January 2012 Archives

Spotted some Singapore Air Show posters at Changi Airport MRT station. Quite like the clever 'Top Fun' movie theme they've adopted for the show, although those two Leopard II tanks look as if they are about to run down that family.

Also checked the Air Show web site and so far there is no indication that the two F-22s shown in the poster will be performing a flying display. The F-35 is listed on static, but don't be fooled: it will likely be the 1:1 model version that Lockheed trots out for air shows.  My colleague Firdaus (@fhavg) just told me that SIA's last Boeing 747-400 will be on static at the show.  That's cool.

Flightglobal will have a big team at the show and a stand as well. We'll be writing plenty of stories for the web site, as well producing an interactive daily.  Also keep your eyes out for our show report on Thursday with all the big and small stories from the show.

Have a story idea? Feel free to swing by and tell us about it. 

India's Economic Times has reported that the MMRCA contract could be announced within ten days, qouting sources.  Of course, on 21 December India's Business Standard said a decision was coming 'within a fortnight.' In February last year, the Hindu qouted none less than the Air Chief himself as saying the deal would be signed by September 2011.

The only definitive story announcing a winner came Friday from Grande Strategy, a blog apparently based in Pakistan that purports to provide and 'Islamic perspective' on geopolitical security issues.  Grande Strategy quotes unammed sources as saying that the Eurofighter won. As The Aviationist points out, however, the authors of Grande Strategy are not likely to be that well plugged into Delhi's decision making apparatus. And in any case the Indian MoD has played the MMRCA cards close to its chest for years now.

The best summing up of what is happening is probably Livefist's posting on Friday, which suggests that Delhi could make the announcement before Republic Day on the 26^th. 

Media reports in India remind me that it has been one year since the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) Tejas Light Combat Aircraft achieved initial operation capability.  At Aero India last year Tejas was one of the stars of the air show. After two decades of delays and problems officials were optimistic about India's most ambitious programme since the HAL Marut in the 1950s and 1960s.

One year and over 240 flight tests later, Indian media reports suggest the aircraft is nowhere near achieving final operation clearance and that the Indian Air Force is no fan.  Indeed, one analyst I spoke to before Aero India told me that the Tejas represented "a victory for the guys in lab coats over the guys in flight suits."

What's more, the Naval Tejas also seems stuck. After being rolled out in mid-2010 the first flight was scheduled for 2011. The Indian Navy told me in mid-2011 that a first flight was due in September or October, but this never materialised.  

Perhaps 2012 will be brighter, with more tests for Tejas as well as a first flight for the naval variant.  Could a final operational clearance be forthcoming before Aero India 2013?

I stumbled across an image of what is supposedly the active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar for the J-10B and J-20 at the Asian Defence News site. I have no idea as to the image's provenance (it is very likely a model), but a similar set was photographed on a J-10B test aircraft at Chengdu last year (below).

The structure around the radar suggests this is the mounting for the J-10. The real radar probably has several more boxes - note the amount of fuselage space occupied by the guts of Raytheon's APG-79 AESA set for the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet (below).

The radar is also not hinged. Representatives of Eurofighter and Gripen NG like to talk about how the AESA mounts on their aircraft can swing left or right. They claim this improves the set's field of regard, and is an advantage over the fixed mounts on aircraft such as the Super Hornet and Rafale. A two ship formation with hinged AESAs can scan further to the left and right, they say, and it improves an aircraft's ability's to 'look sideways' over borders (or enemy lines).

China's fighter upgrading  tends to draw either the scorn of overseas commentators ('they still can't build engines') or fear ('by 2020 the J-20 will dominate the skies over the Himalayas').

A recent report by the Institute for National Strategic Studies - 'Buy, Build, or Steal: China's Quest for Advanced Military Aviation Technologies' - outlines the rise of China's defence aerospace sector from its obscure beginnings in the fifties to the appearance of the Chengdu J-20 in early 2011.

The report asserts that while China's fighter capability is still roughly 15-20 years behind the west's, Beijing is increasingly self reliant in fighter development and production.  While it does not shed much new light on current developments in China, it provides a useful history of the starts and stops in China's fighter technology base  over the last half century. This includes China's on/off defence relationship with Moscow, and its Cold War dalliance with Israel, the UK, and the USA.

The report does a good job balancing the pros and cons of buying technology overseas, developing it at home, and acquiring it through espionage. China has used, and continues to use, all three strategies.  The report concludes that China will find it increasingly challenging to develop ultra high-end aerospace technologies at home, which will create an even greater reliance on espionage.