[vamsi.kona]

Originally Posted by Foxbat

Indians funded the British Empire to protect their freedom from the Germans while they ruled over us. This was at the same time Winston Churchill said Indians "breed like rabbits" and "have a beastly religion" and killed millions of Bengalis by diverting food from Bengal to Europe during the Bengal famine.

The then Nizam didn't actually consider themselves as part of India as a nation and in fact they actively considered aligning with Pakistan after the separation. If not for Sardar Patel, I would have been born a Pakistani citizen probably.

[fhdowntheline]

One of the regrets I have is why on earth could the government not spare INS Vikrant to make it a warship museum. While we waste so much money on statues and monuments, we missed a great opportunity to impart education on naval history and technology to the future generations.

[skanchan95]

Screen grab from an IAF promotional video:



It shows an IAF Su-30MKI disconnecting from the refuelling boom of an A330 tanker. By the looks of it, it looks like an RAAF A330 MRTT and it might be from Pitch Black 18, where IAF Flankers went down under to participate in those exercises.

[joslicx]

Originally Posted by fhdowntheline

One of the regrets I have is why on earth could the government not spare INS Vikrant to make it a warship museum. While we waste so much money on statues and monuments, we missed a great opportunity to impart education on naval history and technology to the future generations.

Totally Agree.
Last year I was in San Diego and I visited USS Midway. It was a surreal experience. Walking on the deck, checking out all the planes and helis on the deck, ambling inside the ship, interacting with veterans, it was a day well spent. We should have preserved INS Vikrant as a museum. Could the private sector not have taken care of it if the government was not willing to do it?

[ads11]

Originally Posted by skanchan95

Screen grab from an IAF promotional video:

Attachment 2031795

It shows an IAF Su-30MKI disconnecting from the refuelling boom of an A330 tanker. By the looks of it, it looks like an RAAF A330 MRTT and it might be from Pitch Black 18, where IAF Flankers went down under to participate in those exercises.

Speaking of the A330 MRTT, here's a nifty video showing how Airbus takes a regular civilian airliner A330 airframe and essentially converts it into the tanker variant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1GBoeHPJvA

It's interesting to see that most of this operation is done in Spain and how they retrofit all the associated equipment like refuelling boom, wing mounted pods and more importantly the new cabling and wiring to the existing airframe.

The A330 MRTT's wing has common structure with the four-engine A340-200/-300 with reinforced mounting locations and provision for fuel piping for the A340's outboard engines. The A330 MRTT's wing therefore requires little modification for use of these hardpoints for the wing refuelling pods.

Link
I had always wondered about how they just slap on those outboard refuelling pods to the wing - civilian airliners don't strike me as being engineered to have mounting points on the wing. But taking a quad jet wing and repurposing the outboard engine mounting points seems like clever engineering to me.

What also interests me is that the boom operating station seems based entirely off cameras and remote control and it's placed basically forward in the fuselage - not like the old school Extenders the USAF uses where the boom operator is lying in the tail mounted station and guiding it in by eye. Given the shambolic state of Boeing's attempts with their funky 3D camera and headset controlled boom operation for the KC-46 I'm surprised, Airbus clearly seems to have some sort of solution along the lines they were aiming for, maybe Boeing just overcomplicated it.

[Alfresco]

Don't know how to read this news. Did the Rafale really do something spectacular or is it being hyped up to impress/placate Indian taxpayers. Experts, your opinion please.

https://eurasiantimes.com/rafale-jet...ties-in-libya/

A retired Libyan army officer revealed to Arab Weekly that a squadron of fighter planes launched a series of airstrikes on al-Watiya base, where Turkey had deployed F-16 aircraft, Bayraktar TB2 and Anka-S drones, backed by a MIM-23 Hawk air defence system with its radars.

[Foxbat]

Originally Posted by Alfresco

Don't know how to read this news. Did the Rafale really do something spectacular or is it being hyped up to impress/placate Indian taxpayers. Experts, your opinion please.

https://eurasiantimes.com/rafale-jet...ties-in-libya/

A retired Libyan army officer revealed to Arab Weekly that a squadron of fighter planes launched a series of airstrikes on al-Watiya base, where Turkey had deployed F-16 aircraft, Bayraktar TB2 and Anka-S drones, backed by a MIM-23 Hawk air defence system with its radars.

Please avoid reading eurasiantimes.com, its just a tabloid printing articles with sensationalist headlines and made up stories:

JF-17 vs Rafale: Why Pakistani JF-17 Thunder Poses A Serious Threat To Indian Rafale Fighter Jets?
https://eurasiantimes.com/jf-17-vs-r...-fighter-jets/

The JF-17 is a cheap light weight fighter designed by China for developing countries powered by 1 of the two engines the powers the Mig-29 we acquired in the 1980s. Its so advance China doesn't use a single one for its Air Force and the other customers apart from Pakistan are Nigeria and Mynamar.

Pakistan Celebrating Victory Against Coronavirus Pandemic As COVID-19 Cases Go Down
https://eurasiantimes.com/pakistan-c...urge-patience/

Pakistan celebrating victory against corona because they decreased testing and hence positive cases have gone down.

[ads11]

Originally Posted by Foxbat

Please avoid reading eurasiantimes.com, its just a tabloid printing articles with sensationalist headlines and made up stories

Sounds about as bad as the National Interest then, another absolute rag masquerading as a grown up policy and defence wonk's morning reading.

In other news, potentially interesting developments in China.

Looks like they have a B spec J-20 with a slightly warmed up engine


It's been clear that the engine has been the weakest part of the J-20 programme, and just in general for the Chinese. The current iterations of the J-20 use a Sino-Russian variant of the AL-31.

prototypes and low-rate initial production (LRIP) versions moved to the improved AL-31FN Series 3 rated at 137 kN (30,800 lbs) thrust

See the regular J-20A that's been flying about for a while now. Note the engine nozzles

J-20 production had shifted to include indigenous WS-10C engines built by Shenyang Liming. These featured sawtooth exhaust feathers to help reduce the aircraft’s rear hemisphere radar cross-section (RCS). These new engines delivered a much-needed increase in thrust to around 147 kN (33,070 lbs). Reports at that time suggested that these engines featured thrust vectoring

Ignore the watermark of the dragon on the underside and focus on the engine nozzles here - they have a distinct serrated edge to them.

So that's already a ~10% power bump, much needed for a portly platform like the J-20 to execute it's mission set. The more kinematic performance you get from your engine, the higher altitudes you can achieve and the more momentum you'll impart essentially to any air launched missiles - important considering the mission profile is to go out after the vulnerable AWACs and tankers of the USAF.

It's interesting to read how exactly the thrust vectoring plays a part though. Essentially it comes down to being able to use the thrust vectoring not only to achieve higher altitudes but to use it for make the sort of directional changes that might've necessitated moving those front canards as they are now. If the Chinese can get away with not needing to move the canards, they can keep their radar cross section RCS as low as possible (compared to basically having a flight surface moving about like a damn mirror shining beams all over the shop).

The ultimate aim for the Chinese is for their WS-15 engine, the much powerful (targeted output ~180kN) engine that the J-20 was designed to be paired with. Crucially this engine has supercruise ability, ie, being able to go supersonic without the need of afterburners (critical for increasing range). That's the final chink in the puzzle for the Chinese, they manage that, they've cleared a major stumbling block. In fact the author goes so far as to posit we might see a totally reworked J-20.

Removing the big canards and re-certifying the complex flight control system would be a huge undertaking for the CAC engineers, but doing so could dramatically enhance the J-20. In addition to removing the canards, cleaning up the empennage strakes, refining the wings, and other small low observable (LO) tweaks would substantially reduce the aircraft's radar signature, especially in the radar frequency bands beyond the X-Band that is used by most fire control radars.

Furthermore, cracking the WS-15 would have effects on not just the J-20 programme, you could see it providing a significant performance boost to other J series jets in Chinese inventory. More worryingly I imagine it won't be that farfetched to assume a JF-17 could have this much more powerful engine shoe horned in. All that would remain for the Chinese to crack then is a modern high bypass turbofan engine and that would immediately open the doors for their own heavy lifter (Xian Y-20). They might even fancy putting it in their civilian airliners in due course.

[DrPriyankT]

The IAF has deputed a detachment of Harpoon antiship missile equipped Jaguars to the Car Nicobar Air Force Base. This is very potent signalling to the Chinese, as this shows we mean buisness at the Straits of Malacca, which is their economic choke point. This also highlights the need to upgrade the Sukhoi-30's faster, in order for more of them to carry the far more potent Bramhos missile. Nonetheless, the deputation of the Jaguars in the A&N Islands along with the passage exercise of the Eastern Naval Command with the Nimitz Carrier Battle Group is a very visible signal to the Chinese.

[skanchan95]

Originally Posted by DrPriyankT

The IAF has deputed a detachment of Harpoon antiship missile equipped Jaguars to the Car Nicobar Air Force Base.

This, however, is not the first time Jaguars have been deployed there.

No.6 Sqdn's Jaguars (the lone squadron to operate all three IAF Jaguar variants - IS/IM/IT) were deployed routinely there (during their Sea Eagle AShM days). These pics are from a previous deployment. The Grey/Green camo scheme on the chisel nosed Jaguar IS means these pictures are quite old(all Jaguars now have the standard IAF dull grey paint scheme)







But that being said, many Jaguars now have been upgraded to DARIN III standards, which means they get the Elta Radar and Harpoon missile capability. So the Anti-ship missile role no longer resists exclusively with the Jaguar IMs. The Jaguar IS can do it as well (the Twin seat IT understandably cannot do it as it could not be modified to integrate the Elta radar) .

[skanchan95]

First photos of Egyptian Air Force Su-35SE Super Flanker undergoing test flights in Russia. Same camouflage scheme as Egyptian AF MiG-29M2s.

Just see how quickly the Egyptians have moved to beef up their air force. Rafales, MiG-29M2, Su-35s - they have these modern warplanes in such a short span of time. They are now in a good position to probably thwart Erdogan's plans for Libya.

They did not engage in any MMRCA circus and instead ordered these jets directly. Having a dictatorship probably helped in speeding up purchase decisions, but this something our govt can learn from!!! This is how you build you numbers and the Russians have proven to be been pretty good in delivering these jets pretty quickly.

Let's face it, probably one of the reasons why the Naval Fulcrums had to head north was probably because the IAF is getting a little stretched in terms of the number of jets available to counter both the PLAAF and PAF, should things go that way.

[DrPriyankT]

Absolutely sir. We need new jets now more than ever before. For God alone knows what reasons, options for 36 more Rafales are not being exercised, and I really don't know why it will take till December to sign the contract for 83 Tejas Mk1A's. One may understand the mysteries of black holes in the universe, but one cannot understand the black hole of Indian defence procurement, especially the MMRCA quagmire.

[skanchan95]

Bon Voyage Golden Arrows!!!

https://youtu.be/nQMBxA-y6dI

The first five Rafales - 3 Twin seat DHs and 2 single seat EHs depart France for India via Al Dhafra Airbase, UAE.

[RM Motorsports]

In a massive boost for Indian Air Force (IAF), the first batch of five Rafale fighter aircraft took off from France's Istres airbase on Monday (July 27) and will arrive in India on Wednesday (July 29). These jets will land at the Ambala Air Force Station in India on Wednesday (July 29) after covering a distance of almost 7,364 kilometres.

[hondafanboy]

I read somewhere that only the USA and Russia has Missiles early warning system and that Russia is helping China to have this capability. Does anyone have more information on this ? What are our chances to have or build this system?