Indian Military Aviation; News, Updates & Discussions

colay said:
More MMRCA weirdness... the IAF justify the selection of Rafale because it's cheaper to operate than F-22s and B-2s??? LOL.
Well, they really are having to do some creative explaining to rationalize the Rafale which apparently is costing much more than expected.


IAF's take on bid for medium multi-role combat aircraft - The Economic Times on Mobile

NEW DELHI: The Air Force has told a parliamentary committee that it could have bid for F-22 or B-2 aircraft in its quest for Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) but decided against them as both are among the costliest planes which they did not need.

"We do not spend much money in getting what we want. Currently, we could have bid for F-22 or B-2 which are one of the costliest aircraft. We do not need that," a representative of Air Force told the Standing Committee on Defence, according to the committee's report...
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Gasp...sounds like the AF rep was mocking the committee rather than giving them an informed statement. The F-22 will never be exported, and the B-2 being a strategic bomber will never fill the role of the Multi-Role Combat Aircraft.

Interesting that of all the advanced, relatively new combat aircraft in the USAF inventory, the F-35 was not brought up. This is especially interesting as the context of the speech is about aircraft costs.
 
This is a damning article on the state of affairs in the IAF. The problem-plagued MiG 21 and MiG 29 fleets have garnered most of the headlines but their pride and joy, the Su-30MKI, seems to suffer from the same malaise. There seems to be enough blame to go around on both sides.

Russians go slow, Sukhoi fleet in trouble

Russians go slow, Sukhoi fleet in trouble

A shocking 50% of the Indian Air Force's (IAF's) Sukhoi-30 MKI fighter fleet is on the ground due to unresolved servicing issues with the aircraft's Russian manufacturers. This has also eroded the combat capability of India's frontline long-range strike aircraft and compromised even that part of the fleet which is capable of being flown.

The IAF and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) have rung the alarm bells about the repeated mid-flight failure of the Su-30 mission computer and the blanking out of all cockpit displays. The Russians have not responded to the repeated SOS' from the Indians for over a year.

More at the link.
 
No doubt India's problems with Russian aircraft helped Dassault's sale of Rafales to India. According to Dassault's CEO, this deal will be finalized shortly.
 
colay said:
This is a damning article on the state of affairs in the IAF. The problem-plagued MiG 21 and MiG 29 fleets have garnered most of the headlines but their pride and joy, the Su-30MKI, seems to suffer from the same malaise. There seems to be enough blame to go around on both sides.

Russians go slow, Sukhoi fleet in trouble

Russians go slow, Sukhoi fleet in trouble

A shocking 50% of the Indian Air Force's (IAF's) Sukhoi-30 MKI fighter fleet is on the ground due to unresolved servicing issues with the aircraft's Russian manufacturers. This has also eroded the combat capability of India's frontline long-range strike aircraft and compromised even that part of the fleet which is capable of being flown.

The IAF and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) have rung the alarm bells about the repeated mid-flight failure of the Su-30 mission computer and the blanking out of all cockpit displays. The Russians have not responded to the repeated SOS' from the Indians for over a year.

More at the link.
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Strange.. i thought the HUD on the MKI was a Thales product. And those multifunctional displays was of Indian origin..
 
StobieWan said:
Doesn't help with the overall availability of parts and turn around time on deep maintenance of engines however.
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Russian sources said that they are haggling over the price of setting up local maintenance, and sending Sukhoi specialists to India.

In other words, Sukhoi is trying to milk them for more. :(
 
Hence why good relationships with trusted allies and the ability to bypass purely commercial aspects with suppliers can never be over rated. I think, so long as major diplomatic issues can be avoided, India will be pleasantly surprised by their P-8 procurement and the level of support they have access to.
 
Well that largely remains to be seen..

India has not had the time on review their latest C-17, C-130 and P-8 procurments, since they are relativt New.

As a comparison, Our Norwegian P3C Orion has had difficulties in the past regarding different parts(systems parts made in US)..
Good Relationship can only help so much.
 
But they have had plenty of time to compare spares and availability to the French systems they've bought and they're cited as being 75% as opposed to 50% for the Russian kit.

We've heard over and over that the Russian spares, after sales and support side is poor - the US stuff doesn't have to be good - just *average* will look good in comparison.
 
StobieWan said:
But they have had plenty of time to compare spares and availability to the French systems they've bought and they're cited as being 75% as opposed to 50% for the Russian kit.

We've heard over and over that the Russian spares, after sales and support side is poor - the US stuff doesn't have to be good - just *average* will look good in comparison.
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Not only is French kit spares better, when India gets into a shooting match with Pakistan again, the French will keep on supplying, something other Western suppliers wimped out on for fear of offending their Islamic customers and oil supplies.
 
DefenceNews is reporting the IAF is insisting on delivery terms, something Dassault has already said no to as HAL is manufacturing most of the jets. Maybe Canada should outsource defence procurement to India so we can determine which country has the worst system.
 
Haavarla said:
India has not had the time on review their latest C-17, C-130 and P-8 procurments, since they are relativt New.
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There's more than enough evidence available as to the availability rates of C-17, (UK, US and Aust) All 3 countries have done multiple transoceanic flights and in high tempo environments - and quite frankly, much higher tempo rates than anything India has undergone) The platforms have been so effective that each country increased their orders once they compared prev lift and availability rates.

In Australias case we cancelled the lease for russian heavy lifters due to better availability and costs

Haavarla said:
As a comparison, Our Norwegian P3C Orion has had difficulties in the past regarding different parts(systems parts made in US)..
Good Relationship can only help so much.
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I'd be curious to know what is different in the Norwegian support contract when no other ally that I can think of has ever suffered from the same support issues apart from Pakistan - and some of that was about not maintaining within class due to poor support contract construct in the first place. As we train and co-operate with over 3/4 of the current 20+P3 users I am more than curious as to what separates Norway from every other heavy user we work with. I'd be more than curious to know whether Norways problems for support have been with the P3C's or with their own versions (P3N) - and whether the faults have been with frame or fitout.

Heck, the spanish bought most of Norways P3B's - and have not had any availability issues. I'm more than curious when you consider similar sized fleets (Spain, Portugal, New Zealand, Greece) haven't had similar problems. New Zealand has a much higher tempo rate than most in Europe and doesn't have maint and support issues beyond needing and wanting more to do the job but losing out due to $$ priorities by successive Govts

The very reason why India canned their Ilyushins was due to distressingly bad support from the Russians - and even the carrot of upgrading to Sea Dragon (ultimately a package failure anyway) couldn't convince them to stay with the platform

P3's, C130's have some of the highest availability rates in the aviation world

C130 has close to 70 military users and half a dozen civil users - and a disproportionate number are repeat customers. Some of the users have appalling civ aviation records for maint contracts and they all manage to keep them flying even with poor schedules

P8's are based on a tried and true civil platform - which is why the platform was selected in the first place as it had high availability, was a trusted and tested frame etc..... They could of have course spent another 10 years trying to get what remained of the flight of Ilyushins back in the air - but even with Indias bad historical procurement model - the Exchequer has managed to force through change and started to get IndMil to start buying and supporting along Western contract models
 
In my Opinion the IAF and the MoD has had a pleasant experience with the purchase of the C-17, C-130 and the P-8Is simply from the fact that the deliveries have been on time and that has not happened in years from Russia. The only challenge could be from the fact that a C-130 crashed earlier this year, although it does not seem to be a aircraft issue.

There are news reports in the media that the Indian Army would be ordering 39 Apaches; which would be in addition to the 22 ordered for the IAF.
 
dragonfire said:
In my Opinion the IAF and the MoD has had a pleasant experience with the purchase of the C-17, C-130 and the P-8Is simply from the fact that the deliveries have been on time and that has not happened in years from Russia. The only challenge could be from the fact that a C-130 crashed earlier this year, although it does not seem to be a aircraft issue.

There are news reports in the media that the Indian Army would be ordering 39 Apaches; which would be in addition to the 22 ordered for the IAF.
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The same holds for Canada's purchase of C-17s, C-130Js, and CH-147 Chinooks, on time and working as envisioned. Contrast that with our delayed CH-148 Maritime helicopters. The simple conclusion, if the kit isn't flying, don't buy it.
 
John Fedup said:
The same holds for Canada's purchase of C-17s, C-130Js, and CH-147 Chinooks, on time and working as envisioned. Contrast that with our delayed CH-148 Maritime helicopters. The simple conclusion, if the kit isn't flying, don't buy it.
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If you want something and the biggest priority is for it be delivered at the earliest then the logic of buying off-the-shelf makes sense, however if the priority is for something thats uniquly serving your current and expected future needs, especially to give you qualitative advantage, then the question development, joint development, customization etc come into picture. Even if you have to wait for the deliveries to begin, the advantage could be that you would have a unique system which is qualitativly superior and also gives a big edge vis a vis the envisaged 'enemy/competitor systems'. For e.g the Su-30 MKI, although there was a development cycle the end result is far more satisfactory than the original system. Also the BrahMos system vs. Moskit (IIRC)

So its upto the needs and the planners to decide the right course of action
 
The Indians don't even seem very good at ordering stuff off the shelf tbh - the recent stuffed-up purchase of naval guns seems illustrative. If they can't buy a couple of dozen 5 inch guns with spares, well....
 
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