PAK-FA is a lemon, Indian Air Force publically issues a pessimistic assessment.

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Aeronaut

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INDIAN AIR FORCE ASSERTS RUSSIA CAN’T DELIVER ON FIFTH GENERATION FIGHTER AIRCRAFT

January 22, 2014 by globalaviationreport

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The Indian Air Force (IAF) is apparently unhappy with the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA) that India is jointly developing with Russia. According to a report in the Business Standard; “Even as New Delhi and Moscow finalize a $6 billion deal to co-develop an FGFA with capabilities tailor-made for India, the IAF has alleged the Russians would be unable to meet their promises about its performance”. The IAF has complained that the 5th generation stealth fighter has shortcomings in terms of performance and technical features and that Russia is not sharing critical design, technical, and cost information. Despite the Indian Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) strong support for the project, the IAF is remaining extremely critical of the “less-than-joint” joint fighter project.

The Sukhoi/HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.) FGFA is a fifth-generation fighter being developed by Russia and India. It is a derivative project from the PAK FA (T-50 is the prototype) being developed for the Indian Air Force. FGFA is the official designation for the Indian version. The two sides recently completed ‘deep design phase’ for the Indian variant, which would be lighter because of massive use of composite materials than the all metal T-50 prototypes.

According to Sukhoi; “The PMF project includes the design and development of a next-generation fighter, which will have such advanced features as stealth, supersonic cruise speed, high maneuverability, highly integrated set of avionics, an advanced warning system about the situation, the internal deployment of weapons and the possibility of a centralized reporting and electronic warfare system. The fighter is being developed on the basis of the Russian perspective aviation complex (PAK FA) according to stringent technical requirements of the Indian side. The further development of the program envisages design and development of a two-place version of the aircraft and integration of an advanced engine with increased thrust. The two sides are supposed to cooperate in joint marketing of the complex in other countries”.

In it’s report, the Business standard stated that “The IAF’s three top objections to the FGFA were: (a) The Russians are reluctant to share critical design information with India; (b) The fighter’s current AL-41F1 engines are inadequate, being mere upgrades of the Sukhoi-30MKI‘s AL-31 engines; and (c) It is too expensive. With India paying $6 billion to co-develop the FGFA, “a large percentage of IAF’s capital budget will be locked up.” The MoD and HAL countered the IAF’s objections by declaring that Russian officials have told them that the current prototype’s engine, the AL-41F1, is a temporary solution to let the flight-test program continue, and that a new engine being developed in Russia will eventually power both the FGFA and PAK-FA.

The IAF also wants an improved radar that enables 360 degree coverage around the aircraft, while the Russian aircraft version (for now) will only require a forward looking radar capability. Simply put, the Russian’s PAK-FA version of the FGFA will have less stringent performance requirements than those of the Indian Air Force’s version of the fighter, therefore, Russia will forge ahead with the development of its own PAK FA fifth-generation stealth fighter aircraft. However, Russia like the Indian government remains committed to the FGFA joint development project.

India is keeping a very close watch on the progress of the FGFA project which has a potential of becoming the biggest and most expensive Indo-Russian defense project costing India $30 billion. However, New Delhi will loosen its purse strings only if its concerns about value for money, cost-overruns, delays and 40 to 45 improvements in the fighter aircraft’s design demanded are met by the Russians.

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Jeff Head

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This post belongs in the Indian Military News thread...where the topic has been discussed in the past.

This post copied there.

This thread closed.

Aeronaut, you are new to the forum. Please read the forum rules. We have numerous threads in the various forums where you can post this type of information, and we have a decent search function you can use to find similar posts, and threads.

Please use them and only post new threads about items that are truly not being discussed, or do not belong in any other thread.

Jeff Head

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