Indians to build Typhoons??

[jamesdevice]

looks like BAE want to bring the Indians on-board as a full partner in Typhoon. That should give the USA technology export bods pause for thought

Eurofighter Typhoon frontrunner to bag the $11 billion Indian Air Force Multi-Role Combat Aircraft contract - The Economic Times (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/eurofighter-typhoon-frontrunner-to-bag-the-11-billion-indian-air-force-multi-role-combat-aircraft-contract/articleshow/8462757.cms)

maybe if we build them in India the RAF will be able to afford the third tranche...

[Thelma Viaduct]

Why not? their cuisine is exemplary.

[jamesdevice]

we should get the new carriers built by them at the same time They're building a couple for themselves, why not for us as part of the same batch?

[green granite]

Is this the first step towards the much mooted maritime version I wonder.

[jamesdevice]

considering the Indians have recent experience of navalising their Tejas fighter, its maybe not so off-the-wall as it sounds

They probably have knowledge to give us.

[A A Gruntpuddock]

Will be pretty cheap, probably built by hammering old pans out for the wings and powered by 5 or 6 Royal Enfield engines driving ducted fans. SInce they will be sent to the knackers yard before they even fly this is a very cost-effective way of running an air force.

[welliewanger]

Aren't they called monsoons in India?

[BBadanov]

jd said: "considering the Indians have recent experience of navalising their Tejas fighter, its maybe not so off-the-wall as it sounds
They probably have knowledge to give us."

Mate, the LCA to its current state has taken what...30 years?

So any expertise the Indians might have in navalising will take, what?, another 15 years to mature. :rolleyes:

[jamesdevice]

30 years?
thats about the same time scale as the Typhoon took isn't it?
if you date it from the first published requirement, its nearly 40

[BBadanov]

No, not quite. But at least Tiffie is in service and on operations.

[jamesdevice]

but not in the role it was originally envisaged - as a Jaguar replacement.
How does it go? "Austere bombing capability"???

[BBadanov]

jd my point here - despite the fact is Tiffie took less time to be developed and is now on ops, while Tejas is still a long way off - is that the Indians would be the last people I would go to for technology.

I visited ADA in 1988 to brief on systems, and at that stage the first flight for the LCA was to be the early 1990s. I reported on my return to UK that "if it flew in the next 10 years I would bare my butt in Oxford St." Won that ok, as TD-1 didn't get airborne until 2001 !!

They have never achieved the self-sufficiency they wanted with the aircraft, with the Kaveri engine never making it, and through the goodwill of the Yanks they have used F404. Even Tejas Mk2 will use F414.

Apart from cuisine, what else have the Indians done for us (definitely not irrigation!).

[jamesdevice]

In general terms I'm a lot less critical of Indian technology than you. If you are prepared to accept the minimal health and safety standards, then in high-tech industries like chemical production, drug manufacture, software development they are on a par, and often ahead of western countries.
They may have been technically poor in the past, but if they show the remarkable catch-up abilities in aircraft engineering as they have in other industries then I think you'll be in for a shock.
But - just ignore the health and safety issues....

[dat581]

Also ignore what they pay their work force. The economic miracles of China and India are happening of the backs of a work force payed not much better than slave labour.

[TBM-Legend]

Apart from cuisine, what else have the Indians done for us


run Heathrow, Customs, London buses etc etc

fish and chips is now curry and chips. Be careful what you wish for...:}

[jamesdevice]

http://chaffandflare.********.com/2011/02/aero-india-eurofighter-reveals-offer-to.html

Quote from February
"If Typhoon wins MMRCA then India will have the indigenous skills to develop a navalised version ," says Paul Hopkins, BAE Systems' vice- president business development (air) India."

Now whats the chances that todays press release from Warton was timed to coincide with the news from the USA of the price of the F-35?
And whats the chances of an Indian production line being set up to produce both the land and navalsied versions of Typhoon, and that we buy back the naval ones from India?
Was this the "plan B" that was hinted at when all the fuss was made about the Americans refusal to divulge the software source code of the F-35?

[ghostnav]

I hardly believe the Indians are at the cutting edge of aviation technology. They cannot even build a car! This sounds like BAE Systems falling over themselves to get a foothold in India - after all it is now considered an American Company. I only overheard 2 of their personnel in a rather luxurious health resort talking about the best way they can save their own jobs.

[jamesdevice]

they can build cars very well, admittedly of foreign design.
And don't they build the Sukhoi Su-30MKI - with a vary large local content, including avionics?

[Wannabe Flyer]

The Tejas is an independently designed project that has taken 30 years for HAL to get of the ground. Don't really think it does any more than boast (supposedly) on national pride. Reality is that in order to modernnize and grow the Indian Air Force technology and equipment is needed from outside. An inside view to the thought process might actually help

1) Of the 126 aircraft that are to be purchased, 26 will be bought off the shelf, giving jobs in the country that so wins this order
2) The balance will be built under license by HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (http://www.hal-india.com/products.asp))
3) This is not the first time HAL is doing this kind of production and definitely the second time BEA is conducting this exercise with HAL (jaguars were built in India). For some odd reasons these Joint Ventures do not suffer the time lag that the Tejas has.

The purpose of the technology transfer is definitely not price as most times it works out more expensive in India as the technitians are still from the UK or France on expat salaries. Most of the components are imported raising freight costs and other such duties. The main purpose is

1) Improve the learning curve of the Indian team so the next Tejas will not take 30 years
2) Ensure that in the event of sanctions (multiple times in the past 30 years) the aircraft does not get grounded
3) Over the life cycle of the aircraft it can be upgraded locally at half the cost.
4) Give high skill jobs in India and increase the per capita income.

All the above are not bad thoughts and probably one of the main reasons the Americans lost out on the contract as the above would not have been sustainable.

Instead the Indians have dropped $10 billion to buy C-17 and C -130 off the shelf from them.

Either way a good economic boost for all

[jamesdevice]

Just for clarification
An Indian Ocean typhoon is properly called a cyclone - not a monsoon!

[jamesdevice]

"Either way a good economic boost for all " And an even better boost for them if they can sell navalised ones back to us, and maybe Italy and Spain. The navalised Typhoon is supposed to be ski-jump capable, so no catapults needed

[Chillimausl]

The Typhoon campaign in India is being fronted by EADS, not BAE - just for context.

BAE has already built as good a presence in India as any defence prime contractor I can think of through Jaguar and Hawk (and maybe artillery), but I stand to be corrected.

Customers like Saudi Arabia and India are pretty sophisticated and have plenty of choice. For the Typhoon to be so relatively successful suggests to me it must be at least as capable as it peers.

Good luck to EADS (with BAE's help, for sure).

[Wannabe Flyer]

@jamesdevice

The Naval LCA is a pipe dream and the aircraft of choice for new carriers coming into service is the Mig 29K Mikoyan MiG-29K - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan_MiG-29K)

Not sure if they are interested in making the typhoon in a naval version as their only ski jump carrier is set to retire as soon as the new ones come in.

Also there seems to be no track record of western or soviet countries buying back licensed models of their aircraft produced by HAL in the past, so I doubt this would happen.

[jamesdevice]

the Admiral Gorshkov/Vikramaditya is being fitted with a ski jump for STOBAR operations, as is also the new Vikrant

And theres a first time for anything. There'd be no point setting up two short-run assembly lines in both the UK and India. The Indians will want to build carrier-based planes themselves, and there seems to be no signs of the Russians licencing the MIG-29K anyway - which is only small-run production anyway

[BombayDuck]

To add to James' last post, I've heard that there are significant problems with RSK MiG regarding the supply of not the Fulcrum-Ks but the spares and associated carrier-critical equipment (tow bars etc.) that comes with it. The IN wants to move away from Russian equipment ASAP, which is why so many destroyers and frigates are now wholly designed and built in India while submarines (France) and SAMs (Israel) come from other sources.

Those criticising the Tejas may have overlooked the fact that large swaths of data and test results were lost when the Indian government conducted the 1998 nuclear tests and the Tejas (then LCA) test team was kicked out of the US. They had been testing the software on the F-16XL in the mid-90s. So when they got back they had to write the software from scratch AND test it on a completely unknown airframe. In that context, the first flight was in less than three years. It's been ten years since and there have been 7-8 prototypes and thousands of hours (all weather, all envelope and weapon tests) of flight.

Contrast this to the Eurofighter Typh.... wait, wasn't it the 2000? Why was that name given, again? It took 8 years between the EAP and the first Typhoon prototype, and THEN it took ten years or so for induction. Your glass houses are lovely, now could you please stop tossing stones?

That said, I'm grateful for the lack of tech support jokes in this thread. Curry jokes are fine though :ok:

[jindabyne]

Typhoon prototype

No such thing existed. That said, you are mostly correct with your dateline. Unfortunately, you probably haven't the slighted idea as to the myriad of reasons that caused the delays, of which technical issues were not the major part.

[jamesdevice]

"Typhoon prototype - No such thing existed "
Such pedantry. Thats because they weren't called Typhoons at the time but simply "Eurofighter" or the hopelessly optimistic "Eurofighter 2000".....
What year did they drop the 2000 tag?
As for "technical issues were not a part" thats hard to believe considering just about every other BAE Systems / BAe / GE major project in the last 30 years has come in late and seriously over budget.

[Q-RTF-X]

The BAE/HAL relationship goes back quite a while, around 50 years at least. Well before the Jaguar/Hawk deal HAL turned out almost 90 HS 748's under a licence manufacture deal. HAL have, over the years, gradually built a good platform to engage in work of this nature and also to move forward in enhancing design of an existing product.

[hanoijane]

Will they need to keep their Typhoons in special hangers like the Gripens the poor Thais have lumbered themselves with? They'll regret not buying Russian.

[Q-RTF-X]

Will they need to keep their Typhoons in special hangers like the Gripens the poor Thais have lumbered themselves with? They'll regret not buying Russian.
:*
The Thai procurement process is rather convoluted and actual requirement is secondary to any number of political and financial considerations; be assured that not all the "poor Thais" will come out of this poor !

[Rakshasa]

"Typhoon prototype - No such thing existed "
Such pedantry. Thats because they weren't called Typhoons at the time but simply "Eurofighter" or the hopelessly optimistic "Eurofighter 2000".....
What year did they drop the 2000 tag?

First EFA prototype flight, March '94

Production contract signed November '98, Aircraft dubbed "Typhoon".

First IPA delivered 2001. First Service Prod A/C delivered from January 2003.

Flash to bang; (or scribble to whoosh) 4 years 2 months. :ok:

:8

[iRaven]

Typhoon began as Air Staff Target 403 in 1972. First eurofighter prototype flew in Mar 1994 and first production aircraft flew in 2003. First operational use for QRA in 2007 and first proper operation in 2011 - 39 years after the Air Staff Target!!!!

iRaven