Aviatsiya From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Posted (10 years 3 months 4 weeks 23 hours ago) and read 1036 times:
BHUBANESHWAR - India will start producing Sukhoi fighter jets under license from Russia by 2004, according to a top government official. The government has earmarked 200 billion rupees (dlrs 4.16 billion) for the project, Nalini Ranjan Mohanty, chairman of state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, said on Sunday. "We will produce 12 Sukhoi MK-I fighter aircraft every year between 2004-2017," Mohanty told The Associated Press. Bangalore-based HAL has been manufacturing Russian MiGs and working on a light combat aircraft project which would use an American engine. Some vital components of the two-seater supersonic Sukhoi fighter aircraft would be produced at HAL's engineering division at Sunabeda in the eastern state of Orissa. The engineering division was being upgraded for the purpose. "The Sunabeda plant would be expanded at a cost of 24 billion rupees (dlrs 500 million)," Mohanty said. An agreement by Moscow and New Delhi allows the transfer of Russian technology to produce 140 Sukhoi fighter jets under license. The two countries will set up production, repair and overhaul facilities for the Sukhoi aircraft, which are already in service with the Indian air force. Russia also is expected to pool resources with India to build a new-generation fighter jet, which is to make its first flight by early 2006 and enter production by 2010. The new jet will help secure a competitive edge over prospective U.S. and European designs. Mohanty, who was on a two-ay visit to eastern India state of Orissa, said the Indian air force would gradually phase out accident-prone MiG fighter aircraft. Nearly 100 of the air force's Soviet-made MiGs have crashed in the past five years, killing 50 pilots. He said government investigations found that 80 per cent of the crashes were caused by human errors and the rest by bird hits. Mohanty was a member of the government committee that probed the MiG crashes. -AP
Alessandro From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 1, posted (10 years 3 months 3 weeks 6 days 22 hours ago) and read 969 times:
So did the Israelis upgrade the Indian Migs or not?
Seem like India is the biggest customer for Russian
aviation products outside CIS nowadays, passing PRC
(Peoples rep of China).
Indianguy From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 2, posted (10 years 3 months 3 weeks 6 days 20 hours ago) and read 965 times:
These new Sukhoi's give the much needed boost to enable India to maintain a posture of *decisive air superiority* in the China threat regime and as such was long in coming.
2 Mig-21-bis aircraft were upgraded in Russia, while the Rest are to be upgraded at HAL's plant in India (Nasik). The upgraded aircraft are called Mig-21-93.
around 150 of the 600 odd Mig-21's are to be upgraded locally. THe project has been delayed by around 2 years but is now going on schedule.
On the second point, yes, India is the biggest customer for Russian products. A natural fallout of being such close freinds for over 30 years!
Now the emphasis has shifted to joint development, like a new Supersonic Cruise missile being developed and marketed jointly. Ditto for a new 14-30 seat super fast turboprop-airliner called Saras, as well as a new 100 seat RJ (forget its name, but the model I saw looks like a terribly obese 717 with HUGE engines at the rear).
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