Indian Air Force: News & Discussions

[RocketMan]

Only long range strike need can come from naval strike roles against china, but thats it.

IMO very low priority rn, much better things to iprove first.

My bet is Indian Navy will have more squadrons & better offensive strike capability & reach than Imported AirForce by 2035 .

 

[haldilal]

 

[shade2]

I think our Imported Air Force folks are interested in the F-21 as part of the MRFA reboot, came across this article that deals with Turkeys F35s using the dog-leashing of Packies to buy/use F-16s as an example

How America’s Experience with Pakistan Can Help it Deal with Turkey - War on the Rocks

In its ties with Turkey, the United States finds itself in a classic Catch-22. Turkish foreign policy often runs afoul of U.S. interests. However, Ankara

warontherocks.com

Posting some relevant snippets

The U.S. decision to deliver advanced versions of the F-16 as well as targeting and electronic warfare equipment to Pakistan did not come without strings

When it approved the sale of advanced F-16s to Pakistan and the upgrade of older models, the United States also insisted on an unprecedented level of oversight of the program. In order to protect the technology it was exporting, Washington required Islamabad to accept and pay for the deployment of a U.S. technical security team at the Shahbaz and Mushaf air force bases — the two locations where the advanced F-16s were to be deployed.

One of the authors of this article served in the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan at the time and was involved in this program, making several visits to Pakistani F-16 bases to ensure the required security upgrades were completed before the aircraft were deployed there. Each technical security team is made up of four to five U.S. Air Force personnel and some 30 contractors who keep a round-the-clock watch on Pakistan’s advanced F-16s

On bases where advanced F-16s are present, the United States requires that Pakistan separate them from other aircraft and strictly limit access to the area where they are located.

Despite its behavior in other areas, Pakistan has been a steady partner in its F-16 program. The Pakistan Air Force uses its F-16s extensively to attack militants in its tribal areas and shares cockpit footage of these operations with the United States (which one of the authors was able to view while stationed in Pakistan)

.It accepts the intrusive inspection regime of the technical security teams without complaint, and to this point the teams have not registered major violations of the technology security regime they have put in place.

 

[iNorthernerOn9]

I think our Imported Air Force folks are interested in the F-21 as part of the MRFA reboot, came across this article that deals with Turkeys F35s using the dog-leashing of Packies to buy/use F-16s as an example

How America’s Experience with Pakistan Can Help it Deal with Turkey - War on the Rocks

In its ties with Turkey, the United States finds itself in a classic Catch-22. Turkish foreign policy often runs afoul of U.S. interests. However, Ankara

warontherocks.com

Posting some relevant snippets

The year(I forgot) when F-16 Block70/72 got renamed as F-21... Lockheed CEO as well as their Indian representatives claimed that they can deliver all 114 aircraft within 5 yrs of contract signing if purchase is off the shelf. They said they have the capability to manufacture upto 40/yr.

Now considering the precarious state of IAF... the above offer is mouthwatering. As more time gets wasted in indecision & other hurdles... & IAF fleet keeps declining... & suddenly one day Dragon smashes(& not knocks like last time) your doors... the only viable option will become the F-21 bcoz of the speed of delivery.

Also there are only 2 single seaters in the competition... F-21 & Gripen... & F-21 comes out as the cheaper of the two bcoz of economies of scale & cheapest among all.

& if off the shelf purchase is ruled out... for indigenous production... they have the strongest partner in India... Tata. Only one company that can claim to have aircraft manufacturing experience bcoz of partnership with Boeing, Airbus & Sikorsky for their products. Boeing's partner in MRFA is... I think Mahindra(not sure though).

Disclaimer: I am not advocating for F-21.

 

[shade2]

The year(I forgot) when F-16 Block70/72 got renamed as F-21... Lockheed CEO as well as their Indian representatives claimed that they can deliver all 114 aircraft within 5 yrs of contract signing if purchase is off the shelf. They said they have the capability to manufacture upto 40/yr.

Now considering the precarious state of IAF... the above offer is mouthwatering. As more time gets wasted in indecision & other hurdles... & IAF fleet keeps declining... & suddenly one day Dragon smashes(& not knocks like last time) your doors... the only viable option will become the F-21 bcoz of the speed of delivery.

Imported AF Genrols will be bawling to get the F-16 (((off the shelf))) for the same reason you have specified under some extreeem emergency procoorments, poor Tata sahebs won't even get the money for screwdriver-giri, which is all they will be allowed
Atleast Frenchies, upon receipt of Kidneys of the nation would allow us to integrate our or other vendors weapons/systems to their Rafale, but not Amerisharts no.

Now i think the whole RAFAEL ESCAM by Raul di Gandeone was not a Eurofighter project but a LM one, and fortuitously for them the Wuhan virus happened in 2020 - 2022 and even more fortuitously a certain KGB James Bund decided to make USSR Russia again resulting in Dassault's orderbooks exploding resulting in a long backlog.

I guess it is our fate to be the Sooth Assian version of Uncle Sam's NATO harem raands in the Mediterranean, Turkey and Greece, both have F-16s both hate each other and in event of war Sultan Amreeka gets rich and entertained.

Similarly we also have our beloved F-16 leasing Padosi Mulq