US wants to test chopper at Siachen

US wants to test chopper at Siachen :

There is a joke that the only thing that a helicopter can carry at such forbidding heights as Kargil and Siachen is a passenger manifest. There are no helicopters designed to fly at such high altitudes.
The Indian Air Force (IAF) has, however, defied the odds by flying its Mi-17 and Cheetah transport helicopters up to 15,000 and 20,000 feet respectively.

The Mi-17 is actually a reconfigured Mi-8 enabling it to fly high-altitude, and the Cheetah is the modified Chetak (Alouette). Similarly, the AN-32 fixed wing aircraft is actually an AN-26 configured specially for the IAF. These aircraft fly nowhere in the world except in India. The requirement to fly at these heights is unique to India.

Coming back to the joke, a penalty has to be paid to fly at these heights by drastically shedding payload. A Mi-17, which can airlift 26 persons at sea level, can carry only three at 15,000 feet.

It’s for this reason that a high-altitude attack helicopter has been considered unviable. The IAF’s Mi-25 and Mi-35s can fly only up to 10,000 feet. During the Kargil conflict, the challenge was upwards of 15,000 feet, and the IAF was pricked by this gap in its capability. A Mi-17 improvised as a gunship fell to a Pakistani Stinger.

Now, Bell Helicopter of the US wants to test its AH-1Z, perhaps the world’s most advanced helicopter gunship, at Siachen. It has yet been flight-tested only till 12,000 feet. Bell now seeks an “envelope expansion” for this gunship.

India has made it clear that any gunship that it acquires must have high-altitude capability. Bell would like to take up the challenge, and the only way of proving this capability is by demonstrating it. Trade sources admit that it’s an “incredible challenge”.

The AH-1Z has the latest target sight system, 16 wing stations for rockets, Stinger and Hellfire missile firing and anti-weapons capability, and integrated glass cockpits for two pilots. Incidentally, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has also set out to produce a Light Attack Helicopter for Kargilesque heights.
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Big Birds in Delhi

Big names in military aviation will descend on New Delhi this week for a pow wow on the scope of the Indo-Russian partnership in the future. The occasion is a seminar on ‘Reforms in Indian and Defence Industries’, being organised by a premier strategic affairs think tank, Indian Defence Review, on April 23 and 24.

Such figures as Alexey Federov, chairman of the Irkut Corporation which manufactures the Sukhois, and Dr Krishnadas Nair, former HAL chairman, will have brainstorming sessions with eminent thinkers on military planning and air warfare, including Air Chief Marshal (Retd) AY Tipnis, the former Indian Air Force Chief.

This is the first such seminar after the opening up of the Indian defence sector to private industry. It is expected to throw up an interesting interchange of ideas.

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