Top 10 Fighter Jets in the World

NO. 10

HAL TEJAS

Image: DRDO

The Story of Tejas, is the story of development and maturity of combat aircraft technologies in India. The Tejas program had the twin objectives of designing and developing a state-of-the-art combat aircraft for the Indian Air Force besides bridging the technology gap of many decades in the process. The Tejas is a pure delta wing configuration, with no tail-planes or fore-planes, and a single dorsal fin. It integrates technologies such as relaxed static stability, fly-by-wire flight control system, composite material structures, and a flat rated engine. Accordingly, the critical fourth generation of technologies were identified and demonstrated such as quadruplex digital fly-by-wire control system, all glass cockpit, composite structure and microprocessor based monitoring and control systems.

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Iron Birds of the INDIAN AIR FORCE

FIGHTER AIRCRAFT

HAL - TEJAS

Images: DRDO / HAL

INTRODUCTION

The history of military aviation indicates that light fighters have always been one of the most popular classes of aircraft. Generally lightweight fighters are significantly cheaper and less complex to build than their heavier counterparts. The Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) Tejas "Radiance" is a 4+ generation, multirole light fighter developed by India for both defensive and offensive purposes. India with its expanding economy and its growth in aerospace and other important military technological areas has become a very important and robust criterion to enable the country’s growth in the development of indigenous defense related products. With ample government support, this industry can grow both commercially and in the technology spectrum. The present NDA government seems determined to cut the policy paralysis, which was the hallmark of the previous UPA government lead by Prime Minister Dr. Singh & Defense Minister A K Antony. Another invigorating factor is that the Shri. Narendra Modi's Government supports 100% Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) in the defense industry. This will augur well to augment the current state of affairs in this sector. Light Combat Aircraft-Tejas was envisaged to boost the indigenous aerospace capabilities. It has emerged as a sophisticated and significant piece of complex technological system that the country can be proud of. The main intention was to not only provide a launch base for aircraft production but also build upon local industry infrastructure capable of creating state-of-the-art products and services. 

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India's Missile Armory

INTRODUCTION

If we naive Indians have to aver the barb of Mr. Gary Milhollin who doesn't fail to incessantly purport ad nausea in various fora across the US in the hope that we would sublimely come to believe that the American military and space program has been a squeaky clean effort. Pitifully and regrettably it is not so. He jibes that the Indian civilian space and later military programs have been offshoots of generous help rendered by the western space powers, especially the US, Germany and France. However, what he his figuratively trying to convey is rhetorical, deceptive and discriminating in its agenda. Agreed, India may have taken some technical aid from other nations to develop its nascent civilian space program, but discounting India's genuine effort thereafter to develop technology is certainly selective amnesia. Interestingly, America did not develop its space or military ballistic missile programs on its own, it however leapfrogged to acquire high technology solutions in space and defense by resorting to ignominious means.

PROOF IN THE PUDDING

Modern rocketry started with the ambitions of an obnoxious and direful psychopath who wanted to dominate the world. His name - Hitler. He wanted to possess a super weapon to quash the allied countries. The man who would help Hitler realize this dream was a Nazi rocket scientist named Wernher Magnus Maximilian von Braun or commonly known as Wernher von Braun, an avid Nazi sympathizer. He developed the V-2 or Aggregat-4 long-range ballistic missile perhaps one of the greatest technological achievements of this century. After the fall of the “Third Reich”, American soldiers captured von Braun and some of his key associates, and the prized catch was clandestinely shipped to America. The Americans brought over 300 trainloads of spare V-2 parts to the United States from Nazi Germany. Much of von Braun's production team was also captured by the Soviets. Wernher von Braun and his compatriots war careers as Nazis was deceitfully hidden from the public by the US government. In White Sands, New Mexico, von Braun and his team trained and tested rockets for the US military and for several years went about launching captured V-2 rockets. Before 1945, neither the Americans nor the Soviets had any extensive advanced rocket facilities or programs and it was von Braun and his team who were instrumental in developing this capability. Hence, the early American rocket program development is steeped in so much muck that even the Americans would want to forget and disown it. This could be the very reason why Mr. Milhollin fails to mention this fact even as a supplementary note in his speeches on the subject of proliferation.

India has a very solid non-proliferation record unlike China or Pakistan in the region as its institutions are bound by solid democratic principles governed by rule of law and its decision makers have complete legislative power over these entities. India has been a very responsible and stable nuclear power right from its inception and until this day. The authors' contention and concern on the risk that cooperating with India (this was way back in the 1990's) could contribute to the spread of missile technology was rather unfounded. On the other hand, when Pakistan illegally started developing its atom bomb in response to India's own nuclear weapon status, by either stealing, smuggling or rummaging the international market for machinery, parts and components, the Americans conveniently turned the proverbial blind eye thus encouraging Pakistan to develop what is now known as the "Islamic Bomb". This was permitted by the US in the name of its National Interest policy. Other intervention policies like the support to the Afghan Mujaheddin has backfired with severe ramifications which eventually led to the 9/11 massacre of several thousand innocent Americans. On the question of China, these guys supplied Pakistan with sophisticated gas centrifuges to enrich uranium and in turn, Pakistan sold this technology to Iran and Libya via the A Q Khan network in the name of “Islamic Brotherhood”. The US did not take Pakistan to task then, when A Q Khan openly sold other nuclear technology secrets to the so-called “Rouge State” North Korea, all it did was to impose punitive sanctions, which the Pakistanis cared less. Pakistan continued trading in illegal weapons despite these sanctions since it was aware that the US would not alter its "friendly" relationship with it because of the ongoing war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. The US is dependent on Pakistan for logistics support.
Pakistani weapons trade with North Korea is rather amusing since the technology exchange followed was a sort of archaic barter system; Pakistan got critical ballistic missile technology from North Korea in exchange for Pakistan’s nuclear know-how.
The Americans have failed to realize that they are bound to face an impending nuclear attack not from India, Russia, China, North Korea or even Iran but sure as shooting from Pakistan. Realizing rather late US and its cohorts are hastening ways and means to secure Pakistan’s dirty bombs, especially given Pakistan’s vacillation between being ruled by a trigger happy military junta and the fair chance of being overrun by religious zealots who by all means will not hesitate to use these nuclear assets against India, Israel and the US.
Hence, it is imperative that India develops and maintains a minimum qualitative and quantitative credible nuclear deterrence and defense program in whatsoever manner against its adversaries, taking into account its long term strategic and security requirements as a responsible emerging global power.

(Gary Milhollin-Professor, University of Wisconsin Law School and Director, Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control in a discourse before the House Committee on Science, June 25, 1998)

PROJECT "DEVIL" & "VALIANT"

India’s quest to develop a short-range ballistic missile started way back in the 1970’s when the Project “Devil” and Project “Valiant” were conceived. These projects were the precursor of the more transparent and successful Integrated Guided Missile Development Program (IGMDP) conceived by former President of India Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam, which was launched in 1983. It is generally believed that the Defense Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL), which had begun in 1958 and later, transpired into what is now DRDO intended to reverse engineer the Soviet Union’s S-75 Dvina ballistic missile. This is not the case, as India never had the policy to either reverse engineer nor adopt crafty branding techniques of bought out weapons as being done by other nations to bolster its offensive aspirations. Project “Valiant” died an early death and Project “Devil” continued with secretive government funding and support. The project was a partial success, however plenty of new technologies, design competence, materials and components development and production techniques were realized during its development, which laid ground for the more successful Prithvi and Akash programs.

Though there are several imported missiles in the armed forces, I have however focused exclusively on the systems developed indigenously.

The task to develop several technologies was difficult for the Indian scientists as they did not have prior expertise, industrial infrastructure nor the production efficiency to develop high-tech machinery, components, subsystems and products. But with customary resolve they solved daunting problems successively and developed truly world class products for the armed forces. Over the past decade development of critical technologies has been accomplished on a trial and error basis, similar to the proven model of repetitive testing adopted by the erstwhile Soviet space and defense scientists to prove the efficacy of new technologies. Therefore, delivery schedules of some final products has suffered to reach the end-users on time and as a result DRDO and its related agencies have invited considerable flak. However, in most of the cases the rebukes are rather unmindful, unfair and unjustified.

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SHORT RANGE BALLISTIC MISSILES

Images: DRDO

PRITHVI-I

Prithvi-I "Earth" in Sanskrit is a theater class short-range, road-mobile, liquid-propelled ballistic missile with two motors clustered next to each other as a single stage configuration. Prithvi was the first missile to be developed under the IGMDP. It has a warhead mounting capability of 1,000 kg and a range of 150 km. It has an accuracy of 10 – 50 meters and can be launched from a transporter erector launcher. It was inducted into the Indian Army in 1994. This missile will be phased out once the more capable and accurate Prahar missile completes its development process. The Prithvi-I will be later upgraded and used for longer ranges.

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Major Orbital Launch Systems of the World

ORIGIN: INDIA

Images: ISRO

INTRODUCTION

The Indian Space program, since its inception, has been guided by the vision of Dr Vikram Sarabhai, considered as the father of Indian Space program, he laid emphasis on the application of space technology for finding solutions to the problems of the common man and the society at large. Self-reliance in space technology has been the important motto and goal for India's policy makers. In 1969, Dr. Vikram A Sarabhai created the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). Since then ISRO has been remarkably successful with the active participation of several great scientists and administrators. ISRO is the nodal agency to manage and implement all space related activities in India. The services in communication, broadcasting, meteorology, military reconnaissance, interplanetary and Lunar missions are now been provided by spacecrafts designed and built in India. They have also mastered the elusive and exclusive Cryogenic technology and conversely building Semi-Cryogenic stage as well and shortly poised to launch heavier boosters to place satellites in the 5-ton class. India has pursued a reasonable and a well-balanced program, nicely adapted to the nation's developmental needs. While ISRO has put together a systematic rocket launch vehicle building program, they have also significantly concentrated on the two of the most important areas for a large and developing country such as India, building telecommunications and remote sensing applications.

PSLV: The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) is the workhorse rocket of ISRO with an outstanding success rate among medium lift rocket systems. The success of the PSLV is an important milestone for the Indian space industry. India has achieved self-sufficiency in launching its operational satellites. The PSLV is a unique vehicle which employs both liquid and solid fuel engines, and it is ISRO's workhorse. The PSLV can place a satellite weighing about three tonnes in low earth orbit (LEO), at a height of 400 to 600 km. It can also deploy satellites weighing up to 1,500kg in Polar Sun Synchronous orbit at a height of 750km above the earth. This versatile and flexible vehicle can handle a LEO, a polar and a GTO orbit. The Payload capacity to Low Earth Orbit is 3,250 kilograms (7,170 lb) and Helio-Synchronous or Sun-Synchronous Orbit is 1,600 kilograms (3,500 lb) and to Geostationary Transfer Orbit is 1,410 kilograms (3,110 lb). The vehicle configuration is as follows, total height is 44 meters (144 feet), diameter is 2.8 meters (9 feet+) and Gross Mass is 295 tons. The first-stage or the core stage employs solid fuel with a total thrust of 486Kn with a specific impulse of 269 seconds with a total burn time of 105 seconds. The fuel used is Hydroxyl-Terminated Polybutadiene (HTPB). The core stage is mated to 6 solid strap-on boosters (only in the PSLV-G and PSLV-XL versions) using HTPB as fuel. The second-stage employes 1 Vikas liquid engine using Unsymmetrical Dimethyl Hydrazine (UDMH) and Nitrogen Tetroxide (N2O4) as fuel, and the third-stage is also a solid fuel motor while the fourth-stage is a liquid stage using Monomethyl-Hydrazine and Dinitrogen Tetroxide/Nitrogen Dioxide as fuel.

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The Chinese Technology Paradigm

(THE INTRIGUING TECHNIQUES AND RATIONALITY BEHIND CHINESE PLAGIARISTIC OBSESSION)

The Chinese are double-dyed bootleggers par excellence and they are consummate propagandists evidently traits inspired by their former Soviet masters. Just as in any dictatorship, attention grabbing, diversion or delusive dispersion of information for the domestic audience becomes a cardinal policy for governance and by a reasonable assumption; it goes in with the fodder. Inherently they are hegemonic by nature since the leadership psyche is indoctrinated and fueled by such an ideology which advocates aggressiveness and consequently it is accompanied amply by a will to dominate, having a conniving determination and a firm quest to achieve its goals. To feed these nefarious ends they adopt an artful semblance of posturing seemingly in the intention to rattle their adversaries aspiring to be a step ahead of them either through deceit, larceny or reverse engineering tactics. Bootlegging technology in every sphere of scientific development is a well-honed practice, and it is diligently backed up by massive resource and logistic support. The lists below bears witness to this approximation though some of the equipment is licence produced, but the Chinese have the uncanny habit of deserting or contravening their joint venture agreements and partners and continue manufacturing them under their own branding. Like their former boss-men, the Soviets the Chinese politburo too is compelled to resort to such crack-brained propagandist rhetoric as part of preserving their dictatorship. In at least the cases listed below, desperation by China seems to have won over innovation.

Here is a knock off list of Military Equipment manufactured in China in no particular order:

The Chinese Russian Manned Soyuz Space Capsule: The Shenzhou Manned Spacecraft

The Chinese Russian Sukhoi Su-27SK Flanker: The Shenyang J-11B
The Chinese Russian MiG-17: The Shenyang J-5
The Chinese Russian MiG-19: The Shenyang J-6

The Chinese Russian MiG-19L Ground Attack Aircraft: The Nanchang Qiang-5

The Chinese Russian MiG-21U Mongol-A Trainer: The Jianjiji J-7

The Chinese Russian Sukhoi Su-33: The Shenyang J-15 Flying Shark
The Chinese Russian MIG-21: The Chengdu-F7 / Shenyang J-8 and later JF-17 Thunder
The Chinese Russian MIG-1.44: The Chengdu J-20 Mighty Dragon
The Chinese Russian MiG-23MS Ground Attack Aircraft: The Nanchang Q-6

The Chinese Russian Antonov An-12: The Shaanxi Y-8

The Chinese Russian Antonov An-24: The Xian MA60

The Chinese Israeli Lavi/Kfir: The Chengdu J-10 (Lavi itself was based on the F-16 Fighting Falcon)

The Chinese Russian Yakolev Yak-130: The Hongdu L-15 Falcon

The Chinese American F-35 Lightening II/F-22 Raptor: The Shenyang J-31 Stealth Fighter

Comparison of Lockheed Martin F-35 and Shenyang J-31

The Chinese American General Atomics MQ-1 Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV): The Chengdu Pterodactyl

The Chinese American General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper UAV: The Wing Loong CH-4 (More Intriguing Information here)

The Chinese American Northrup MQ-8 Fire Scout UAV: The SVU 200 Sunward
The Chinese American Northrop Grumman X-47B Carrier-Based Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle: The Hongdu Lijian (Sharp Sword) 

The Chinese American Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk (UAV): The Chengdu Xiang Long (Soaring Dragon)
The Chinese Russian Lavochkin La-17 UAV: The Nanjing Chang Kong (Blue Sky) CK-1

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The Science of GSLV

Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Booster

The glorious journey began at the magnanimous

St.Mary Magdalene Church (left),

it was the first lab and office of ISRO 

Currently maintained as a majestic Space Museum - Image: ISROHQ

THE EVOLUTION OF INDIA’S ROCKET PROGRAM

In 1962 in a rather nondescript fishing hamlet called Thumba near Thiruvananathapuram close to the sea, two stalwarts and visionaries of the Indian Space and Nuclear program were scouting for a new rocket launching facility along with other fellow scientists. One was the blue-blooded Dr. Vikram Sarabhai and the other the aristocratic Dr. Homi Jehangir Bhabha. Within a year’s time the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS) was born. This was just a humble beginning but over the years, India achieved the capability of building its own launch vehicles, remote sensing, communication, defense and navigation satellites, launch interplanetary and lunar missions, design and develop the closely guarded and cutting-edge cryogenic engine. TERLS primarily focused on launching sounding rockets (SR) to study of equatorial electro-jet phenomena, which is a stream of electric current flowing in a narrow band on either side of the magnetic equator at a height of around 100 kms.

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