Team-BHP - Indian Aviation - HAL Ajeet, the Folland Gnat Mk II. EDIT: 1965 war IAF documentary on page 6

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Originally Posted by Jeroen (Post 3579852)

Although you won't get any official channel to admit, the Dutch never sold you the system they use themselves. The export one are dumbed down a bit. Word has it there are three different versions. The Dutch one used by the Dutch navy, a slightly tuned down one for NATO countries and a slightly more tuned down one for NON-NATO countries.

Not looking for a pattern here... but could not help but notice cause and effect or is it action/reaction.:D

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Originally Posted by V.Narayan (Post 3579733)

and still later improve it twice over and it is still being fitted in Indian warships today in much improved versions.

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Originally Posted by damanshaheed (Post 3579749)

Nice writeup Mr. Narayan. My dad used to fly the Ajeet back in the day until he graduated to another gem of an aircraft, the MiG 21 Bison or the "BIS". I have had the opportunity to see them in full glory. I used to refer them as dinky planes as in dinky cars when compared to the MiGs.

Sorry to be picky, stupid: but the Mig-21 bis and Mig-21 "Bison" are two very different versions of the Mig-21.

The Mig-21 bis first flew in 1972 as one of the ultimate versions of the aircraft and was manufactured from new.

The Mig-21 "Bison" are upgraded earlier versions of Mig-21s for the IAF and the first prototypes were delivered in 2001. These are not newly manufactured aircraft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...iG-21_variants

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Originally Posted by joybhowmik (Post 3579957)

Just the observation that the Indian establishment went ahead and improved on the technology, - maybe it was because they expected that it would be a toned down version of the original.

Well, I'm not sure to what extend that is (technically) feasible. I'm sure there are things you can improve on say an aircraft design. When it comes to improve the specification of a radar system I'm not so sure. You would need to have an indepth understanding of the working of and the programming of the thing. Typcially the manufacturer would built in all sort of safe guards for outsiders to tamper with it. Leaving alone what your licensing agreement says about this, it would probably void warranty too!:)

I'm no experts in this matter at all, but I know several guys who are. They have been chief engineer and or design authority on some of these lets say western-export projects. Althoug for obvious reasons they can't tell me any details, we have had some interesting discussions. Would make for an interesting book as well.

Lot of politics involved as well. Years ago, whilst still in the negotian phase, the Indian Hawk version was stripped of all American kit, more or less overnight, because of some tiff between US and Indian. The design team worked flat out to replace about 10 different systems, from GPS to hyraulics.

Jeroen

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeroen (Post 3579852)

Although you won't get any official channel to admit, the Dutch never sold you the system they use themselves... Word has it there are three different versions. The Dutch one used by the Dutch navy, a slightly tuned down one for NATO countries and a slightly more tuned down one for NON-NATO countries.

Happy to hear you are a happy customer of us!

Jeroen

Agree Jeroen - all defence exports are modified versions of what the home country uses. It is only natural I guess. The fact is at that time in 1969 India did not even assemble let alone manufacture any naval radar of any consequence. So from the point of view of the Indian Navy acquiring know-how for indigenization was as important as getting a good radar. And the radar had to be good enough to deal with our potential trouble makers to the North and the West which the tuned down LW08 very much was. Jeroen, it is a pleasure to see how knowledgeable you are on aviation matters. The Navy enjoyed a wider relationship with the Dutch but more on that later. Team BHP also has a happy relationship with a Dutchman.:)

For all our petroheads it is like saying that all we had were imported M800s and some one agrees to not only sell us a Honda City but also give us the know-how to build it the only caveat being that it won't come with all the bells and whistles of the Japanese version. To complete the LW08 story it went on to be fitted in improved versions to the Improved Leander, Godavari, Brahmaputra and Delhi classes of warships

I can only speculate what it would have been like if the Ajeet had been married to the Rolls Royce Adour engine and the Matra air to air missile. Unfortunately the IAF did not support HAL in developing this indigenous effort any further though in my opinion HAL was capable of doing it. In contrast China in those days had a policy to keep improving what they had step by step and focus on availability of spares, standardization and indigenization at all costs.

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Originally Posted by Foxbat (Post 3579883)

The Mig-21 "Bison" are upgraded earlier versions of Mig-21s for the IAF

If I remember correctly, only MiG 21 BIS were chosen for the upgrade to BISON. Earlier versions like MiG 21 FL, PFM, M, etc. weren't.

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Originally Posted by V.Narayan (Post 3579977)

I can only speculate what it would have been like if the Ajeet had been married to the Rolls Royce Adour engine and the Matra air to air missile. Unfortunately the IAF did not support HAL in developing this indigenous effort any further though in my opinion HAL was capable of doing it. In contrast China in those days had a policy to keep improving what they had step by step and focus on availability of spares, standardization and indigenization at all costs.

Fully agree with you. The IAF guys are spoilt for choice and so is the case with our Army. They love foreign stuff! For them, only the best will do! They'd find a million faults in locally produced stuff even if it is actually better than foreign, as was proven in Arjun verus T-90 tank trials. They don't care if the foreign arms makers take them and the taxpayers for a ride. Upgradation of 49 Mirage 2000 planes (which does not involve replacement of the engine) is costing this country over 4 billion US Dollars! Foreign arms lobby is extremely rich and strong and has traditionally manipulated the Indian Govt. to make sure that indigenous defence programmes languish for want of attention and resources. Commitment to local programmes must come from the top. The new Govt. is talking about "make in India" which only translates into license assembly/production of foreign stuff. The Govt. should really be saying "develop and make in India". We absolutely need to eliminate our technological dependence on the west if we want to emerge as a strong nation. China's is a good example to follow.

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Originally Posted by directinjection (Post 3580126)

Fully agree with you. The IAF guys are spoilt for choice and so is the case with our Army. They love foreign stuff! For them, only the best will do! .

Its interesting to note that in democracries, those that we ask to defend us, are not the ones who decide what kit to use. Its probably worse in non democtratic regimes. :)

For Instance in the Netherlands, the army will do their own analysis and come up with a recommendation to the governement. Then politics kick in and its all about jobs, in the Dutch case, with whom (what countries) we sign contracts and how are we we ensured to get so-called compensation, transfer of technology.

The purchase of planes like for instance the F16, F35 by the Dutch governement over non US variants is a case that illustrates this perfectly. As part of compensation orders, parts of the F16 were manufactured and assembled by Then Dutch aircraft manufacturer Fokker. Kept hundreds of faiirly high tech jobs in the Netherlands.

Jeroen

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Originally Posted by Jeroen (Post 3580253)

For Instance in the Netherlands, the army will do their own analysis and come up with a recommendation to the governement. Then politics kick in and its all about jobs, in the Dutch case, with whom (what countries) we sign contracts and how are we we ensured to get so-called compensation, transfer of technology.

The purchase of planes like for instance the F16, F35 by the Dutch governement over non US variants is a case that illustrates this perfectly. As part of compensation orders, parts of the F16 were manufactured and assembled by Then Dutch aircraft manufacturer Fokker. Kept hundreds of faiirly high tech jobs in the Netherlands.
Jeroen

Netherlands is a member of the NATO alliance and faces far fewer security threats than India.

Modern weapon systems are extremely expensive and also have a long service life spanning many decades. Your ability to use a weapon system effectively depends on uninterrupted availability of spares and specialist services from its manufacturer throughout its service life. Unless you have localised everything, there is great scope for exploitation by the foreign manufacturer located 10,000 miles away as well as by its govt., especially during war. That's a scenario India is quite familiar with. A multi-million dollar weapon system is useless if you don't have spares to keep it running! Some years ago, almost the entire fleet of IAF's front-line Su 30 had to be grounded because there were no tyres in stock - the tyre vendor's factory in Russia had temporarily shut down!

A country of India's size, natural and human resources ought to be producing most of its weapons systems locally. Unlike Netherlands, the size of India's military orders is huge which makes domestic manufacture viable. Yet, in spite of the serious security threats it faces, the country enjoys the dubious reputation of being the world's largest arms importer! Our armed forces need to realise that wars can't be won with foreign weapons.

Remarkably, the Netherlands is the 14th largest arms exporter globally!This for a tiny, tiny country with 17 million people living on a piece of mostly reclaimed land from the Northsea. As long as it is high tech, or we can make money out of something the Dutch will be all over it.

India on the other hand is the world largest importer of arms.

All data according/courtesy of http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry

Jeroen

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Originally Posted by directinjection (Post 3580126)

If I remember correctly, only MiG 21 BIS were chosen for the upgrade to BISON. Earlier versions like MiG 21 FL, PFM, M, etc. weren't.

That's correct. Only IAF MiG-21bis airframes were upgraded to the proposed MiG-21-93 standards and were renamed as Bison. It was not technically feasable to upgraded older FL/M/MF airframes to Bison standards, though some M/MF airframes did undergo a limited upgrade with Bison's RWR gear.

"BISON" in IAF terms meant BIS ONwards, and not "Son of (a) bis" :uncontrol:D, as mentioned in some places on the net.

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Originally Posted by directinjection (Post 3580126)

Good to have opinions.

It's not that seemed forces want to use only foreign made systems. The fact is that they do have much choice. IAF and Army do want indigenous weapon systems provided they are reliable and can deliver at the times of war. Arjun and LCA are still not declared fully operational. Still, Armed forces have supported them else even after decades of being developed, they are still in race. You want a soldier to protect you but give him inferior weapons to do it, all in the name iof indigenization. Is it fair? Eg Army went for Israeli tevors rifles because we couldn't make one which is reliable. (Ask Kargil veterans).

And yes Mirage 2000 upgrade is fully justified. It's engine had no issues and it's still a very potent war machine. (Personal experience,I have hundreds of hours of flying combat missions on it).

Lets leave this decision to people who do this job to decide how to do this job. They are the one who risk their lives everyday to give us opportunity to express ourselves freely.

Remember, freedom is not free. It cost soldiers. And it's our duty to give them fighting chance.

Cheers

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Originally Posted by Jeroen (Post 3586448)

Just out of interest, in which theatre of war did you rake up hundreds of hours flying combat mission in a Mirage?

Jeroen

Not in actual ops but everyday training missions you fly. We call them combat missions. It is as close as it gets to actual thing. Only that you don't fire actual armament.

More details are not appropriate on public forum. I'm still serving.

Cheers.

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Originally Posted by sheelz (Post 3586490)

Thanks, it is on public record that pilots from NATO countries require a minimum of 180 hours flying annual and quite a number of countries are struggling with that. Could you say something about what sort of annual hours an Indian Air Force pilots makes?
Jeroen