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

 

[Ayan Barat]

> RFI, EOI, RFP, L1 to procure attack helicopters
> RFI, EOI, RFP, L1 to recover attack helicopters

 

[Nibbler]

Mmrca will be f21 or f15ex.

The only way to justify spending $20b+ is if you get some geopolitical gain from it. I don’t think it’s an accident the tender is back right before trump presidency.

 

[silentassassin265]

Mmrca will be f21 or f15ex.

The only way to justify spending $20b+ is if you get some geopolitical gain from it. I don’t think it’s an accident the tender is back right before trump presidency.

F15 is too costly both price and maintenance wise and will kill su30 upgrade program,
f21 will kill LCA mark 2
We will lose if we purchase any of this

 

[Bleh]

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.

Song similar lines, if we're okay with getting rebranded F-16s why not the same with it's peer Mirage-2000. Single engineed light-medium fighters of MWF class are not what we want ideally... But what's wrong with upgrading our Mirages with Rafale & Mark2 techs, get some more maybe. There's plenty available with 20+ years service life in them. We heard such talks multiple times.

 

[narasimh]

Mmrca will be f21 or f15ex.

The only way to justify spending $20b+ is if you get some geopolitical gain from it. I don’t think it’s an accident the tender is back right before trump presidency.

What geopolitical gain? We will be basically tying the dog collar around our necks and handing the leash to the US if we go with either!
Better the govt should drag mmrca as long as possible till lca mk2 first flight and finally scrap it.

 

[shade2]

Mmrca will be f21 or f15ex.

The only way to justify spending $20b+ is if you get some geopolitical gain from it. I don’t think it’s an accident the tender is back right before trump presidency.

There is no geopolitical gain lol.
Max you will make Trump happy but he will only be there for 4 years

 

[TAVOUR 21]

what does "airforce 1" indicates here??

 

[VictorDelta4]

what does "airforce 1" indicates here??
View attachment 15804

IIRC this is the Air Chief's vehicle.

 

[Nibbler]

What geopolitical gain? We will be basically tying the dog collar around our necks and handing the leash to the US if we go with either!
Better the govt should drag mmrca as long as possible till lca mk2 first flight and finally scrap it.

Some preferential treatment when it comes to tariffs? Better access to energy?

I dunno. I’m just saying with America you won’t just be buying planes. With the euros you would be.

 

[shade2]

Some preferential treatment when it comes to tariffs? Better access to energy?

I dunno. I’m just saying with America you won’t just be buying planes. With the euros you would be.

>Dog-leash your country
>for the next 40 years
>for tariff free 4 years of Trump rule



Anyway Genrols will go for F-16 only, the (((benefits))) for them are far, far too juicy to ignore.
Another Chinese stunt is all that will be needed for the GoI to also agree

 

[shade2]

For the GoI also an F-16 procurement will be controversy free, since the F16 vendor nation is also Raul's patron right now, and Tata will be the screwdriver-giri partner, absolutely no media drama, no PIL filing, no political drama

 

[Bleh]

Song similar lines, if we're okay with getting rebranded F-16s why not the same with it's peer Mirage-2000. Single engineed light-medium fighters of MWF class are not what we want ideally... But what's wrong with upgrading our Mirages with Rafale & Mark2 techs, get some more maybe. There's plenty available with 20+ years service life in them. We heard such talks multiple times.

France’s Mirage 2000-5F Surplus Fighters and Potential Acquisition by India – Indian Defence Research Wing

idrw.org

 

[GaudaNaresh]

France’s Mirage 2000-5F Surplus Fighters and Potential Acquisition by India – Indian Defence Research Wing

idrw.org

As i noted earlier, this is a stop-gap measure that gives best bang for our buck and as far as i know, MoD is exploring Mirage-2000 acquisition plans seriously.
They are basically a less manueverable but higher payload F16 planes and the best version of the Mirage-2000 is equivalent to F-16 block-D planes, if not better.

Reality is, the Mirage-2000 is something that can tide us over till 2035-2040, by which time, we should be production capable of significiant amount of desi maal.
And they can be targetted for acquisition at 20-30 million per plane, which is basically 2002 Su-30 prices.

We have already been in talks with Greece to acquire 1 squadron from them and as far as i know, we are persuing getting another 2-3 squadron's worth from UAE, Greece and France.
Dassault setting up a Mirage-2000 spare parts and repair factory in India is a big tell that India is seriously persuing getting more squadrons of Mirage-2000 and not just acquire decomissioned planes for parts.
The only country we are not persuing in this mirage-2000 scenario is taiwan, because taiwan's mirage-2000 have the most wear and tear issues of all mirages ever deployed - they've had issues with corrosion of their air frame & turbine blades - so whatever the hell the taiwanese are doing to their planes, its eating into their lifecycle and have had to do a lot of 'marammat' to keep them flying.