SOURCE: RAUNAK KUNDE / NEWS BEAT / IDRW.ORG.

DR D.K Sunil (Director Engg-RD ) HAL has confirmed that CATS Warrior, an autonomous wingman drone capable of Auto take-off and landing with an All-up weight of 1600kg will commence its first flight by end of 2024 or in early 2025.

CATS Warrior which features an Internal Weapons Bay (IWB) will be able to carry DRDO-developed Smart Anti-Airfield Weapon (SAAW) precision-guided bomb plus two ASRAAM Close Combat Missiles for its protection.

SOURCE: RAUNAK KUNDE / NEWS BEAT / IDRW.ORG.

Alex Zino, executive vice-president of Business Development and Future Programme for Rolls Royce, in an interview with ThePrint, said US General Electric engines won’t be offering Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) of the new engine that India plans to develop jointly for the fifth-generation Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) program nor it will offer freedom to carryout modification to this engines in future.

idrw.org has reported that both Rolls-Royce and General Electric have been making an aggressive pitch to India to become engine partner of the AMCA program as talks with the French Safran company has fluttered due to a lack of willingness to provide India with niche core technology of the engine.

SOURCE: RAUNAK KUNDE / NEWS BEAT / IDRW.ORG.

DR D.K Sunil (Director Engg-RD ) HAL has confirmed that Optionally-manned combat aircraft(OMCA) that is part of the Combat Air Teaming System (CATS) to be based on the modified Kiran Mk2 Stage-II Trainer aircraft will have its first flight in an unmanned configuration without pilot inputs later this year.

OMCA Kiran will demonstrate auto take-off and auto-landing of the systems without any remote pilot inputs as modified Kiran is presently flying with remote pilot inputs.

SOURCE: RAUNAK KUNDE / NEWS BEAT / IDRW.ORG.

On the backdrop of India’s premier Private Defence sector company suffering a data breach with designs, diagrams and details of propellents and explosive details of some of the Indian weapons systems manufactured by them being dumped on the dark web for sale, Dr Girish S Deodhare, Director General of the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) claimed that contractors and outsourcing partners of India’s Tejas Mk1 and Mk2 and AMCA program will not face similar issues due to robust cyber defence in place of this program partners.

Deodhare confirmed that security audits are regularly carried out by ADA officials on outsourcing partners of India’s fighter jet programs and cyber security of the private sector companies is vetted before contracts are awarded to them by the company.

SOURCE: RAUNAK KUNDE / NEWS BEAT / IDRW.ORG.

DRDO’s Electronics & Radar Development Establishment (LRDE) will be involved in the development of a compact, active electronically scanned array (AESA), airborne surveillance radar for small and medium-sized unmanned platforms that are under development.

idrw.org has been told that Radar will be more energy efficient than other technologies used for AESA radars with self-cooling technology while weighing only around 25-30kgs so that it can be used on unmanned platforms.

SOURCE: RAUNAK KUNDE / NEWS BEAT / IDRW.ORG.

The Indigenous infrared search and track (IRST) system that is under development for the Russian Su-30MKI fighter jets and Tejas MkII fighter jets has entered the laboratory testing phase and soon more tests are been planned after which it will commence the airborne flight testing phase.

IRST system that also incorporates a missile approach warning system (MAWS) is capable of tracking multiple targets and offers a large field-of-view (FoV) and will be ready for integration into Sukhoi-30MKI within 12-18 months after completion of the laboratory testing phase.

SOURCE: RAUNAK KUNDE / NEWS BEAT / IDRW.ORG.

Twin Engine Deck-Based Fighter (TEDBF) program has achieved a critical milestone after ADA that had identified it as one of the most technology that will go into the TEDBF fighter jet which is a Wing Folding Mechanism that has been cleared after the engineering test model was developed and demonstrated.

A working scale model of the Wing Folding Mechanism will be developed and tested through its paces next as the design and the engineering model has been demonstrated.

SOURCE: RAUNAK KUNDE / NEWS BEAT / IDRW.ORG.

Dr Girish S Deodhare, Director General of the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) has classified Twin Engine Deck Based Fighter (TEDBF), a canard delta wing, twin-engine, carrier-based, multirole combat aircraft currently under development for the Indian Navy as a “5th generation minus” fighter.

Deodhare while speaking to “Business Standard” said that ” TEDBF is not a fourth-generation fighter, but is generation-five minus aircraft”. idrw.org in past had reported that TEDBF will be called “5th generation minus” fighter a term coined first by the U.S. Air Force.

SOURCE: RAUNAK KUNDE / NEWS BEAT / IDRW.ORG.

India’s Dry-Kaveri engine, a non-after burner engine at the Russian High Altitude Test Facility went through its paces at simulated altitudes of 43000 ft where it also managed to generate 48.5kN of thrust much more than the benchmark target set at the 46kn that it had to demonstrate.

Dry-Kaveri clearing one of the main flight envelope is crucial for the HALE-Class Stealth aircraft that it will power under the Futuristic Unmanned Fighter Aircraft (FUFA) program that will feature Internal Weapons Bay (IWB) to be used for Deep-Air Strikes in contested Airspace.

SOURCE: RAUNAK KUNDE / NEWS BEAT / IDRW.ORG.

India’s start-up Sagar Defence Engineering along with Abu Dhabi-based EDGE Group will be working to develop a 12.8m unmanned surface vessel (USV) that can be configured to support a range of information-related duties such as mine countermeasures (MCM); anti-submarine warfare (ASW); and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR).

EDGE Group will be providing a transfer of technology (ToT) for the program to the Sagar Defence Engineering 120 USV that features propulsion Delivering speeds above 55 knots and comes with a remote weapon station (RWS) 12.7mm gun.

SOURCE: RAUNAK KUNDE / NEWS BEAT / IDRW.ORG.

Youngje Kim, Vice President, Indo-Pacific Region, Military Systems, GE Aerospace said they wait for final clearance from the (US) government that could clear the path to locally manufacture the F414-INS6 engine for India’s Tejas Mk2 and AMCA fighter program.

Kim also cleared doubts that engines will not merely see an assembly of engine parts in India but will include co-production and transfer of technology.

SOURCE: RAUNAK KUNDE / NEWS BEAT / IDRW.ORG.

Indian Air Force (IAF) has changed from its plans to procure an additional C-295M from the original order of 50 Transporter for its fleet as An-32 replacement aircraft after it floated a tender of the Medium Transport Aircraft (MTA) that was intended to replace ageing An-32 Medium-haul Transport aircraft.

IAF placed an order for 50 C-295M to replace its ageing fleet of Avro Hawker Siddeley HS748, turboprop military transport. Coast Guard will buy six more of its requirements and additional 15 units will be procured for Coastguard and Indian Navy. IAF initially was considering ordering more C-295M but has dropped this plan.

SOURCE: RAUNAK KUNDE / NEWS BEAT / IDRW.ORG.

Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) along with the Vehicles Research Development Establishment (VRDE) is carrying out proof of concept and evaluation for the development of a 220 hp aero diesel engine that will be integrated into the Tapas and Archer-Ng program.

Tapas has begun taxi trials with the new uprated 180 hp aero diesel engine and soon will have its first flight, 220 hp aero diesel engine will commence preliminary trials in the next two years as it is an uprated variant of the same engine that is currently going trials.

SOURCE: RAUNAK KUNDE / NEWS BEAT / IDRW.ORG.

GE Aerospace officials have confirmed that it has supplied nearly 60 F404-GE-IN20 engines to power India’s Tejas Mk-1 Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) program and more than 99 more engines as per the 2021 orders will be supplied entirely by 2028-29.

GE will start supplying fresh batches of F404-GE-IN20 engines from 2024 onwards in multiple batches till 2028 as HAL starts deliveries of the first batch of four Tejas Mk1A fighter jets from March 2024 onwards.

SOURCE: RAUNAK KUNDE / NEWS BEAT / IDRW.ORG.

In response to RFI issued by the Indian Air Force (IAF), it has received three bids from three aerospace manufacturers but IAF has extended the deadline for submitting the bids now to the end of March due to requests from some of the Companies.

Lockheed Martin has offered its C-130J Super Hercules, a four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft that is already in service with IAF under Transfer of Technology (TOT) clauses so that the aircraft could be assembled in India likely by Tata Advanced Systems Limited (TASL) with an expected unit cost of the aircraft hovering around US$75.5 million with a payload capacity of 22-tons.