Parrikar Visit to Russia to sweeten the FGFA deal

Parrikar Visit to Russia to sweeten the FGFA deal

   Indian Defense minister Manhoar Parrikar all set to visit Russia this November to advance the FGFA and MTA negotiations. Defense Ministry keen to fast track both FGFA and MTA program, and planning to sort out major problems before the Prime ministers visit to Russia. As many issues and backlogs listed in both FGFA and MTA deal. It's believed under the new defense procurement policy defense ministry may speed up the delayed fighter procurement.

     In 2015, The Indian Air force didn't received any new fighter jets except some Hawk and Pilatus trainers. The other side Indian Navy receives pretty good fighters and ASW planes from Russia and USA. The Air force's delayed projects like Rafale acquisition program and FGFA program hits road blocks due to many reasons. The defense ministry finding new ways to eliminate the delay by drafting a new Defense procurement Policy very soon.

   Indian Air force's flagship project is the FGFA, a modified variant of Russian PAK FA. Even the AMCA program also a long legged project, however IAF not concerned about AMCA, while they already knew the capability of ADA and HAL. The PAK FA program in Russia also has some problems like delays in testing and survivability of the air craft. The IAF also unhappy about the progress of PAK FA, since rival Chinese almost closes to induct the fifth gen stealth fighter jet J 20 by 2016.

    The major issue in the PAK FA program is the engine problem. The Russians yet to develop the Engines for the PAK FA, since fifth gen fighter should need an improved engine ehich can capable to perform super cruise in supersonic speed, also increased thrust and fuel efficiency. The PAK FA currently uses the modified variant of AL 31 F. The engine who powers the Su 35 Fighter jets.

   Earlier the PAK FA engine developer agreed that the new engine could be ready by 2017. The PAK FA would fly with the new engines by 2017. after completing the trails, serial production of the new engines started by 2020. As per Russian aerospace force the first batch of PAK FA comes with the modified AL 31 F. While the Block 2 version comes with new engines. So far there is no clear progress in the Engine development due to Ukrainian crisis who shorts the Supply lines.

117 S engine who powers the Su 35 and PAK FA

As per new plan The Indian Air force wants some sixty plus PAK FA fighter jets as a direct purchase from Russia. While the Air force didn't mentions about the engine characteristics of the direct purchase. The interim purchase will allow the Air force to stand against the Chinese fifth generation fighter's threat. However there is no theory that a fifth generation fighter would be encountered by a fifth gen only. The one who has superior RCS, Radar and missile can win the battle.

    The IAF's new plan is to buy nearly seven to eight squadron of FGFA. The FGFA comes with 40 major structural changes and it will be produced in HAL with the support of Russian engineers. For that India should give some $6 billions for research and development to Russia for transferring the cutting edge technologies like the Radar, engine and RAM coatings.

    Once India signs the $6 billion R&D contract. Russia would deliver three PAK FA for testing and study purposes to further develop the FGFA. The Russian engineers will teach the Indian counterparts to develop the most advanced fifth gen fighter in India. However the user IAF or IN should pay the production cost of the Fighter jets. each FGFA cost estimated some $120 million. Which makes  the total acquisition cost more $20 billion for eight squad of FGFA. Overall FGFA project value costs more than $25 billions.This has to be spend in next ten years.

    Until then India won't claim the PAK FA project would be the JV project of India and Russia. India may walk away from the deal any day, If IAF pilots didn't satisfied the performance of PAK FA. India insists the Russians let the IAF pilots to evaluate the PAK FA before buying the PAK FAand signing the FGFA contract.

    To clear those road blocks Indian Defense minister will visit Russia and discuss with the Russian counterparts. The visit pave the way to signing a agreement regarding the evaluation and R&D contract with Russia during the PM's visit by Russia December this year.

The Chinese Chengdu J 20

The Chinese Chengdu J 20

    The J 20 program is the Chinese first fifth generation fighter program, that can designed to hunt down American stealth fighter jets and Bombers and gives an upper edge to the PLA Air force in aerial fighting, the actual program initiated later 1990's, with many ex Ukrainian aerospace engineers and downed American F 117 technologies, and many hacked source codes of American Joint Strike Fighter program, the J 20 appeared first in 2011, looks similar to the American F 22, with canards, and set a new milestone in global aerospace, the J 20 primarily designed as a Air superiority Fighter, by housing large number of sleek air to air missiles in it's three weapon bays.

    With bunch of resources, the Chinese almost managed to fast track the Fighter development program, after the first flight in 2011, within five years they almost build five more prototypes and using those for testing, even the new seventh prototype 2016 rolled out this month by performing aerial flight tests, six prototypes used for flight characteristics tests and one used for ground based tests, those appeared J 20 prototypes initially tested in long time, sometimes the test can go more than hours, that looks the J 20 has much long combat radius to perform long range missions and long period of aerial supremacy.

    The Chinese has only one major problem in the J 20 program is the Engines, they started the engine program way back 1990, still they are not matured enough to create a true turbo fan engines, countries like France, England, America and Russia are the only countries who developed a true fighter jet engines , and they keep the engine blades composite technology as secret, while China could able to absorb the tech, they tried the reverse engineered Russian AL 31 F engines dubbed as WS 10 in China, they used the WS 10 to build as much as Flanker clones,however the engine will not performed well in the J 20 test bed, so they plans to buy newer Engines from Russia. they tried to purchase the AL 41 117 engine who powers the Su 35 Super flankers and the prototype variants of PAK FA, Russia almost denied the Chinese request, how ever instead of selling the Engines, Russia prefer whole Su 35 Sale to China which gives more money to Russia rather just millions for some engines,  both of them almost signed the Contract, and earlier this year some media sources reported that Chinese Fighter pilots went to Russia for a Training mission to fly in the Su 35,

    The Chinese has a project based on the WS 10 to develop a improved version of AL 31 F, they concentrating the WS 15 engine to power the J 20, as per some leaked reports, Janes says the power output of the new engines is just 80 Kilo newtons, means twin engine provide some 160 kN, which is rated less powerful engine in the fifth generation fighter category,

    Same like other fifth generation fighter jets, the J 20 too comes with a  AESA Radar, China uses a much larger AESA compared to others with some 1856 modules for transmitting and receiving emitted signals, which is capable to detect and track targets up to some 200 kilo meters, however these are all come from Chinese media, not a analyzed or confirmed reports, because no one saw the Radar inside the J 20, foreign military watches aware of KLJ 5 AESA radar,while the real capabilities is unknown, unlike foreign AESA are usually X band LPI radars , means enemy radar warning receiver will not detect the radar waves emitted from such Low probability of intercept Radar, Radar's like AN/APG 77, RBE 2 and Byelka has such capabilities, It's believed Chinese AESA too has such LPI Characteristics,

   The real shocking is the J 20's Electro Optic Targeting system (EOTS) one of the most advanced technologies emerged from the known IRST, which allows the fighter detect and track, enemy low observable stealth aircraft's in long ranges, even without using the on board radar, the EOTS can allow the fighter to launch medium range IR guided missiles, means the hostile air craft even have no idea about, where those missiles are coming from. such modern systems are presents only in the F 35 fighter jet, the system known as EOTS and in the Rafale known as FSO- Front sector optroincs, even the PAK FA based IRST system too not much advanced than the above mentioned systems.

    With the use of J 20's modern Avionic suites, the J 20 can detect and engage Su 30 MKI fighters from long range, even without being detected by the Sukhoi Radar, due to the LPI capability and Stealth the IAF's ground based Radar's too don't have the capability to track such stealth planes, The Sukhoi too have IRST which can detect the Low observable stealth aircraft, however it can detect those fighters in very close ranges only. same like other EOTS the J 20 too guide the air ground missiles using it's EOTS, how ever the J 20's weapon bay will not accommodate heavy bombs, they need to carry those missile externally only.

    One more Shocking is, China almost completed J 20's trails, and planning to mass produce those fighters within next two years, as earlier planned 2016 deadline is almost is passing by, It's believed China will carryout weapon tests in coming days, before going to mass productions, and by 2017 Chinese Air force gets the J 20 in it's wings, the same year Russia too induct their PAK FA in it's VKS fleet.

Su 30 MKI Engine Problem

Su 30 MKI Engine Problem

      The Sukhoi Su 30 MKI fighter aircraft is the backbone of Indian Air Force's primary air superiority and interceptor fighter. But these days the Su 30 has been facing problems from the fly by wire electronic systems to its main power plant. But till now no Sukhoi Su 30 MKI has crashed due to an Engine failure, because of its twin engines design even if a engine fails another engine will kick in helping the pilot to fly the jet back to safety. But this scenario may change drastically when the aircraft is involved in a battle scenario. With the aircraft being tailed it requires evasive manoeuvres to be performed and this can be achieved only with the thrust supplied by the two engines. Even if a single engine has failed the aircraft’s manoeuvrability is compromised to a great extent there by resulting in the loss of the aircraft.  Since these state of the art aircraft’s have been inducted to the forces two crashes have been reported and a malfunction in the aircraft's fly by wire system is said to be the main reason. Fly by wire is software which controls the aircraft's hardware with computer generated electronic signals. With repeated updates the problems with the fly by wire has been overcome and the problem with the software has drastically come down.
      Since the induction of the Su 30’s to the fleet the pilots of IAF have aired their concerns towards the engine powering the aircraft. The issues with the engine have remained unsolved for a very long time. The engine in question is the AL 31 which is currently the power unit for the aircraft. Even though the AL 31 FP has been inducted this has been crafted for improved powerful thrust. These facts were revealed in the assembly by the Defence Minister answering for a query raised by an MP towards the service availability of Sukhoi aircraft.




Service Availability

       The minister revealed the service availability of Sukhoi fleet is only 57 % which means out of the 200 Su 30 MKI aircraft's under the IAF wings only 115 Su 30 aircraft are available for active service. The minister has also promised that the fleet availability will be increased up to 75% by the year end. The same service issues are common in peace time across all the fleets; the German's euro fighter availability is less than 40%. but issue is  Most of the IAF's secondary fighters are in hangers waiting for up-gradation.



      He also mentioned that from last year the Su 30 fleet availability has seen a increase of up to 8% and has now reached up to 57%. The 75% service availability promised for the coming year is a promising sight. 80% service availability would be opt for a country like India which has an array of threats.

Engine Issue

     Making note of the persistent engine issue the minister has brought a chilling report to light. Since the last year as many as 35 engines powering as many planes have failed owing to various factors during mid flight. Reveling the factors for this problem the minister has noted the problems as.

       1. New engine elements

       2. Impure fuel

       3. Excessive vibration

       4. Low pressure in the lubricant tanks.

      Addressing to these problems during an overhaul to the basic design of the engine the Russian designers have given as many as nine new modifications to the engines which will effectively upgrade the aircraft’s performances. After these modifications are imparted on the aircraft engines failed to power up, this was mainly due to the lack of advanced and reliable engineering, applying theoretically based improvements, and fitting on the jets. Russia has supplied around 25 new modified engines towards the Sukhoi fleet under the IAF.

         Most of the soviet build fighters can fly any kind of oil. This was developed keeping in mind of using any kind of oil even impure aviation fuel. But in this scenario the engines have failed due to contamination in the fuel. This is mainly because of the higher amount of sludge present in the oil. But if this is to be true all other aircraft’s have to be facing the same issue. But this is not true the Mirage 2000 aircraft’s have maintained a very minimal amount of failure. The Su 30 and the Mirage fleet are powered by the same fuel.  The issue is found to be only with the  AL 31

Excessive vibration is a major setback if experienced during flight. This problem has to be addressed with immediate effect; this will lead to problems in blades and bearings.

      Pressure ratio in the Lubricant tank; this problem is mostly due to the improper characteristics of the fuel pressure nozzles.

        Another major issue is the engine Life. As of now each AL 31FP which powers the Su 30 MKI has a continuous service life of 500 flight hours, after the limit of 500 hours is crossed the engine would be removed from the fighter and would be overhauled in HAL's Koraput plant . A single engine can be overhauled for about five to six times after which the engine would be dismantled. Russians have promised updates in the basic engine design which would enhance the service life up to 900 hours.

     While all other parts in the Aircraft seems fine and most of the sub systems directly imported from France and Israel. but several IAF officials believes the Rolls Royce EJ 200 who powers the Eurofighter Jet or the F 404 who powers the American fleet of F 18 and Indian Tejas would make more better Variant of Su 30 MKI.

HAL Tejas with Afterburing American GE F 404 Engine

Eurofighter Typhoon with After burning Rolls Royce EJ 200 Engine

Editor Karthik Kakoor