Boeing debunks Korean report, says will continue to get Apache helo fuselage from India
After Korea Aerospace Industries in an agreement with Boeing
decided to resume production of AH 64E Apache Guardian attack helicopter
fuselages in South Korea last month, a Korean media report later went on to
claim that Boeing is not happy with the Quality of the Apache helicopter,
including fuselages, secondary structures, and vertical spar boxes supplied by
the Tata Boeing Aerospace Limited joint venture in Hyderabad as one of the
reasons why production in South Korea was restarted.
Boeing in Press Release has said that both Tata Boeing Aerospace Limited and Korea Aerospace Industries will continue to produce the fuselages. Korea Aerospace Industries production is to meet current production and delivery contract milestones for the AH 64E Apache helicopter. South Korea had ordered 36 AH 64Es in 2013 after which local production was started that went till 2017 and it has been restarted after fresh orders for 36 more AH 64E for the Republic of Korea Army was announced.
Fuselages supplied by the Tata Boeing Aerospace Limited will
be used to manufacture the first 6 Indian Army bound AH 64E Apache attack
helicopters that were ordered in separate follow up contracts for 22
helicopters ordered by the Indian Air Force in 2015. It is expected that
deliveries of the apache helicopters for the Indian Army would begin in 2023.
Army to procure 50,000 bulletproof jackets for its frontline
troops
The Indian Army has projected a requirement of 50,000 new
bulletproof jackets for its frontline troops, the procurement process for which
is expected to commence in the next couple of months.
The Ministry of Defence is expected to issue a request for
proposal to vendors in June and the procurement would be done in phases over a
12 to 24 month period after all the modalities have been finalised and user
trials concluded.
The specifications listed by the Army state that the bullet
proof jackets should be able to protect a soldier against 7.62 mm armour
piercing rifle ammunition as well as hard steel core bullets fired from a
distance of 10 metre.
The bullet proof jackets required for protection against
armour piercing ammunition, whose velocity is higher than that of other
bullets, should weigh less than 10 kg, while the weight of those meant for use
against steel core rounds should not exceed 8 kg.
The jacket’s outer tactical vest should have the capacity to
carry three magazines of the newly inducted SIG 716 rifle and the proposed AK 203
assault rifle along with other items like hand grenades, hand held radio sets,
tools, or attach additional pouches.
INS Sandhayak – 20 year long journey almost to an end
After having served the Indian Navy for two
decades, finally INS Sandhayak will be relieved of her service. Built by Garden
Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers and commissioned into the Indian Navy’s
Eastern naval Command at Visakhapatnam in 2001, INS Sandhayak (J18) is
the lead ship of its class. She is the Indian Navy’s fifth hydrographic survey
ship in that series which was indigenously designed and constructed with her
wide range of surveying equipment she was able to meet the ISO 9002 digital
survey standards.
A hydrographic survey vessel of displacement 1929
long tons, she is 87.8 m long and 12.8 m wide. Operating at the design draft of
3.3 m, she could hit decent speeds of 16 knots. At a speed of 10 knots, she has
a range of about 26000 km. She is home to 18 officers and 160 enlisted crew.
She has a 40 mm Bofors gun for self defence and also has a deck helipad for HAL
Chetak. She is also equipped with four survey motor boats and two small boats.
She is powered by two diesel engines
Equipped with a range of surveying equipment she is
capable of carrying out both shallow coastal and deep oceanic hydrographic
survey to collect oceanographic and geophysical data. The surveying systems
provided onboard include:
- Multi-beam swath echo
sounding system
- Differential GPS
- Motion sensors
- Sea gravimeter
- Magnetometer
- Side scan SONARs
- Oceanographic sensors
- Automated data logging
system
- Digital Survey and
processing system
- Sound velocity profiling
system
She is also equipped with ROV, AUV and USVs to
carry out surveys.
I N S Sandhayak key services
Using these systems, she carried out hydrographic
surveys, nautical chart preparation, with cartography and training. In 2013,
she updated the charts of the islands of Andaman & Nicobar island after the
drastic hydrological changes post 2004 tsunami.
The search for the missing Dornier
She was also successful in detecting the beacon
signals and locating the missing Dornier 228 aircraft. Her survey in 2016 off
the coast of Rameshwaram helped find a new seaway that allows larger ships to
traverse the narrow Palk strait.
