Mr_Vastu

LCA beats F-16

The LCA beat the F-16. Or so it was observed during all test flights conducted by the IAF to date when it stalled alot better than the Falcon. The history of India's indigenous aircraft designs dates back to the late 1950s, when HAL built the HF-24 Marut, one of the first supersonic fighter jets at the time. Designed with the help of Dr. Kurt Tank, famous for his Focke-Wulf aircraft built for Wartime Germany, it fought without loss in the Indo-Pak Wars.



A HF-24 Marut(Wind Spirit) on display at the massive Deutsche Museum Flugwerft at Schleissheim, Bavaria, Germany.


The LCA should be easily comparable to an F-16XL-1. Both these aircraft have the same rate of speed and acceleration between Mach 1.8 and Mach 2.0. The LCA still is much in its preliminary stage of development and more advanced changes could be made to the plane over the years. It has a large nose cone allowing development of newer radar and avionic systems. With BVRAAMs that adorn the Mig-29s and Su-30s the LCA is more than a match for various fighters. The IAF now has its very own plane in a class of its own that could be pitted against F-16s and not just another IAF Mig or Mirage. The F-16 isnt much of a great fighter at Mach 1.9, and barely makes it to Mach 2.0 when fully loaded. It must be remembered that the F-16 was born because the USAF was shitting in its pants between 1966-72 when it lost 103 F-4s to the Viet Mig-21s. So it was for this reason - to counter those nimble Migs that the F-16 was basically made for the USAF.

The LCA was in fact designed with many inputs from the Mirage family. Hence it could very easily match the performance of an F-16C, since Mirages are of a much better lineage than the F-16s. In an air-to-surface role, an F-16 can fly more than 500 miles (860 kilometers) and deliver its weapons load which is about the same range of an LCA. LCA has the same speed and ceiling as that of an F-16XL-1 being Mach 1.8 and 50,000 ft. Infact, LCA avionics were first flight tested on a US F-16XL.

tu160mblackjack

All this is ********. You just repeated what everyone else said. What's your point??
Comparing the Marut is stupid, that was more than 25 years ago.

k19

look at the pic man, how many missile spots can it have? only two with 2 fuel tanks? and does it have a connon for dog fight? your objective is shooting down the invading plane, not just running fast and accelerate fast! you need serious power!

RajKhalsa

The plane in the pic is the HF-24 Marut

Mr_Vaastu

The LCA is somewhat similar in size and configuration to the Swedish Gripen (Griffin) that attained IOC (Initial Operational Capability) in 1997 and is all set to receive a major upgradation before 2010. Ericsson the same radar agency associated with the LCA is developing ASEA (Active Electronically Scanned Array) radar for Gripen and hopefully a similar system will arm the Naval LCA. ASEA radar has tremendous growth potential and the capacity to detect even enemy radar transmissions at extended ranges and jam them with "transmission bursts".

The Naval LCA customised for the ADS Air Defense Ship, is likely to accommodate a significant number of avionics components developed for the Sukhoi-30MKI and MiG-29K. MiG-29K is based on the fly-by-wire MiG-29M with more advanced Zhuk (Beetle) PH radar capable of conducting four simultaneous attacks with BVR (Beyond Visual Range) R-77RVV-AE AAMs (Air-to-Air Missiles).




With LCA capable of carrying Russian missiles the Su-30 MKI and MiG-29 carry, plus the Indian built Astra BVR A-A, these missile working in tandem with Zhuk type radars would give LCA an edge over any F-16 variant.

In a combat situation, a Zhuk radar fitted LCA and an F-16 with an AN/APG type radar would detect each other almost simultaneously. Both planes would also accelerate towards each other at roughly the same pace Mach 1.8 + in an attempt to gain a missile lock on the other. But at one-third the size of the F-22 and half the size of the EFA or Rafale, the LCA has the smallest radar cross section of any non-stealth fighter aircraft in the world, making it undetectable to the F-16s radar. Also below the "clutter notch" of enemy aircraft the LCA is bound to be invisible to the F-16s radar at critical moments. Modern pulse-Doppler radar after all, filters out static and semi-static objects at lower level to "gather" moving targets.

Thrust-vectoring engines are also in the pipeline for the Naval LCAs. prove to be invaluable in both MiG-29K and Su-30 Flanker family.

bull

it has got 7 3 on the wings ane beneath the fuselage

__________________
What's the difference between people who pray in church and those who pray in casinos?
The ones in the casinos are serious.

k19

i was talking about the pic before that, some one put a wrong pic there.

tu160mblackjack

The first pics are both Marut pics and not LCA pics. THe LCA pics are in the middle.
I don't get what the Marut has to do with anything being discussed here and why anyone refers to it.

lemontree

That is why this guy "Mr_Vaastu" keeps getting banned whenever his joins up. Most of his posts are irrelevent.

__________________

Cheers!...on the rocks!!

lemontree

I don't see the logic of comparing the LCA to the F-16.
The former is yet to be commissioned in the IAF while the later has a proven track record.

ajaybhutani

well india is floating tenders for 125 fighters wherein F16 Mirage2000 mig29 etc are competing . Adn there are questions here like
1. shudnt we wait for LCA and then produce mroe of them ??
2. shudnt we scrap LCA as its late and opt for more of Teh fighter selected.??
And all these questions are shall be greatly influenced by answers to questions like LCA vs F16 LCa vs Mirage 2000 or LCA vs Mig29.

Dima

not entirely, many of his points have been very relevant, and have expressed strong factual evidence that the MiG 29 is supposedly " superior" to the F-16, i have a a slight bias towards the MiG 29 because i believe that it is better than the F-16, against the Mirage 2000, that would be another story, although there was an excercise in South Africe in which Russian pilots flew MiG 29A's against Mirage 2000's in the early 1990's, they soundly defeated the Mirage 2000 pilots

yes, what will India be doing in the future, the Su-30MKI will fill in the Mirage 2000's role of ground attack very nicely, and even exceed it in terms of efficiency, so the T-50 will be able to be adopted

and i still don't understand why they're putting up a tender for 125 aircraft, which is a major amount, absolutely huge, why don't they just take the MiG 21BIS' out of the air force, i nkow that would lead to a vaccuum in the airforce, but then again, it would leave more room for the induction of further LCA aircraft, and possibly T-50 aircraft, plus, if you decomission them now, you'll save millions over the years in maintenance expenditures

troung

"not entirely, many of his points have been very relevant, and have expressed strong factual evidence that the MiG 29 is supposedly " superior" to the F-16, i have a a slight bias towards the MiG 29 because i believe that it is better than the F-16, against the Mirage 2000, that would be another story, although there was an excercise in South Africe in which Russian pilots flew MiG 29A's against Mirage 2000's in the early 1990's, they soundly defeated the Mirage 2000 pilots"

Yes and that really shows how capable the MiG-29 really is... defeating SAAF Cheetahs and all in dogfights. Those are really Mirage IIIs when you get down to it and not Mirage 2000s... totally different planes of different generations...

Yeah so the MiG-29 is the plane to have to defeat Mirage IIIs...

" don't see the logic of comparing the LCA to the F-16. The former is yet to be commissioned in the IAF while the later has a proven track record."

So true.

lemontree

The F-16 for IAF is out of the question, too much of investment will have to made in the logistical backup. The Mirage 2k and Mig-29, will have to fight it out. I feel India will big a few of both.
That would be ideal.
No we should'nt scrap it. We made that mistake with the HF-24, and look how backward we are in fighter aircraft development.
[/quote]

ajaybhutani

my point is "its all about numbers .How much can we wait for LCA. Is it really that good that we shudnt go for another 124 fighters to fill the gap due to delays.And so if we say that stuff like M2K Mig29 is as good/better/or nearly comparable to LCA then we shud go for it to fill up the gaps and so a comparison with these. Though for F16 it becomes obvious due to pakistan having F16 and also might get some of the latest ones if US finaly agrees to it.So a comparison seems inevitable to me.

Thouhg i agree that its better for us to go for M2K or Mig29 as we have logistics support and experience. in fact taht will even help us upgrade the already existing versions in the AF indigineously to the same level( as it will be a complete ToT.