Reality Check


Shortage of trained technical manpower lead to delayed deliveries

By Prasun K. Sengupta

The delayed delivery of the aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya (estimated by 2012), and the R&D slippages of two futuristic programmes — the fifth-generation fighter aircraft (FGFA) and the multi-role transport aircraft (MTA) — all have one thing in common: the delays are being caused by an acute shortage of trained technical manpower that currently prevails throughout the Russian Federation. For Moscow has since mid-2007 decided to focus the majority of its scarce human resources firstly towards the creation of new-generation strategic weapon systems, and secondly towards the creation of new military-industrial facilities within Russia that will enable Russia to forever eliminate its current dependence on existing manufacturing facilities located in Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. Russia believes that such dependency has, since the early Nineties, robbed it of tens of billions of dollars in terms of revenues earned from exports of weapon systems whose intellectual property rights are those of Russia. The implications for India of such measures adopted by Moscow are obvious: the United Aerospace Corp (UAC) — which now includes Sukhoi Aircraft Corp and RAC-MiG — along with the Tsentralniy Aerogidrodinamicheskiy Institute (Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute), has now dropped the idea of co-developing with India’s state-owned Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) the twin-engined 17.2-tonne FGFA (for the air forces of India and Russia), which in Russia is known as the Mnogofunktsyonalniy Frontovoy Samolyot (MFS) project, and is instead developing the heavier, 24-tonne T-50 Perspektivnyi Aviatsionnyi Kompleks Frontovoi Aviatsyi (PAK-FA) advanced tactical frontline fighter. Consequently, the FGFA’s Russian R&D effort will henceforth be funded by private institutions, will be co-developed only for export and all Russian R&D contributions will henceforth be reduced by 85 per cent and the void will be filled up by HAL and Embraer of Brazil, both of which inked collaborative deals to this effect with Rosoboronexport State Corp on April 15. Efforts are now underway to rope in South Africa’s Denel Aerospace as the fourth risk-sharing R&D partner. As for the MTA project, whose R&D effort was to be shared equitably by IRKUT Corp, Sukhoi Aircraft Corp and HAL, it last month underwent a complete makeover when the two Russian companies withdrew their participation. Instead, efforts are now underway to formalise a multinational consortium that will include Russia’s Ilyushin Finance Corp, HAL, Embraer, South Africa’s Denel Saab Aerostructures, and Sweden’s Saab AB.

It may be recalled that on 18 May 2003 the FGFA’s engineering development-cum-production effort officially took off after an agreement to this effect was inked by the Russian Aerospace Agency Rosaviakosmos, Sukhoi OKB, the Sukhoi Military Production Complex, NPO Saturn, Vympel, Zvezda-Strela, TsAGI Research Institute, Aerospace Equipment Corp, Ramenskoye RPKB, Polet, Tekhnocomplex, Tikhomirov NIIP, Urals Optics Mechanical plant, KNIIRTI, UMPO of Ufa, Gromov Flight Test and Research Institute in Zhukovsky, and MMPP Salyut of Moscow. The Russian R&D master plan then called for the FGFA to make its maiden flight in 2009, construction of seven flying prototypes, commencement of series production by 2011 and service entry a year later, thus making it available for export at around the same time the Lockheed Martin-built F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is due to enter service. In early 2005 when Sukhoi OKB gave its first generic presentation on the FGFA to IAF HQ, it was quite surprised to hear that the IAF wanted a twin-engined, 17.2-tonne aircraft that was at least five tonnes lighter than the PAK-FA. Going back to the drawing boards, Sukhoi OKB returned in mid-2005 to give Air HQ a limited technical proposal for a single-engined variant of the PAK-FA, which was rejected outright by the IAF as being over-ambitious and unrealistic in terms of both the R&D costs to be incurred and the project implementation timetable. This was followed in December the same year by two separate, detailed and competing presentations being given by Sukhoi OKB and Mikoyan OKB on their respective twin-engined FGFA designs (Sukhoi’s proposal featured forward-swept wings). Both proposals also offered a 50 per cent work share for the Indian R&D/aerospace industrial entities, as stipulated earlier by Air HQ (see FORCE May 2006, page 12). It was following these presentations that India was to furnish Russia with an initial sum of USD 300 million that was urgently required by UAC to complete the FGFA’s prototype development phase. In addition, NPO Saturn and UMPO was to set a parallel engine production facility at HAL’s Koraput-based facility to licence-produce the AL-41F-1A low-bypass ratio turbofan with the help of raw materials supplied in Russia, with all moulding and machining work being done in India. For both Moscow and New Delhi this was seen as a very big concession, as Russia had never before transferred its engine production technologies abroad, with even the AL-31FPs for the Su-30MKIs now being supplied off-the-shelf to HAL as fully assembled engines.