Singapore Air show 1 - A380, on the road.

The A380, on the road. Top Gear, anyone?

Here are some pictures of the Airbus A380 from the Singapore Air Show on 24th February. What a beautiful bird that is. Its not a powerful beast of a machine, nor is it an out and out stunner. But when you actually see it with your own eyes, the full scope of what Airbus has tried to achieve and accomplished with this bird becomes stunningly clear. And its this feat of engineering wizardry that had so many eyes popping at Changi.

For its flying display, the A380 had to be moved from the static display area to the runway on the Changi Air Base. With no space or logistics to bring another aircraft, the single aircraft had to double up for both roles. This meant that it had to pass through the 6 lane road which separated the static display area from the runway on the Changi air base. This road is special in that it is 6 laned and has no central divider or street lights. It can thus be used as a runway in case of emergencies. So they had to tow the A380 across the road; and thats exactly what they did.

This towing of the A380, closely followed by an F-15, (which wasnt on flying display actually, which makes its towing somewhat of a mystery), caused a 20 minute long traffic jam on the road. Hope you like the pictures. Each of the pictures is around 1.7 MB in size. The images are original size of 2560 x 1920 pixels.

The beginnings of the jam. The sign on the left explains the situation succinctly.

Cars of Singapore vs the Superjumbo. This picture provides probably the clearest indicator that the A380 is on the road, judging by the engines on the starboard wing.

A380 turns into the Changi Air base
The F-15 that followed just behind the giantess - wonder what it was doing there.

Well on its way in- theres that sign again, facing the wrong way!

Indian AEW&CS Pictures

Some pictures of the AEW&CS raar being developed by DRDO. The platform will be an Embraer-R99 aircraft.

The full set
can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/20125521@N02/sets/72157603941498395/.

AEW&CS Mockup

AEW&CS Mockup, originally uploaded by Sniperz11.

A full scale mockup of the Dorsal Unit (DoU) of the Airborne Early Warning and Control System (AEW&CS) radar under development by CABS, Bangalore.

This mockup uses the actual Radar antenna panel plates that will be put on the radar. The final radar will have 10 panels on either side. To shorten the length, this mockup uses 3 panels.

the big white panel just below the radar is another antenna panel in the final protective casing made of Kevlar.

Also note the small air intakes at the front of the DoU. The air will be used to cool the Radar.

The Radar will weigh 1350 kg totally, and has a lifetime of 30,000 flying hours over 20 years of operation.

AEW&CS Information board

AWACS Brochure, originally uploaded by Sniperz11.

S-Band TR Module

S-Band TR Module, originally uploaded by Sniperz11.

Arjun Video from DD

Found this video on google. Its a 13 minute Doordarshan piece about the Arjun tank, and has some truly delectable footage for people with an Arjun fetish.

Now, neither DD nor any of the other news channels really know what they're talking about when covering Defence technology. Even if they do, the coverage must cater to the layman, most of whom care about the Arjun as much as they do about little green men on Mars.

Still, these stories do provide a wealth of information, not so much in what they say, but what they show... and this 13 minute exclusive piece is full of never-before-seen footage and details of the Arjun tank, stuff that only the National Carrier will be allowed to show. Enjoy the show.

Link: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3997119991218613108



Some highlights (at least for me):

1. Footage from Ashwamedh/Rajasthan Trials.
2. Coordinated fire from 5 tanks. Also see the firing from 5 tanks.
3. Arjun navigating sand dunes at speed, neutral turn and turret traverse at speed.
4. Gunner: "Arjun is able to hit targets even at 25 kph in day or night".
5. Old footage of the scientists at work - all of them look so young and enthusiastic at the time (M. Natrajan, H.M. Singh, Kalam, etc).
6. Extensive shots of the manufacturing area.. especially loved the boulevard-like shot through the barrels - 50 pretty Arjuns all in a row.
7. Video of night firing
8. Inside shots of Crew area.
9. picture of the planetary gearbox