India's Future Carrier AIRCRAFT Acquisition: Hard On Sellers!

PETE COMMENT

Under the "Multi-Role Carrier Borne Fighters" competition India is shopping for follow-on naval fighters. India started receiving Russian MiG-29K carrier fighters from 2010, but India has become unhappy with defects in these MiGs and difficulty sourcing spare parts. Indian industry is also trying to convince the Indian Navy to buy 50+ navalised indigenously developed Tejas fighters. But, reading between the lines, the Indian Navy is cautious over the suitability of Tejas in a carrier role - in terms of ramp launch aerodynamics, heavy weight and arrested landing ruggedness. 

Purchase of F/A-18Es, West European or post MiG Russian Su fighters, can be seen as replacements (by 2028?) for the MiG-29Ks and probably also the Tejas navalised fighters. 

India is world renowned as a determined haggler particularly where jet buys are concerned. If the Rafale deal for India's Air Force is anything to go by, a 7 year delay and Indian pressure to have the winning aircraft license built in Indian factories, is entirely possible. To further complicate matters the Indian Navy "Multi-Role Carrier Borne Fighters" acquisition process may have merged. This may be with the Indian Air Force "MMRCA 2.0" process for 114 Air Force multi-role combat aircraft. For your average Western arms dealer, negotiating India's technocratic, multi-dimensional, acquisition system is more difficult than learning Vedic Sanskrit while piloting a pogo stick. Good Luck unsuspecting sellers :)

ARTICLE

The Aviationist ably reports December 15, 2020 in part:

"An F/A-18E Super Hornet completed the launch from a ski jump ramp during a demo at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland. Here’s the first image.

Although the demonstration was carried out in August [2020], and the news was out since then, the first photo of an F/A-18E Super Hornet completing a ski jump launch at NAS Patuxent River, MD, has just been released.

The take off from the ramp at Patuxent River was conducted as part of a demo arranged for the Indian Navy, which has been in talks for the potential acquisition of Super Hornets for its STOBAR (Short Take-Off But Arrested Recovery) aircraft carriers, such as the INS Vikramaditya and the under-construction INS Vikrant.

...Interestingly this wasn’t the first time a Hornet carried out ski jump take offs. [US] Air Force Systems Command, dated 1991, says that between 1982 and 1986 “a metal ramp was constructed that could be modified to give ramp exit angles of 3, 6, and 9 degrees. The ramp was 112.1 feet long and 8.58 feet high at ‘he exit when configured for the 9 degree exit angle, measured from the horizontal...The minimum ground roll for the F/A-18 was 385 feet at a gross weight of 32,800 lbs. This ramp effectively reduced the takeoff roll of the F-18 by more than 50 percent..."

SEE THE WHOLE EXCELLENT AVIATIONIST REPORT

 

An F/A-18 Super Hornet completes a ski jump launch demo for the first time on Aug. 13, 2020 at Naval Air Station Patuxent River. (Photo courtesy US Navy photo by Eric Hildebrandt via The Aviationist.)
---