MMRCA - FX Indiano

[Penguin]

MMRCA contenders yet to be shortlisted
http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/NEWS/news ... wsid=13332

Huma Siddiqui
Posted: Saturday, Aug 28, 2010 at 2330 hrs IST
Updated: Saturday, Aug 28, 2010 at 2330 hrs IST

New Delhi: India is yet to shortlist contenders for supplying 126 fighter jets under the $11-billion medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) deal. ‘‘At the moment, the Offsets Technical Committee—headed by the special secretary of defence production and including members from the defence research and development organisation (DRDO), Indian Air Force (IAF) and the ministry of defence (MoD)—is evaluating technical offsets proposals and sending their observations to all the six contenders,” officials privy to the process told FE.

The MoD can decide on shortlisting the contenders only when the technical offsets evaluation committee report and the field trial report are complete,” they said.

Based on the observations, vendors would submit fresh and revised offsets proposals, which will take a minimum of two months. After that, the contenders will be evaluated again and the recommendations will be sent for approval to the MoD, sources said, adding, “after it goes to the Cabinet Committee on Security for a final decision, government-to-government negotiations will be held in order to get additional benefits for the country.”

Lockheed Martin F-16IN, Boeing F/A-18, Dassault Rafale, EADS Eurofighter Typhoon, Saab Gripen and Russian MiG-35 are contending for the 126-aircraft programme. The Indian Air Force will invite different contenders to discuss flight evaluation reports once the field trials are complete.

The contenders, along with their partners, have also been invited by the MoD to present their offsets proposals. So far, the IAF has had a meeting with Lockheed Martin and Dassault of Rafale.

According to sources, “Vendors complying with the rules, the defence procurement policy and technical offsets will ultimately be considered. Also, the lowest bidder and the designated L1 will be selected as the MMRCA.” For the first time, IAF will consider the 'life-cycle costs', rather than just the lowest bid.

[marcelo l.]

http://www.financialexpress.com/news/gl ... l/674579/1

New Delhi: Top leaders of the world are lining up for a $10-billion Indian order for 126 fighter aircraft. Companies from the US, France and Russia have put in their bids for the 126 MMRCA for the Indian Air Force (IAF) and the visiting leadership are expected to lobby with their counter parts. The US President Barack Obama’s visit in November will be followed by the French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s in early December and later by the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

Sources told FE on conditions of anonymity that, ‘‘the six contenders have yet to be shortlisted. The defence ministry can decide on shortlisting the contenders only once it have the technical offsets evaluation committee report along with the Field Trial report.’’

‘‘After it goes to the Cabinet Committee on Security for a final decision, there will government-to-government negotiations in an effort to get additional benefits for the country,’’ the source added.

American companies, Lockheed Martin F-16IN, Boeing F/A-18, French Dassault Rafale, EADS Eurofighter Typhoon, Saab Gripen and Russian MiG-35 are in the running for the 126-aircraft programme.

So far the IAF has had a meeting with Lockheed Martin and the French 'Dassault’ of Rafale.

According to sources, ‘‘Vendors who are compliant rule wise, Defence Procurement Policy and Technical offsets will ultimately be opened for consideration. Also, the lowest bidder, designated L1, will be selected as the medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA)."

The whole procedure is expected to take a couple of months and by then Obama will be here. ‘‘While the MMRCA deal will be topping the agenda. Several other pending deals including the medium weight helicopters where the RFP is likely to be scrapped will be talked about. It is expected that India could ask the US for encryption technology too.’’

French President Nicholas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni will arrive on a two-day visit on December 6-7. ‘‘Definitely MMRCA deal come up for discussions. Eventually the selection of the MMRCA will be political decision,’’ said officials.

Apart from inking pact for the supply of two reactors, India and France will also sign a $2.2-billion deal to upgrade its Mirage fleet. The upgrade deal, which had been hanging fire for the past two years due to differences over the price, is now ready to be inked, sources in the defence ministry said.

France is also keen that India approve the Maitri air-to-surface Low-Level Quick Reaction Missile (LLQRM), which has been jointly developed by the...

[Justin Case]

Amigos,

Interessante post do editor do site indiano LiveFist:


http://livefist.blogspot.com/2010/08/wh ... icans.html

MMRCA BUZZ: What Makes The IAF Nervous About The Americans
Wednesday, September 01, 2010

An IAF officer I spoke to six months ago to get a sense of how the Indian Air Force perceives partnerships with the United States as a potential outcome of the MMRCA competition, used a simple but strange metaphor to illustrate his opinion. Imagine India on the one side of a deep and wide ravine. Across this wide ravine is a gleaming suspension bridge. It looks great and appears superbly stable -- but in rough weather, there's every chance it will shake. In the past, when India has tried to cross this bridge, it has been forced to quickly retrace its steps midway when the bridge was buffeted by unkind winds that threatened to cast India into the ravine. So now, here's the question. Does the weather ever really change that much?

Two overwhelming notions, especially within the Indian media, over the last four years concerning the MMRCA competition, are, one, the government will choose an aircraft type based on political considerations. And two, since it does so, the Americans will win, since they offer more, on the face it, politically than any other nation. But these fall, indubitably, in the realm of government, and not the Indian Air Force. But while the IAF says it works only with determinables and not the intangibles, it obviously has concerns, many of which dwell in the realm of the political. Some of these concerns come up frequently and are well known. Others are less known and more specific. The idea of this post is to simply provide a consolidated view of perceptions of operating American aircraft.

Let's first get one thing out of the way. There are probably very few in the IAF who believe that the Americans can be beaten on potential technology. Notwithstanding arguments that the two American platforms on offer to India are essentially modernised legacy fighters with little or no modernisation latitude, there is a keen sense that the Americans control what is undeniably among the best aerospace technology in the world. The quality and temperament of sharing is a different matter, and I'll touch upon that later.

The chief cause of nervousness in the IAF regarding any potential hardware from the US is, quite clearly, the potential attendant erosion of autonomy. Nothing in the last six years has changed that perception. The Indian government is rightly skeptical about the CISMOA and BECA agreements, but the end-user verification pact (EUVA) that the two countries finally entered into (even with India's counterdraft accepted) is not something that went down well with the IAF. Crucially, there is a general sense that autonomy will potentially be affected not just as far as operations are concerned, but in other areas as well -- logistics, planning, profiling etc. Here's something even more interesting: One officer suggests that the use of the MMRCA aircraft as strategic deterrent platforms (i.e. nuclear delivery aircraft) is a grey area that could prove almost certainly problematic when dealing with the Americans, or at least more problematic with the Americans than the others. It so happens that the only country that has never questioned India's strategic positioning of its aircraft, are the French (though they have different, equally serious problems). "India may not be Turkey, Egypt of Pakistan, but if you look at any country that operates American aircraft, there has been a period -- sometimes prolonged -- of trouble," says the officer quoted above, adding, "This is something a country like Pakistan can afford, since it has already pledged its strategic future to one nation. But can we?" The fear that the autonomy overhang could affect operational planning is a very real one. A section of the IAF believes South Block is way too hardnosed to buckle to a bad deal -- there's another that believes reluctance to sign the EUVA was merely diplomatic grandstanding that conveniently harnessed the IAF's apprehensions -- and, therefore, that there is every chance the IAF will be saddled with jets it cannot fully use.

A related aspect is operational flexibility. During Kargil, the IAF reportedly did things to some of its Mirage-2000s that would have amounted to serious violations of the Indian government's contract with Dassault. It is understood, but not confirmed, that the French government was quietly engaged after the war and the two sides were able to agree that it was not a problem, and that no penalties would be slapped on the Indian government for what were, in reality, war exegencies, even though it was clear that there had been serious breaches of the technology agreement. The use of US aircraft would be far more potentially restricted and regulated by complex rules, legalese and guidelines. It's not that the IAF isn't used to this sort of thing. It's just that there's likely to be exponentially more to pore over before scrambling an American jet from an Indian base. Here's another point: Buying and operating US aircraft, some in the IAF believe, would "completely subvert" one of the most deeply entrenched "ways" of doing things in India -- using a generous dose of improvisation. "Will the American be fanatically remote controlling with India as well? It is hard to say," says the officer quoted above.

Next, of course, trust. Reliability and trust are major issues, and this has little do with any sort of hangover of the 1998 post-Shakti sanctions. An influential quarter in the IAF feels the US has not qualitatively demonstrated that it is a sincere partner, especially when it comes to India's indigenous programmes. In 1998, US sanctions dealt a death blow, or nearly so, to several Indian weapon and weapon platform programmes, including the country's missile programme, light combat aircraft, NCW technologies and other critical programmes. But little has actually changed. While the US is happy to sell India billions of dollars worth of hardware, it is suspiciously and conspicuously unreliable even now when it comes to indigenous programmes. For instance, the IAF is still wondering why the US government didn't allow Boeing to provide a technological and flight test consultancy to the Tejas programme. Recently, it was revealed that Lockheed-Martin was unable to obtain approvals from the US government to consult for the Naval Tejas programme (both contracts went by default to EADS). The point is, the consultancies were "small-fry contracts that held nothing of advantage to either of the American companies or the government," says a Group Captain. He adds, "Such denials are taken very seriously. What could the possible reason be for the US government to deny two small consultancies? It has not been reported much, so it is forgotten. For the service, it was a jolt. The implications are plain for anyone to deduce." He's right. For all the big-sounding partnership rhetoric that India has gotten used to being bombarded with from Washington, it's the little things that offer a different, decidedly worrying picture for the IAF. Simply put, the perception appears to be this in some quarters -- the Pentagon wants to sell you a lot of souped up Cold War era fighter planes, but doesn't want to tell you how to fine-tune carrier-safe landing gear assemblies. It doesn't want to tell you how to speed up flight trials. It refuses to tell you how to expand the operational envelope of your own in-development fighter platform. The two Tejas consultancy programmes are, incidentally, only two among at least a dozen similar contracts that the US has "won", but failed to act upon as a result of seeming Pentagon/State Department sensitivities. Result: perceptions that the US wants to sell India weapons, and has little interest in any real partnerships that could potentially edge out the need to buy those or similar weapons at a later stage as well.

A dramatic and interesting perception in a certain section of the IAF is that the F-16 Block 60 and F/A-18E/F are excellent fighter platforms, but that it is unlikely that the US will be either a willing or reliable partner as far as ensuring that these aircraft are on the cutting edge throughout their life of 40 years or more. The US government has, on behalf of the plane makers, assured the Indian government -- and will drive it home many more times -- that the future of these two platforms is completely safe. Still, the sense that you won't get the best they have is nowhere more overpowering than it is with the Americans.

Some of these concerns have a greater emphasis than others in ongoing dialogue between the IAF and the MoD, but all figure at various levels without exception. It must be said that there is, at the same time, a powerful section within the IAF -- with compelling arguments of its own on all the concerns listed above -- that the only way the IAF can make its next aerospace leap, is with technology from the United States, and that any other, would be a compromise on such a valuable opportunity to shift away from rusty strategic predilections of the past.

Abraços,

Justin

[Francoorp]

Justin... Hoje ainda é 31/08... essa noticia tua ai de cima é de amanhã !

Me empresta a tua máquina do Tempo!!

Mas é claro que os Indianos não querem mais embargos, eu ja tinha falado isso antes, lembram do caso dos LM-2500 que foram embargados?? E assim as coisas vão acumulando e acumulando... E realmente creio que qualquer um tenha mais liberdade usando equipamentos que não venham dos Yankees!

E os Franceses segundo o texto dão sim mais liberdade de ação, mas isso ja sabiamos!

[Justin Case]

Justin... Hoje ainda é 31/08... essa noticia tua ai de cima é de amanhã !

Me empresta a tua máquina do Tempo!!

Mas é claro que os Indianos não querem mais embargos, eu ja tinha falado isso antes, lembram do caso dos LM-2500 que foram embargados?? E assim as coisas vão acumulando e acumulando... E realmente creio que qualquer um tenha mais liberdade usando equipamentos que não venham dos Yankees!

E os Franceses segundo o texto dão sim mais liberdade de ação, mas isso ja sabiamos!

Franco,

Não é máquina do tempo. É um tal de fuso horário.
Sempre me deixa CON FUSO
Tem que ser rápido no gatilho para acompanhar.
Abraço,

Justin

[Francoorp]

Eu sei, era so uma brincadeira...

[Carlos Mathias]

Cadê o USAntiago?????

[Penguin]

Cadê o USAntiago?????

DATE:30/08/10
SOURCE:Flight International
Praise, concern greets US export reform
By Stephen Trimble


US aerospace companies are likely to receive more freedom to operate on the export market under sweeping reforms detailed today by the Obama Administration. Perhaps thousands of products facing a lengthy and sometimes ambiguous review process could be downgraded or removed altogether from export control lists.
The lists themselves are being subdivided into three categories, creating different standards for approval in each tier. Meanwhile, "subjective" criteria for granting licenses will be replaced by objective parameters, such as horsepower or microns.
The Administration released a fact sheet preview of remarks scheduled for tomorrow by President Obama.
Such changes could make US companies more competitive on the global arms market. For nearly two decades, industry officials eying sales opportunities abroad have complained that national export control policies have hindered sales or partnering on foreign programmes, particularly in the space industry.
Most complaints have focused on what the Administration acknowledges as a review process now defined by "jurisdictional disputes and ambiguities", with three primary licensing agencies using different and sometimes conflicting policies. The system also rigidly applies the same review process to all weapons, whether the product is an end-item fighter jet or a component such as a brake pad.
"You don't need to control this kind of junk," says export control reform advocate Joel Johnson, the executive director-international of the Teal Group consultancy.
But the Obama Administration also faces political opposition on reform from Republicans and even some Democrats concerned about lowering barriers to sensitive technologies to potential adversaries or violators of human rights.
As the former deputy assistant secretary at the State Department's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, Greg Suchan managed the licensing process during the George W. Bush Administration for items on the US Munitions List. He calls the new reforms "ambitious", and predicts opposition from Congress.
"One could imagine that the loyal opposition will ask what's going to happen after the items are decontrolled," says Greg Suchan, a former deputy assistant secretary who is now senior associate at the Commonwealth Consulting. "Does this mean you don't care if Chinese, Iranians and human rights violators get all this stuff without asking, 'Mother, may I'?"
The administration fact sheet states that sanctions directed at specific countries, including Cuba and Iran, will remain in place.
Both existing lists of items controlled by the US government - the Munitions List and the Commerce Control List - will also remain, but be split into three tiers.
In the lowest tier will be items that provide a significant advantage to the military or intelligence community, but are broadly available on the open market. The highest tier is reserved for weapons of mass destruction or items that provide a "critical" advantage and are exclusively available in the US.
In the middle tier are items with a "substantial" advantage but are only available from the US, allies or multilateral partners.
The Obama Administration has already run a "beta" test of the new system on Category VII of the Munitions List, which applies to tanks and military vehicles. The test shows that 74% of 12,000 items licensed last year would be removed from the Munitions List. In the roughly one-fourth of the items that remain, none of the 12,000 licenses would qualify for the highest tier and 18% would be placed in the middle tier.
Suchan, however, suspects that Category VII was selected because tanks and vehicles represent one of the lowest areas of concern in the export control community. More sensitive are categories for controlling space vehicles, aircraft and night vision, he says.
"I give them high marks for thinking big," Suchan says. "That said, most of these things are there for a reason. How they end up carrying this out is going to be a challenge."
The Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) praised the reform initiatives as helpful especially to small businesses.
"These companies rarely have the resources to ensure compliance with the current export control regime. Simplifying the system offers them the opportunity to be more competitive in the international marketplace," AIA president and chief executive officer Marion Blakey says in a statement.

[Carlos Mathias]

Agora vai!!!!
ToTs de janelas, portas de trem de pouso e lâmpadas de painel.
Mas de LED.

[Penguin]

Texto interessante sobre a saga do programa Kaveri

The Long Haul

By Atul Chandra

The Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE) is a premier Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) lab entrusted with the critical task of designing and developing an operational gas turbine engine for the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA). While the road has been long and arduous, FORCE visited GTRE to get a better understanding of the challenges faced by the team and the milestones that have been achieved till date.

Kaveri Programme

The Gas Turbine Research Centre as it was called way back in 1959 consisted of a modest team of 10 engineers, scientists and 20 technicians entrusted with designing a centrifugal type gas turbine engine generating 1000 kg (2200 lb) of thrust. This engine ran for the first time on a test bed at Kanpur in 1961, by the end of that year the entire establishment moved to Bangalore and was renamed as Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE). From that infant stage, today, GTRE has grown to house more than 1,250 technical personnel whose primary responsibility is to design and develop an aero gas turbine engine for military applications besides carrying out advanced research in subsystems for the same.

The project ‘Design and Development of Kaveri Engine’ was sanctioned on 30 March 1989 is yet ongoing and has incurred an expenditure of more than Rs 3,000 crore.

The programme can in hindsight be termed as having been highly optimistic considering the fact there was a complete lack of knowhow ranging from design and development of a modern aero engine to technology and materials, not to mention a nonexistent vendor base capable of supplying high quality aero components on a consistent basis initially. However, aero engine development world over has always been a technology-intensive and time consuming task and the lessons that have been learnt so far are sure to be put to good use in the coming years. The effort has also resulted in numerous spinoffs over a variety of applications and the creation of a large knowledge pool with regards to gas turbine engines and associated sub systems.

The Kaveri is a twin spool, low bypass ratio, augmented turbofan generating a dry thrust of 52 kN (11,690 lb) and reheat thrust of 81 kN (18,210 lb) weighing approximately 1250 kg. A quick comparison with engines that the Kaveri must match by the time it enters service before the end of this decade is given below.

The Eurojet 200 and F414-GE-400 are already in a competition for the ‘Tejas’ engine contract while Snecma will partner GTRE in the quest to develop a higher thrust variant of the Kaveri engine. The Eurojet 200 is a twin spool turbofan with an afterburner thrust of 20,000 lb and 13,500 lb without reheat weighing 1,000 kg. The GE F414-400 has a maximum reheat thrust of 22,000 lb and weighs 1,109 kg. The Snecma M-88-2 offers 17,000 lb of thrust with reheat and 11,250 lb without reheat and weighs 1977 lbs. However a Snecma brochure does say that improvements could increase the thrust to 20,000 lb.
Interestingly, while the General Electric (GE) engine powers the twin engine F/A 18 ‘Super Hornet’ and the single engine Saab Gripen, the other two engines power twin engine fighters only. Also the GE and Snecma engines are used in fighters that also have naval variants in the ‘Super Hornet’ and Rafale respectively unlike the Eurojet 200 which is used on the Eurofighter.

Challenges

According to director, GTRE, T Mohana Rao the, “materials required for a gas turbine engine are extremely complex. They have to be light and strong at high temperatures. An exotic alloy called Ti-64 is used for the low pressure compressor and parts of the high pressure compressor. Another alloy is used for the high temperature sections at elevated temperatures of 900 degrees centigrade for the high pressure compressor blades. Titanium, super alloys and maraging steel, all form essential components of an aero engine and a lot of these materials were developed for the Kaveri programme along with DMRL Hyderabad and Midhani.Now we have 12 important alloys for air worthiness and use on aircraft that have been certified by Centre for Military Airworthiness and Certification (CEMILAC) and RCMA. This has taken a decade to develop and we used to import all these materials previously.”

Some of the other crucial technologies that are required for a modern combat aero engine are single-piece bladed compressor disks (blisks), single crystal high pressure turbine blades, powder metallurgy disks, ceramic coatings and composite materials. These are essential to provide the high thrust, reliability and low weight demanded of present fighter engines. Many of these technologies are not available readily and the task of developing this type of technology in house has proved to be insurmountable. However, with the entry of Snecma one can expect the programme to have access to newer technologies.

Infrastructure

The most important benefit to have been realised out of developing the Kaveri engine has been the creation of invaluable infrastructure for the design, manufacture, testing and certification of a modern military aero engine.

Foreign Object Damage (FOD) Test Rig: The FOD test rig is used to understand effects of different sized objects that are ingested by the engine at high speeds. The military requirement for an aero engine is that when an object weighing two lb impacts the rotating blades at 12,000 rpm and 0.4 Mach, then the engine should be able to recover 95 per cent of its thrust in five seconds. The Kaveri engine meets this specification. The force of that impact is equivalent to 20 tonne and one can only imagine the standards required to be met to keep an aero engine operating after such an impact. The rig has also been used for the Delhi Metro (to test the windscreen), NAL ‘Saras’ programme, HAL 'Dhruv', IJT and LCA windshield testing.

Rapid Prototyping:
GTRE has developed an excellent rapid prototyping facility which can manufacture the required part in a few hours, which normally took a few months. This can then be used to conduct initial studies on the prototype and speed up the development process. Stereo lithography and fused deposition modelling using 3D CAD model data is undertaken here.

Spin Testing:
Another technology mastered by GTRE has been spin testing of rotors. For this, spin pits and all the associated testing equipment is available at GTRE. This equipment has also been used by HAL for cyclic spin testing of the ‘Adour’ Low Pressure (LP) and High Pressure (HP) turbine rotors and has realised revenue of Rs 3.8 crore.

The overriding impression at GTRE was the impressive strides that have taken place in the creation of required infrastructure to design and develop our very own military aero engine. The Kaveri programme can now call on the knowledge garnered over the years, talented manpower, increased funding and entry of a foreign engine house to provide assistance. The vision of having the Tejas powered by the indigenous Kaveri engine towards the end of this decade may yet be realised.




‘We Are Going For An Upgraded Version of the Kaveri Engine Over The Next Two Years’
Director, Gas Turbine Research Establishment, T. Mohana Rao

What is the status of the Kaveri engine as of now?

The Kaveri engine is undergoing ground testing now while the simulated flight testing has already been completed. The flying test bed trials are expected to start sometime in this month. The engine has completed about 2000 hours of ground testing so far and has been delivering the designed thrust as part of ground testing. The engine has also been fully certified for ground testing condition except for the flying test bed. Once flying trials are completed, it will be a major milestone for the project

What developments do you see taking place over the next few years with respect to the Kaveri engine?

The engine that has been developed at this stage will definitely have some utility. Once it is configured further, at some level, it will have a variety of applications ranging from aircraft to marine to power generation. We are going for an upgraded version of the Kaveri engine over the next two years. There is a lot of scope for us to design and develop a higher thrust class of engine and we are waiting for the contract with Snecma to go through. The requirements of the IAF will be the first priority for us while developing any type of higher thrust engine.

Can you mention any developments on the partnership with Snecma?

I would like to defer this question till such time as we sign the contract. Then we will come out with exactly what the benefits are. However, I can assure that this will be very beneficial for the country.

What are the benefits that have accrued from the Kaveri engine programme?

Firstly we are able to design a gas turbine engine today for a particular specification which was not possible two decades ago. The very fact that we are capable of developing an aero engine is the reason why other engine houses around the world are now prepared to join hands with us for jointly developing a higher level engine. Our design capability in this field is now well-established.

We have established all the facilities required to do the analysis for a gas turbine engine. An excellent material base has been created and the core materials for the engine have been certified to air worthy quality in coordination with Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory (DMRL) and Mishra Dhatu Nigam (Midhani). There is also a certified Aeronautical Materials Test Laboratory (AMTL) in Hyderabad which is state-of-the-art and can cover the entire gamut of material testing required. Excellent infrastructure for manufacturing the Kaveri engine in house has also been made here at GTRE.

Five engine test beds for aero engines are in operation and can simulate conditions in Bangalore and elevated conditions up to two km altitude at a Mach No of 0.40 forward speed conditions. Two of these test beds have been internationally calibrated where the GE engine for the LCA has been tested. The calibration level has been set so that any international engine can be tested here and we can establish and declare the thrust.

We have also created a large vendor base both within and outside Bangalore who can manufacture, inspect and deliver precision aero components. The number of vendors has now reached 300 approximately and high quality routine parts can now be delivered to us by our vendors.

What is the update on the Kaveri marine engine for the Indian Navy?

The Kaveri marine engine is a spin off on the Kaveri engine. This was based on a requirement of the Indian Navy for 10-12 mw of power generation for naval applications. The Kaveri core engine has been used and we have developed one prototype which is undergoing tests at the naval dockyard in Vizag. BHEL will undertake manufacture of this marine engine once all development tests are complete. Marine engines need to last for 40,000 to 50,000 hours compared to aero engines which typically have a life of 2000 to 3000 hours. The marine environment also has creates very high vibrations and the challenge is to isolate these vibrations of 50-100 g to an acceptable 2-3g for the engine. The other challenges were the saturated salt environment with 100 per cent humidity and high inlet temperatures and corrosion. The engine has to work reliably despite all these factors.

Can you tell us more about the indigenously developed air turbine starter developed by GTRE?

The air turbine starter is a crucial technology that has been developed in house by GTRE. The Kaveri engine has to be started on ground using a pneumatic starter with high pressure air at around 4 atmospheres from a ground system being supplied to start the engine and get it to around 40 per cent speed after which we cut the starter. This starter was earlier supplied by Garret and due to sanctions — the supplies were stopped as well as maintenance and repair of the starters had stopped. Hence, we had to develop a starter with a higher capacity as the capacity of the Garret starter was limited. We went ahead and jointly developed this with a Bangalore-based company called Turbotech. While the Garret starter was qualified for 500 starts our indigenously developed air turbine starter is giving more than 1000 starts before a major overhaul.

What is the relationship between GTRE and HAL?

HAL has been our manufacturing partner from day one. HAL Koraput has produced items like the fan disc for the Kaveri engine while the HAL engine factory is manufacturing the jet pipe and afterburners. In fact, whatever parts that HAL could develop and manufacture from a prototype level, they have done. They have been our preferred partners from the inception of the Kaveri engine programme. Wherever they have not been able to support us due to constraints of time or availability we have sought outside vendors. When the Kaveri engine will need to move to serial production then that task to manufacture it will go to HAL

What has been the learning for GTRE from the Kaveri engine programme?

We have been able to design, develop and manufacture our own aero engine. So far we have made nine Kaveri engines and four core engines. Testing has been going on extremely well. We did have a lot of problems related to design, strength and safety earlier, now almost 98 per cent of those problems are behind us. We started virtually from scratch two decades ago and did not have the knowhow to manufacture this type of product. This resulted in the time frame for development being long as a result of wrong expectations which further led to cost overruns. Any gas turbine engine would take around 25-30 years to develop and at a cost of Rs 15-20000crore. With all our limitations, we have taken 22 years with limited resources in materials, manpower and funds at the same time creating a substantial infrastructure which will be of use to the nation.

Developing of the required materials was an essential step for the Kaveri engine, followed by setting up the required design capability in house. This capability has to be audited and proven by engine houses from abroad. But no engine house from abroad came forward to help us in design enhancement and design audit. We had to go to Russia to Central Institute of Aviation Motors (CIAM) to help us in auditing of the design and make some course corrections.

Technologies like friction welding and inertia welding were not available initially but slowly due to advances in our own technology we may get access to such technology. Apart from this, other high technologies like BLISK (a combination of blade and disc) and high temperature thermal barrier coatings, among others, were not available to us. As a result, we had to make do with whatever technology was available with us at that time. We also learnt that for small orders for certain components, manufacturer’s abroad were not enthused and we were given low priority for these parts causing delays in their arrival.

[marcelo l.]

Como diz no forum da India, todo mês sai uma notícia contraditória, é até estranho...


http://www.ptinews.com/news/948672_IAF- ... afts-soon-
Kapurthala (Punjab), Sep 13 (PTI) Indian Air Force today said it will acquire 126 latest multi-fighter aircrafts within a year.

"We are in the final stages of placing orders to acquire 126 multi-fighter aircrafts from US, France or Sweden within a year," Air Marshal Anil Chopra told reporters during his visit to the Sainik School here.

Light Combat Aircrafts (LCA) would also be added to the air force soon, he said.

Chopra, who belongs to Kapurthala and a pass out from the Sainik School, later interacted with the students

[Penguin]

Como diz no forum da India, todo mês sai uma notícia contraditória, é até estranho...


http://www.ptinews.com/news/948672_IAF- ... afts-soon-
Kapurthala (Punjab), Sep 13 (PTI) Indian Air Force today said it will acquire 126 latest multi-fighter aircrafts within a year.

"We are in the final stages of placing orders to acquire 126 multi-fighter aircrafts from US, France or Sweden within a year," Air Marshal Anil Chopra told reporters during his visit to the Sainik School here.

Light Combat Aircrafts (LCA) would also be added to the air force soon, he said.

Chopra, who belongs to Kapurthala and a pass out from the Sainik School, later interacted with the students

Chegaram à mesma shorlist da FAB?!

[marcelo l.]

Não Santiago, isso é a fofoca de lá, como li é para aumentar os acessos...cada semana é um favorito e as contradições "das fontes" aparecem a todo momento como aqui...

[Pepê Rezende]

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DATE:30/08/10
SOURCE:Flight International
Praise, concern greets US export reform
By Stephen Trimble


US aerospace companies are likely to receive more freedom to operate on the export market under sweeping reforms detailed today by the Obama Administration. Perhaps thousands of products facing a lengthy and sometimes ambiguous review process could be downgraded or removed altogether from export control lists.
The lists themselves are being subdivided into three categories, creating different standards for approval in each tier. Meanwhile, "subjective" criteria for granting licenses will be replaced by objective parameters, such as horsepower or microns.
The Administration released a fact sheet preview of remarks scheduled for tomorrow by President Obama.
Such changes could make US companies more competitive on the global arms market. For nearly two decades, industry officials eying sales opportunities abroad have complained that national export control policies have hindered sales or partnering on foreign programmes, particularly in the space industry.
Most complaints have focused on what the Administration acknowledges as a review process now defined by "jurisdictional disputes and ambiguities", with three primary licensing agencies using different and sometimes conflicting policies. The system also rigidly applies the same review process to all weapons, whether the product is an end-item fighter jet or a component such as a brake pad.
"You don't need to control this kind of junk," says export control reform advocate Joel Johnson, the executive director-international of the Teal Group consultancy.
But the Obama Administration also faces political opposition on reform from Republicans and even some Democrats concerned about lowering barriers to sensitive technologies to potential adversaries or violators of human rights.
As the former deputy assistant secretary at the State Department's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, Greg Suchan managed the licensing process during the George W. Bush Administration for items on the US Munitions List. He calls the new reforms "ambitious", and predicts opposition from Congress.
"One could imagine that the loyal opposition will ask what's going to happen after the items are decontrolled," says Greg Suchan, a former deputy assistant secretary who is now senior associate at the Commonwealth Consulting. "Does this mean you don't care if Chinese, Iranians and human rights violators get all this stuff without asking, 'Mother, may I'?"
The administration fact sheet states that sanctions directed at specific countries, including Cuba and Iran, will remain in place.
Both existing lists of items controlled by the US government - the Munitions List and the Commerce Control List - will also remain, but be split into three tiers.
In the lowest tier will be items that provide a significant advantage to the military or intelligence community, but are broadly available on the open market. The highest tier is reserved for weapons of mass destruction or items that provide a "critical" advantage and are exclusively available in the US.
In the middle tier are items with a "substantial" advantage but are only available from the US, allies or multilateral partners.
The Obama Administration has already run a "beta" test of the new system on Category VII of the Munitions List, which applies to tanks and military vehicles. The test shows that 74% of 12,000 items licensed last year would be removed from the Munitions List. In the roughly one-fourth of the items that remain, none of the 12,000 licenses would qualify for the highest tier and 18% would be placed in the middle tier.
Suchan, however, suspects that Category VII was selected because tanks and vehicles represent one of the lowest areas of concern in the export control community. More sensitive are categories for controlling space vehicles, aircraft and night vision, he says.
"I give them high marks for thinking big," Suchan says. "That said, most of these things are there for a reason. How they end up carrying this out is going to be a challenge."
The Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) praised the reform initiatives as helpful especially to small businesses.
"These companies rarely have the resources to ensure compliance with the current export control regime. Simplifying the system offers them the opportunity to be more competitive in the international marketplace," AIA president and chief executive officer Marion Blakey says in a statement.

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