Quote:2. What about the SLBM warheads ? Are they too, based on this corrected TN or are they different, requiring fresh field tests ?

Quote:3. Will TSP/Chn be aware of our access to Russian/French high energy facilities if there is such access (your post above suggests there is)? Will this awareness make our TN credible in their eyes ?

Quote: Just days ahead of a round of talks with China over their disputed border, India has announced a new military battalion will be named after the Indian state at the center of the Sino-Indian territory dispute. Since the Sino-Indian war of 1962, China has claimed 56,000 sq miles of the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, what China calls “South Tibet.” Tensions between the two Asian powers over the disputed territory have been heightened in recent years and India has been bolstering its defenses along the along the border, where China holds a distinct advantage in military installations and basic infrastructure. According to the head of India’s air force, P.V. Naik, “Eight advance landing grounds are being upgraded and there are five to six major airfields where infrastructure will be improved to enable them to received more modern aircraft.”



The new military battalion, meanwhile, will be named the Arunachal Scouts, although it was raised from a garrison in Shillong, in the neighboring state of Assam. Some 5,000 troops strong, the Arunachal Scouts will be drawn from locals trained in specialized, high-altitude combat (Arunachal Pradesh straddles the Himalayas). Arunachal’s chief minister, Dorjee Khandu, insisted the new force would reflect the “martial strength” of the region, where India has formed several paramilitary groups out of local “martial” ethnic groups, such as the Assam Rifles, Gorkha Rifles, and Naga Regiment. (Financial Times November 11, 2010).....

Quote:The Indian air force's first of six Lockheed Martin C-130J tactical transports will be handed over to the US Air Force on 16 December, ahead of its delivery to the nation in late January.



To be based as Hindon air base, New Delhi's first US-built military aircraft will make its public debut at the Aero India air show in Bangalore in early February, says Abhay Paranjape, Lockheed's director, C-130J India.



India's first three stretched-fuselage Hercules are involved in pre-delivery testing at Lockheed's Marietta site in Georgia, with the second to also be signed over to the USAF during December and flown to Hindon in late February. The nation's other three aircraft are on the final assembly line in Marietta.

Quote:A secret file related to over $11 billion deal for procuring 126 multirole combat aircraft went missing from the Defence Ministry and has been found on the roadside in New Delhi, prompting the Indian Air Force to order a probe into the incident. The secret files are related to the Offsets clause in the deal and were found on the roadside in a Delhi locality recently, IAF officials said here, adding that the file has been recovered.

...



Under the Offsets clause in the defence production procedure, a foreign vendor bagging any deal worth over Rs 300 crore has to invest back at least 30 per cent of the contract's worth back in Indian defence sector.



Under the M-MRCA deal, the offsets were pegged at 50 per cent of the worth of the deal.



American F-16 and F/A-18, French Rafale, Swedish Gripen, Russian MiG 35 and European Eurofighter are the six contenders participating the deal for supplying the aircraft to the IAF

Quote:NEW DELHI: India, which hosts South Asia’s biggest airshow next week, has not invited arch-rival Pakistan, China or Iran to the biennial event, organisers said on Tuesday.



“Invitations to the airshow have not been sent to China, Pakistan and Iran but these are decided by the foreign ministry,” defence production secretary R.K. Singh told a news conference in New Delhi.

Quote:The clearest performance was that of the Russian MiG-35, which has not shown up at all at Aero India 2011. After multiple problems during the flight evaluation trials, it is regarded by the IAF as little more than an upgraded MiG-29. The Russian fighter is effectively out of the race.

Only marginally less dismal was the Lockheed Martin F-16IN Super Viper, which travelled to Bangalore but did not participate in the inaugural aerobatics shoot-out.



Defence minister A K Antony insisted today that political considerations would play no part in the MMRCA selection, but his officials were less diplomatic. “The F-16 is in the race only in name; the US will not be allowed to supply the same aircraft to both India and Pakistan,” said a senior MoD official. “Besides, the F-16 has come to the end of its development cycle. There is no scope for improving it further.”



Lockheed Martin seems to know its India campaign is blighted. Over the past two months, company officials and even the Pentagon, the US defence headquarters, have shifted the focus to the F-35, the fifth generation stealth fighter that Lockheed Martin is developing. But while the Pentagon’s acquisition chief, Ashton Carter, has signalled American willingness to include India in the F-35 programme, the Indian MoD is not persuaded.



On getting a fifth generation fighter from the US, Antony replied, “Already we are engaged with Russia to produce a fifth generation fighter…. No other country has offered us these technologies in the past. We are way ahead now [in the partnership with Russia]. There is no question of going back.”



The other American contender, the F/A-18 Super Hornet, regaled spectators with a superb display of combat manoeuvring, Showcasing its history as a combat fighter, the F/A-18 was the only contender that flew with missiles fitted under its wings, which is avoided in aerobatics because of the resulting drag. But though the Super Hornet was the tightest turner, its aerobatics were conducted at slow speeds. That sluggishness is also true of its campaign in India.



“We scored the F/A-18 poorly during flight evaluation,” says an IAF officer who was closely involved.



That leaves the three European contenders: the Eurofighter (from a four-country consortium), the Dasault Rafale (from france) and the Saab Gripen (Sweden). Each of them put up a superb display of high-speed aerobatics, performing loops, barrel rolls, and spells of inverted flying that clearly pushed the boundaries of the aircrafts’ flight envelopes.



The Gripen showed enormous agility in its vertical handling, something that would allow it to climb above the enemy fighter in a dogfight, to an advantageous killing position. At the end of his display, the Gripen’s pilot displayed how little runway the fighter needs to land, stopping dead in barely 900 ft.



But IAF officers point out two key drawbacks to the Gripen’s campaign: “The Gripen’s AESA radar is the least developed of all the MMRCA contenders; and, being a single-engine fighter, it carries significantly less weaponry than the big twin-engine contenders.”



The twin-engine advantage was immediately evident when the Rafale and the Eurofighter took to the skies, lashing the spectators with a blast of sound. There was little to choose between both those aircraft, their High-G (sharp turn); High-Alpha (slow flying) aerobatics leaving the spectators clapping.



“The MMRCA contest is now between the Eurofighter and the Rafale,” says an IAF officer associated with the flight evaluation. “It will boil down to price. But if the MoD accepts a smaller fighter, with a radar that has some way to go, the economically-priced Gripen could be the dark horse that wins.

Quote:The Russian-Indian joint development of a fifth generation fighter jet will cost some $6 billion, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) Financial director D. Shivamurti said



Russia and India signed in December last year a contract to jointly develop a design for a new 5G multirole fighter. Russia's Sukhoi holding and India's Hindustan Aeronautics Limited agreed in early 2010 to jointly develop a fifth-generation fighter jet based on the T-50 design.



"A detailed design phase, including the cost of the project, is likely to cost more than $6 billion," Shivamurti said. "The work between us and them [India and Russia] will be distributed in a 35/65 proportion."

Quote:The Air Force has set up a court of inquiry against a wing commander for taking bribe from foreign aviation manufacturing companies to facilitate prominent static display of their aircraft during the recently concluded Aero-India 2011 exposition.



Wing Commander A.K. Thakur was caught accepting bribe from Dassault, France, for helping them display their aircraft prominently during the four-day held in Bangalore in mid-February.

The French company had informed the authorities when Thakur made the offer to them in exchange of an amount of Rs 20,000. On receiving the complaint, the defence exhibition organisation laid a trap and caught the wing commander red-handed.



What has shocked the IAF community in Bangalore and the MoD is allegations that European women were employed to "soften up" officers who were involved with making arrangements for Aero India 2011.



A photograph of an Air Marshall in the company of a European woman believed to be a commercial sex worker has been found and which, along with a separate report, has been sent to the MoD in South Block, New Delhi.