikramaditya in January 2020.
I'm repeating myself again, but conceptually TEBDF makes no sense. At least for the time it comes online anyway. 4+ gens are going to lose their effectiveness very quickly, by then they are going to become mediocre AA platforms and most of the leading airforces would've already moved on to 5+ or 6th gens. They should've either stuck with the Naval AMCA or developed a new, cheap(er) 5th gen to complement AMCA, to be procured in large numbers by both the Navy and the Air Force.
I just can't wrap my head around this decision. It makes absolutely no sense. By the time it gets introduced, it'll end up being an another Mig-29K fiasco and the Navy will -again- demand something more capable.
I'm repeating myself again, but conceptually TEBDF makes no sense. At least for the time it comes online anyway. 4+ gens are going to lose their effectiveness very quickly, by then they are going to become mediocre AA platforms and most of the leading airforces would've already moved on to 5+ or 6th gens. They should've either stuck with the Naval AMCA or developed a new, cheap(er) 5th gen to complement AMCA, to be procured in large numbers by both the Navy and the Air Force.
I just can't wrap my head around this decision. It makes absolutely no sense. By the time it gets introduced, it'll end up being an another Mig-29K fiasco and the Navy will -again- demand something more capable.
Me neither, but I always get instantly attacked by its supporters.
Basically HAL will have its hands busy with a new Tejas variant, AMCA, and now TEDBF.
TEDBF will be a 4.5 gen fighter, ordered in small numbers as the Indian Navy is the only user.
It would probably be expensive as well as depleting HAL's resources.
Its main enemies, such as the PLAN will be fielding 5th gen J-35s.
makes more sense to instead navalize the AMCA and have HAL focus on Tejas Mk2 and the AMCA line.
the Rafale Ms can make up the numbers in the mean time.
Me neither, but I always get instantly attacked by its supporters.
Basically HAL will have its hands busy with a new Tejas variant, AMCA, and now TEDBF.
TEDBF will be a 4.5 gen fighter, ordered in small numbers as the Indian Navy is the only user.
It would probably be expensive as well as depleting HAL's resources.
Its main enemies, such as the PLAN will be fielding 5th gen J-35s.
makes more sense to instead navalize the AMCA and have HAL focus on Tejas Mk2 and the AMCA line.
the Rafale Ms can make up the numbers in the mean time.
In my view they're also a couple of years late to develop Tejas mk.2... When was the maiden flight of that thing supposed to be? in 2027 or 28? If you're still claiming to be developing a competitive fighter by then, it has to have some inherent stealth capabilities. I could be wrong though, I'm no expert or anything.
Please, have a second look at the carrier trials. The speed and AoA on touchdown would make any Maverick get older faster than any Hollywood prop can handle.
I'm repeating myself again, but conceptually TEBDF makes no sense. At least for the time it comes online anyway. 4+ gens are going to lose their effectiveness very quickly, by then they are going to become mediocre AA platforms and most of the leading airforces would've already moved on to 5+ or 6th gens. They should've either stuck with the Naval AMCA or developed a new, cheap(er) 5th gen to complement AMCA, to be procured in large numbers by both the Navy and the Air Force.
I just can't wrap my head around this decision. It makes absolutely no sense. By the time it gets introduced, it'll end up being an another Mig-29K fiasco and the Navy will -again- demand something more capable.
The problem is that India doesn't have a good air industry yet. Designing a stealthy fighter takes skills that the Indians don't have yet. But in building a 4.5gen fighter they can develop those LO shaping skills.
I'm repeating myself again, but conceptually TEBDF makes no sense. At least for the time it comes online anyway. 4+ gens are going to lose their effectiveness very quickly, by then they are going to become mediocre AA platforms and most of the leading airforces would've already moved on to 5+ or 6th gens.
That might be true on land, it's less clear on the water. Yes, a non-stealthy matchup vs PLAN with J-35s is advantage China, but against Pakistan there's no at-sea threat, and the on-shore threat is JF-17s. Anyone else India might find themselves engaged with is less capable than Pakistan.
And where would India get this putative 5th gen carrier based fighter? The US won't sell F-35 (unless India cuts ties with Russia, and possibly not even then), and France with CV-capable FCAS is a long way off. AMCA entry into service is mid-2030s, so a naval variant is going to be out around 2040. TEDBF can likely be ready by the mid-2030s.
The IN needs air groups for Vikramaditya, Vikrant, and in the future IAC-2/Repeat Vikrant and IAC-3/Vishaal. The MiG-29Ks are due to be replaced, Vikrant is getting 26 Rafale Ms, that leaves India short of 75 to 100 aircraft for air groups, never mind on-shore training. So the options are more Rafales, F-18E/Fs - if they can get the order in before Boeing close the production line, TEDBF, and possibly a navalised AMCA. If the choice comes down to Rafale-M vs TEDBF, TEDBF will at least keep Dassault honest in the bidding. There's also the possibility that the IN order may be far enough out that even Rafale may no longer be in production, making any order dependent on Franco-German willingness to sell FCAS-CV Variant.
The other option available for TEDBF is that, as ORCA, it becomes the IAF solution to replacing everything not due to be replaced by AMCA at the high-end and Tejas at the low/light end, which is about another 250-300 aircraft by my reckoning.
(It's also worth noting that most of the 6th Gen technologies - teaming, sensor fusion, long range weapons - are electronics dependent, not airframe dependent. Simply being a non-stealth design doesn't mean those technologies aren't accessible. If India develops them for AMCA they can go into TEDBF just as easily).
For naval warfare - if we actually mean it, - oversized payloads are a big factor.
And ultimately, no matter how stealthy you are (as a rule of thumb - not as much as you think when radiated by ship radars) - your carrier group isn't.
Since we're again talking about big power competition (seriously, not as a buzzword) - the way to gain air superiority over sea isn't shooting down planes, it's sinking ships. Especially flat decks.
Thus, vise versa, at least for naval combat, air superiority fighter doesn't terribly matter; it's an important, but secondary role.
Stand-off strike and intercept matter first - and neither of those is really about stealth.
It's even more so in the future, when some of stealth load can be expected to be taken by "distributed aircraft" - i.e. not putting big crewed component too far forward.
Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) is preparing the first two units of the improved Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Mk 1A for delivery to the Indian Air Force (IAF)...
www.janes.com
HAL to deliver the first batch of Mk-1A varriants to the IAF. This comes around 9 years after they formally signed the contract in 2015.
Definitely testing the limits of “better late than never”!
The Tejas has that feel of the Brewster Buffalo or Morane Saulnier MS406… a little late, a little underpowered, a little old school, a few too many teething troubles. Technically would probably have been decent enough if built by a more experienced aircraft manufacturer and given enough fixes, but the cumulative effect is “almost got there… but not quite”. Maybe future developments will prove me wrong as it matures.
Definitely testing the limits of “better late than never”!
The Tejas has that feel of the Brewster Buffalo or Morane Saulnier MS406… a little late, a little underpowered, a little old school, a few too many teething troubles. Technically would probably have been decent enough if built by a more experienced aircraft manufacturer and given enough fixes, but the cumulative effect is “almost got there… but not quite”. Maybe future developments will prove me wrong as it matures.
I certainly hope so as well... Especially when it comes to AMCA. A nation of 1.5 billion not being able to do what S.Korea and Turkey do is truly derogatory.
Consider that the LCA project officially started in 1984, compared with the Gripen in 1982. And the Gripen was considered tardy in entering service in 1996...
A large part of the problem seems to be bureaucracy, allied with risk aversion. Even the straightforward project to put the AK-103 rifle into Indian production has dragged on for years, and that's just stamped and machined metal.
Ouch a 3.6km long missile with a diameter of 178mm!
Missile radar only being able to see a cross section of 5 square meters at a distance of 15km is pretty poor performance. Its going to have to be guided practically on top of the target if launched from 110km away.
Wait what looks like you know nothing about bvr combat & bvr missiles..
The seeker which was in it back then was of Russian R77 missile's seeker.. and I can assure you seeker of aim 120 will not have quite different range that this. As missiles are very small in size and carry very small battery which limits seeker to function for long time so till it's terminal phase it needs guidance from launch aircraft or even another friendly aircraft. And also it has inertial navigation. updates by aircraft about enemy location, Direction speed helps in predicting it's pathway and then ins guides for possible contact point with aircraft.. No missile has enough big battery to power it's seeker sorry you can't fit big batteries in a 178mm tube.. neither you can make missile too heavy it will degrade kinematics.
It is very complex thing. so the 15 km is good range actually and is equivalent to aim 120 C5/7s radar seeker. Aim 120D have better range as it has bigger battery...
And who the hell launches missile from it's max range of 110km. Dumbaxx
The longest kill aim 120 has gotten is of 45km that too was non munuevrable drone. By Turkish airforce. Aim 120c5 has range of 105kms.. You know nothing about air combat..
Missile have long ranges but in end phase they have very less energy so chances of evading missiles are very high.. missiles are never launched from max range it will be easily evaded and wasted. While chasing target alot of energy is wasted when it munuevers.. bvr is more complex than u think..
let me tell astra mk1 has successfully hit a jet powered target drone called abhyas which is roughly size of Iranian Shahid kamikaze drone.. it must have performed some munuevers. Hit at 90km...
The kill zone for fighter size target is usually very less of its actual range as fighters perform munuevers to evade missile
Another thing which I forgot is now Russian agat seekers has been replaced with indian seeker. It is a GaN based ku band aesa seeker. even aim 120 does not have aesa. so it will have good jamming resistance & electronic counter counter measure capabilities... And has better range than Russian radar seeker..
And most importantly astra missile is not a commercial product that you will buy it. It's a military product it's actual figure will be classified..
Now even astra mk2 is being inducted soon. Which is same missile with 160km range dual pulse propulsion.. and astra mk3 which has propulsion like throttlable meteor (air breathing ramjet) has 350km range with just 220kg weight.. this missiles carry good energy for longer period so have high kill zone...
Hope you got it & ignore 3.6km length..
Yes the R-77 also only had an active range of 20km on self guidance and had to be guided by telemetry to within that range, that's why they upgraded it with an IR seeker. But only being able to see a 5m return at 15km means your limited to engaging large aircraft or old soviet fighters as pretty much all western aircraft have a smaller RCS than that (the perils of relying on the export version of a 80's soviet radar seeker). The AMRAAM that you are so eager to compare it to has an active seeker range of over 40 miles (65km), Meteor switches to active guidance at around 60km.
Yes the R-77 also only had an active range of 20km on self guidance and had to be guided by telemetry to within that range, that's why they upgraded it with an IR seeker. But only being able to see a 5m return at 15km means your limited to engaging large aircraft or old soviet fighters as pretty much all western aircraft have a smaller RCS than that (the perils of relying on the export version of a 80's soviet radar seeker). The AMRAAM that you are so eager to compare it to has an active seeker range of over 40 miles (65km), Meteor switches to active guidance at around 60km.
Can you give me the source of you're claim regarding ranges of amraam & meteor please ?
Because what number I have read are quite different. Another thing is range also depend on bands most missile seeker use X band, ku band & ka band
X band has quite wider beam and has lesser range compared to Ku band. Ku band too has wider coverage area and lesser range compared to ka band.. whereas ka band has longest range beam but slim beam results lesser coverage area.. ku band seeker missiles cannot depend on solely on seeker will need more course correction before they go pitbul. And x band missile will have least range compared to Ku & ka band they took will require quite alot of course correction but they will have widest area of coverage once they go pitbul it is very hard for target to evade missile chase..
Whereas as ku band packs both the capabilities together..
Why I'm saying this because aim 120 has x band seeker astra series missiles have ku band seeker and just telling Japanese aim 4b has ka band seeker..
Aim 120 and astra have same diameter the range of aim 120 won't be that different from astra's. And another thing is this figures are quite classified they will not declassify such figures..regarding any weapons system in active service.. we can just assume from limited available data..
This 60km range is nothing but total bs.
Missile operate on small batteries there is no way they will have this long ranges..
No missile will have range beyond 20-40km and even with GaN based trms.. just my assumption of 40km being max range.. this is just detection range locking ranges is even less..
Astra missile is longer than aim 120c5 it will surely accomodate bigger battery than c5 so it could have more longer range and also it operate at ku band as I said..
Ku band is best it packs both.. range & coverage..
Not talking about aim 120D as it is a longer missile has longer range will definetely have bigger battery its seeker will function for quite duration..
Dude I think you haven't read carefully. India Has relaced the Russian 9B-1348E seeker way back
And if r77 uses 80s seeker doesn't mean it is the same technology as it was back then.. it evolved alot with time it went cold after ussr collapsed. But by the 1996 Russia got many customers like India & China so the worked continued even after that & it gave many offshoots for other missiles as well..
For you I found this with alot of efforts from drdo website developer of this missile..
This is official data shared by developer.
You can see 10km range for 0.15 m2 rcs. However the locking range is less for all missiles..
This is a universal seeker used on astra missile, akash 1s and akash ng missiles.
Soviets did that with r27 as well. It is not because r27 seeker had less range.
It has advantages over it.. but wait there is not IR Variant of R77.. what are u talking abt bruh ?
Anyways even French put IR seeker on mica does that mean Mica has less range ?
Rcs is very classified thing but still.if you are carrying weapons it's pylons the rcs increases significantly.. f15 has rcs above 15m2 some even claim 25m2...
Soviets did that with r27 as well. It is not because r27 seeker had less range.
It has advantages over it.. but wait there is not IR Variant of R77.. what are u talking abt bruh ?
Anyways even French put IR seeker on mica does that mean Mica has less range ?
Rcs is very classified thing but still.if you are carrying weapons it's pylons the rcs increases significantly.. f15 has rcs above 15m2 some even claim 25m2...
Your knowledge seems to be very stuck in the 80's/90's. Battery storage density has tripled since then, even for Molten-salt batteries first with better chemistry and then again with the introduction of nano structures. Also your using an early 70's aircraft for your RCS reference!
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