Striving to become a force with more lethal power, the Indian Air Force in the long run plans to retain only three types of fighters in its fleet — the Russian Sukhoi, indigenous light combat aircraft and the 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft the tender for which has been issued recently.

Charting a new course in its platinum jubilee year, the IAF intends to trim down the inventory so that the complexity involving maintenance of various types of fighters is reduced. Currently, the IAF flies eight types of fighters besides a host of transport aircraft and helicopters.

‘Easy maintenance’
“In the future, we will have a few lethal weapons so that maintaining will be easier. Typically we are looking at a fleet comprising Su-30, LCA and the MMRCA,” said Chief of the Air Staff Fali Homi Major.

As per the IAF plans, the existing MiGs — MiG 21, MiG 23, MiG 25, MiG 27 and MiG 29 — along with Jaguars and Mirage will be phased out. However, since it is a time consuming process, some of the existing fighters will be upgraded to extend its service life for another few years.

“The Jaguars and MiG-27s have been upgraded. We are now negotiating the upgradation for MiG-29 and Mirage 2000. Upgradation of the transport planes like Il-76 and An-32 as well as the helicopter fleet will follow,” said Air Marshal Major.

Upgradation
Phasing out of some of the older generation aircraft, upgradation of the existing aircraft and possible induction of LCA in 2010 and MMRCA by 2012, is expected to change the profile of the 75 year old IAF, which began its journey with four Wapitis in 1932.

“Because of our energy security requirements, IAF’s responsibility has increased tremendously. Our area of operation may go up to the South China Sea and we should have the compatibility of operating outside our home base. If our plans fructify, a different IAF can be seen in the next five years,” the IAF chief said.

IAF’s first foreign base may come up in Tajikistan where it repaired a strategic runway in Ayni, close to the Afghanistan border. India’s interest in Ayni is on two counts — to have a handle on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in case of another IC-814 hijack type incident and to monitor the scenario around the central Asian oil and gas reserve.

The IAF top brass, however, is not worried about depleting squadron strength, which now stands at 32 as against the sanctioned 39.5 squadrons. Due to the maintenance needs, at any given point of time IAF has 28-29 squadrons for operations, which reduces the IAF’s air superiority compared to Pakistan and China.