The preliminary design phase of India’s stealth UCAV, AURA, is officially underway. Top sources familiar with the programme reveal that the AURA team is currently working on overall conceptual design of flying-wing UCAV, a gas-turbine performance model for the proposed platform, intake design propulsion dynamics, 2D nozzle design and thrust vector control.
As you might expect, the AURA team has been consuming as much information as it possible can about existing stealth UCAVs in development globally now, including the European Neuron, the British Taranis, the Russian Skat and the American X-47A. The classified Indian programme will work to freeze broad design parameters by the middle of next year. The official list of government laboratories and academic institutions involved in the AURA now include GTRE Bangalore for the engines, DEAL Dehradun for datalinks and advanced electronics, DARE for avionics and electronic warfare equipment, LRDE and HAL for sensors, NAL/DMRL for materials and IIT-Kanpur for critical subsystems.
IIT-Kanpur YES!!!
GTRE – Oh No! Not Again!!!
Type Shiv Aroor and no response from WIKI – why?
"SHUBH DEEPAWALI" to Shiv Aroor n his team and of course to all and sundry posters on this blog.
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Happy diwali shiv sir & folk here!
Good NEWS.
However from the very initiation they should design for the engine power at least by 30% higher than the required and the total empty weight by 10% less than the required.
Similarly the payload shall be targeted at least 50% higher than the required.
These and similar other things to cater for the later moving goal post if any, as nothing really freezes.
Further variants or developments if envisaged shall be started along with or anything else may be considered too late. Lol…
Well said Ra.
But Before that pls start working on NFGA
After a critical stage has been passed, all such similar projects can move ahead as parallel vectors mutually reinforcing each other. Here networking of time, capabilities and knowledge may be a crucial and difficult factor but not impossible.
We should partner up with Russia or UK to split the cost and gain access to critical technologies. Both the MiG Skat and the BAE Taranis are currently only technology demonstrators. With a partnership both Indian and foreign designs can be incorporated into a competitive aircraft.