Indian Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

A frontline Sukhoi SU-30MKI combat jet of the Indian Air Force (IAF) crashed in Assam's Nagaon district at 12.30 p.m. on Tuesday, an official said, adding that both pilots had ejected and were safe.

The aircraft had taken off from the Tezpur air base "on a routine mission", the official said.

"After take off, the aircraft had developed a technical snag and the pilot was forced to abandon the aircraft. Both the pilots ejected. The ejection was safe and the aircraft crashed at 1230 hours...in a thick forest near Tezpur.

"A Court of Inquiry has been ordered to ascertain the cause of the accident," Group Captain Amit Mahajan, the defence ministry PRO in Shillong, said in a statement

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NEW DELHI: Indian fighter pilots are now planning to match their air combat skills with among the best in the world, first against their British counterparts this year and then against American top-guns next year.

IAF pilots are gearing up to fly their Sukhoi-30MKI "air dominance" fighters and IL-78 mid-air refuellers to the UK to take on the Royal Air Force during the "Indra Dhanush" exercise, which is scheduled for July-August.

But the real test of their skills will come if they take part in the world famous "Red Flag" exercise to be held in Alaska in the US in April next year. If the IAF does indeed get all the requisite clearances for the Red Flag exercise, it will be the second time for the force in the high-voltage, "network-centric" exercise.

IAF chief Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha on Monday left for a four-day visit to the US, during which he is slated to receive a detailed briefing on the Red Flag combat manoeuvres at the Nellis US Air Force base in Nevada, northwest of Las Vegas, among other consultations.

It was in 2008 that the IAF had earlier participated in Red Flag at the Nellis airbase, which is considered the "mother" of all air combat exercises since it comes closest to realistic air combat without actually going to war.

It was also the first time that the Russian-origin Sukhoi-30MKI fighters had flown over the American mainland. Though not quite familiar with operating in an AWACS (airborne warning and control systems) environment then, the IAF fighter pilots had performed quite well in the demanding exercise.

Since then, the IAF has inducted and operationalised three Israeli Phalcon AWACS of its own. Apart from detecting incoming hostile fighters, cruise missiles & drones much before ground-based radars, AWACS play a crucial role in directing friendly fighters during combat operations with enemy jets.

Participation in such exercises also serve to establish IAF's capability to ``project air power'' by deploying "a trans-continental task force" of fighters, tankers and airlift aircraft across the globe. IAF fighter pilots have managed to hold their own, many a time outgunning their rivals, in the series of bilateral exercises with US, UK and France, among others, over the years.

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3D Medium Range Surveillance Radar, is another stand-alone, state-of-the-art product evolved from the

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-CAR (3 Dimensional Central Acquisition Radar) technologies developed for the Akash Air defence system.

A ground based mechanically scanning pulse Doppler radar for air space surveillance, configured around the requirements of Indian Air Force, it is designed to detect and track aerial targets with reliability, even under hostile Electronic Warfare (EW) operational environments.

Rohini’s advanced software algorithms, multiple high speed processors, and state-of-the-art digital technologies make the radar an effective and user friendly system providing 24X7 airspace awareness.

Rohini has been inducted in to

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The term Pulse Doppler radar is used to indicate radar’s capability to use Doppler shift of the return signal to determine target's velocity.

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The Kamorta-class of stealth corvettes are designed to track down and destroy enemy submarines. However, one of its crucial components is missing. The capabilities of normal sensors in ships are greatly reduced due to the noise their engines make. To track enemy submarines, ASW corvettes need to have something known as Active Towed Array Sonar or Actas. This is a system of hydrophones towed behind a vessel on a cable that can be kilometers long.

This keeps the array's sensors away from the noise sources of the ship towing it, thereby improving its signal-to-noise ratio. This increases the possibility of detecting and tracking faint contacts such as the soft, muffled noise made by submarines. Actas offers superior resolution and range compared to hull-mounted sonar. It also covers the baffles, the blind spot of hull-mounted sonar. Unfortunately, the INS Kamorta doesn't have Actas, reducing its capability to locate submarines. This also puts the ship at risk from enemy submarines that can pass close without being detected.

When asked about this, Singh said: "This is a fine class of ships. All ships have sonar. In the Kamorta-class, the engines are mounted on rubber-rafts and this reduces sound significantly. So the chance of detection is low."

A source in the Navy said that six Actas have already been procured from Germany's Atlas Elektronik by the Ministry of Defence as part of a $51 million deal. However, INS Kamorta may not get one of these. The six Actas will be fitted to three Talwar-class frigates and three Delhi-class destroyers. There is hope though. Under the deal, the German company will transfer technology to Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL). The public sector undertaking will build 10 Actas under licence from Atlas. These will be fitted to other ships. INS Kamorta and other ships of its class may get their turn then.

"Apart from these 16, the Navy plans to get 20 more by 2018 when the INS Vikrant and other ships are commissioned. Ships of the Kamorta-class will get their Actas as and when they go in for refits," the source in the Navy said.

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ATLAS ELEKTRONIK and the Indian Ministry of Defense have signed a contract for the delivery of six active towed array sonar systems (ACTAS) for the Indian Navy. The total contract volume is approximately 40 million Euros. Delivery of the first system is planned for 2016.

The towed array sonar

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operates in the low-frequency range and permits observation of the sea space at ranges in excess of 60 kilometers, depending on the sound propagation con-ditions of the water. The performance of

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delivers to warships an exceptional operational range advantage over both the operational range of radars and weapons systems employed by submarines.

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can also locate and track surface vessels which permits recon-naissance of both submarines and ships in the same sonar search area.

The signing of the contract confirms the pronounced competence in hydro acoustics of ATLAS ELEKTRONIK as a leading supplier of maritime electronic systems in the international market.

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The crash of a Su-30 fighter in Assam and a snag in another of these aircraft worry the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) as the trial of its beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile, Astra, against a simulated target from the Integrated Test Range in Odisha could not be conducted on Tuesday.

Following the snag on Monday, DRDO missile technologists postponed the trial to Tuesday.

Senior DRDO scientists told The Hindu that spare parts for the aircraft were being flown in. The efforts needed for an air launch were more than what was required for a ground launch.

Referring to the crash, a senior scientist said normally the Indian Air Force would ground all Su-30 aircraft in the wake of an accident to find out “if it is a common problem”. He said the DRDO team would await clearance from the IAF to conduct the trial. Three trials spread over two to three days would be conducted as the missile would be released at different altitudes. High manoeuvrability of the aircraft would be looked into during the trials.

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aksha said:

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Jeff Head said:

I was not aware that no ATAS were available for these vessels which are supposed to specialize in ASW.

The fact that there is no clear plan for them (not until sometime after the first six purchased, and then after the first ten built in India...which deal itself is not final yet) is pretty demoralizing and means that the very specialty these ships were built for is significantly hampered.

India simply has to get its procurement and logistics act together. Floating pretty hulls is great...but they have to have the systems they were designed to house.

They now have four such vessels and no ATAS for any of them...and no clear plan to get them one in the foreseeable future.

Sad and disappointing.

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