Operating Sukhois: A Malaysia-India-Russia love story

Operating, maintaining and flying Sukhoi fighter aircraft is a Malaysia-India-Russia ‘love story’, says a senior Malaysian air force official.

Though a three-year trilateral arrangement nears its end, Russian and Indian officials are committed to reinforcing Malaysia’s air defence and combat capability as far as the Sukhoi Su 30 MKM Flanker squadron is concerned.

The assurance came from Russia’s warranty team leader Vladimir Konnov, from aircraft manufacturer Irkut Corporation, and Indian Air Force’s (IAF) chief flight instructor Group Captain K.V.R. Raju.

Konnov stressed the need for the arrangement to continue in some form.

Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) 11th Squadron commanding officer Lt. Col. Mohamad Asghar Khan said Malaysia’s ‘love story’ with Russia and India began in 1994 with the purchase of 18 MiG-29N Fulcrum aircraft under a RM1.3 billion deal, New Straits Times reported.

Asghar said Malaysia’s involvement with the two countries had since blossomed to a ‘love affair’ with the Su-30MKM purchase.

‘We have come a long way and hope to reinforce our relationship with Russia and India over the long term to chart our air defence and combat capability.

‘I believe strongly in this partnership, especially with the support of the proven Irkut Corporation and India’s Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd in terms of obtaining reliable spares and equipment,’ he said, referring to the pioneer batch of six pilots, four engineers and 53 technical crew sent to Russia and over 100 technical crew sent to India for training.

Malaysia’s newest air base in Gong Kedak, a town in Kelantan state, is the home of the Flanker.

‘This is a strong demonstration of a high level of friendship and diplomacy which is very commendable,’ said Raju, who leads a team of four instructor pilots, one weapons systems officer, two engineers, 22 technicians and two administrative servicemen.

While the rest complete their two-year tour of duty in July, the IAF pilots will be retained until August.

Raju said the trilateral Russian-Indian-Malaysian collaboration was something unique as it provided a stepping stone for the country to groom its next generation of airmen.

‘Thus far, our assessment of the RMAF crew shows they are of an exceptional high standard and I am confident the current crew will pass on their expertise and experience to others to take Malaysia to the next level of competency.’

Konnov said that while his team was responsible for the aircraft’s serviceability, performance, snag rectification and technical support, they also ensured the Malaysians mastered the required skills.

‘The Sukhoi is a very complex and complicated aircraft to operate. As Malaysia is still in its infancy, it will be wise to retain the Russian and Indian specialists to fully acquire the proficiency and realise its potential.’

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Hindu talks about HPT revival but DNA reckons its about to be retired.

End of the road for Indian Air Force’s HPT-32 trainers

It is virtually the end of the road for the Air Force’s HPT-32 basic trainer aircraft that were grounded last August following a crash in which two ace pilots were killed.

The IAF is on the verge of retiring the HPT-32 ‘Deepak’ fleet, used for 25 years to help pilots of the air force to take baby steps in flying planes.

But the only thin thread that could hold the 125-aircraft fleet’s service life for a few more years is an experiment that Defence PSU Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) is attempting on the aircraft — parachute assisted recovery system for safe landings.

“The service life of HPT-32 is virtually over. If the HAL’s attempt at enabling safe landing of the aircraft with parachute recovery system succeeds, the aircraft may be in service for may be two more years,” a senior IAF officer told PTI here today.

The Deepaks or Hindustan Piston Trainer-32 are indigenous aircraft designed by HAL in late 1970s and inducted into the IAF to train rookie pilots in their stage-I course in the flying branch in 1984.

The aircraft, with speeds of 280-kmph and a range of 1,400-km, is used for primary training, observation, liaison and target towing.

It also has four hard points to carry 255-kg war load, machine gun pods, bombs and rockets, and can be used as fighter planes.

In the mishap on July 31 last, an HPT-32 crashed in Medak district of Andhra Pradesh, killing the two experienced pilots from the Air Force Academy that trains rookie pilots.

Soon after, the entire fleet of Deepaks were grounded with the probe into the mishap bringing out structural defects in the aircraft. Since then, it has remained grounded with the IAF deciding to get rid of the fleet due to flight safety considerations.

What the HAL is attempting now is to provide an additional system to the aircraft to assist its smooth landing. The parachute system is an aid in recovering the aircraft by safely lowering it to the ground from an emergency in the air.

A solid-fuel rocket housed in the aft fuselage is used to pull the parachute out from its housing and deploy the canopy full within seconds.

The system is designed into several light airplanes the world over and the design goal of these systems is survival of the crew and passengers.

“This parachute system exists in many light aircraft the world over. If it is successfully integrated into HPT-32, well and good. We may use the aircraft for a couple of more years. Or else, it is goodbye to the fleet,” the senior officer said.

Just a couple of more years because, the IAF had last December issued a tender to buy 75 basic trainer aircraft to global manufacturers such as Embraer for its Tucano, Pilatus for PC-7 or PC-9, Raytheon T-6 Texan, Finmeccanica M-311, Grob Aircraft Company G-120TP, EADS PZL for PZL-130-TC-11 Orik and Korea Aerospace Industries for KT-1.

“These companies have already submitted their responses in March this year and the tenders are likely to be decided by this year end following trials. And the first lot of the new basic trainers under this contract would be inducted into the IAF within two years from now,” the officer said.

These new trainers would be the replacements for HPT-32s.

Till then, the IAF would do good with its Hindustan Jet Trainer-16 or HJT-16 ‘Kiran’ trainers to teach young cadets how to fly, he added.

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IAF gives nod for HPT-32 revival

The Indian Air Force, which lacks a basic aircraft trainer to train its flying cadets, has given clearance for a parachute recovery system (PRS) to be fitted on the Hindustan Piston Trainer-32 (HPT-32). The PRS, it is hoped, will improve the confidence of HPT-32 pilots, enhance survivability during an emergency in the air and prevent the trainer from dropping out of the sky like a stone.

The IAF’s decision, which is based on the recommendations made by a committee headed by Air Vice Marshal Pradeep Singh, will hopefully revive the HPT-32, a Hindustan Aeronautics Limited-designed and manufactured primary trainer that became operational with the defence forces in 1984, but was grounded last July after a fatality near Hyderabad that killed two senior flight instructors.

Reliability of the HPT-32 has long been in question with technical issues caused by the integration between the American Lycoming piston engine and the indigenously designed airframe being the most hurting. For the IAF engine cuts (a situation where the aircraft’s engine suddenly switches off in mid-air) on the HPT-32 have been disastrous: there have been over 90 engine cuts during the HPT-32 operational life and given the trainer’s poor power of glide, fatalities have been frequent.

But with no other basic trainer available, the IAF is left with no choice but to revive the HPT-32. Ever since the HPT-32 was grounded, it has had to reschedule its flying training making do with the aging Kiran intermediate jet trainer.

The PRS will entail a parachute being fitted on the trainer. During an airborne emergency the pilot will pull a lever which in turn will deploy the parachute, bringing the trainer down safely.

Officials from the HAL told The Hindu that two foreign vendors had been identified and asked to give presentations/proposals on what they could offer. Once the vendor is chosen the airframes of around 100 HPT-32s will be fitted with parachutes with the HAL most likely to undertake the task under a licence arrangement. It could take at least three to four months before the first PRS fitted HPT-32 is airborne.

MODIFICATIONS

HAL officials said the trainer’s airframe would have to undergo modifications. These would include strengthening, to prevent the structure from shearing off when the parachute is deployed, and also to take the extra weight. Trials need to be undertaken to optimise the flight characteristics of the aircraft once the PRS has been fitted, and the Lycoming engine overhauled — since the entire fleet has not flown for nearly nine months. The PRS will also have to ensure that the aircraft comes down horizontally and not nose or tail first.

The IAF, which has already sent out a request for proposal looking to acquire a new trainer aircraft, will like to utilise the PRS-fitted HPT-32 as a stopgap until the new trainer arrives.

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Now, no record of Navy sinking Pakistani submarine in 1971

NEW DELHI: The sinking of Pakistani submarine Ghazi in the 1971 Indo-Pak war may have been one of the high points of India’s first-ever emphatic military victory but there are no records available with naval authorities on how the much-celebrated feat was pulled off.

As a debate rages over a TOI report on the destruction of all records of the 1971 Bangladesh war at the Eastern Army Command headquarters in Kolkata, it transpires that naval authorities also destroyed records of the sinking of Ghazi.

The troubling finding has been thrown up by a trail of communications among the naval brass. Pakistani submarine PNS Ghazi, regarded as a major threat to India’s plans to use its naval superiority, sank around midnight of December 3, 1971 off Visakhapatnam, killing all 92 on board in the initial days of the war between India and Pakistan. Indian Navy claims the submarine was destroyed by depth charges fired by its ship INS Rajput. Pakistani authorities say the submarine sank because of either an internal explosion or accidental blast of mines that the submarine itself was laying around Vizag harbour.

According to a set of naval communications made available to TOI by sources familiar with the Ghazi sinking, senior officers and those writing the official history of Navy exchanged a host of letters admitting to the fact that crucial documents of Ghazi were missing.

Immediately after Ghazi sank, Indian naval sailors had recovered several crucial documents and other items from the submarine, wreckage of which is still lying underwater off Vizag.

On June 22, 1998, Rear Admiral K Mohanrao, then chief of staff of Visakhapatnam-based Eastern Naval Command, told Vice Admiral G M Hiranandani, who was writing the official history of Navy, “All-out efforts were made to locate historical artifacts of Ghazi from various offices and organizations of this headquarters. However, regretfully, I was unable to lay my hands on many of the documents that I personally saw during my previous tenure.”

Mohanrao went on to tell Hiranandani, “We are still continuing to search for old files and as and when they are located, I will send appropriate documents for your project.” Mohanrao also refers to their inquiries with Commodore P S Bawa (retd), who worked with the Maritime Historical Society, to find out about the artifacts. Here also they drew a blank.

What Mohanrao’s letter does not disclose is the letter written by Bawa himself in 1980. On December 20, 1980, Bawa, then a commander with the Maritime Historical Society, said, “In Virbahu, to my horror I found that all Gazi papers and signals were destroyed this year. Nothing is now available there.” He was writing after a visit to Virbahu, the submarine centre at Vizag, where the documents, signals and other artifacts recovered from Ghazi were stored. His letter (MHS/23) was addressed to Vice Admiral M P Awati, the then chief of personnel at the naval headquarters.

Over the years, in the 1990s, as Vice Admiral Hiranandani sat down to write the official history of Navy, he made several efforts to get the Ghazi documents, records show. In one of his letters to the then chief of eastern naval command, Vice Admiral P S Das, he sought the track chart of the Ghazi, the official report of the diving operations on the Ghazi from December 1971 onwards and any other papers related to Ghazi. But none of it was available for the official historian of the Navy.

A retired Navy officer who saw action in 1971 said the destruction of the Ghazi papers and those of Army in Kolkata are all fitting into a larger trend, many of them suspected about Indian war history, of deliberate falsification in many instances. It is high time the real history of those past actions were revealed. “We have enough heroes,” he said. “In the fog of war, many myths and false heroes may have been created and many honest ones left unsung,” he admitted.

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IAF’s acquisition of Boeing C-17 transport aircraft heading for trouble

An Indian Air Force order for 10 Boeing C-17 Globemaster III heavy-lift transport aircraft is looking like an uncertain acquisition with a production-line strike at the Boeing facility where the giant aircraft are built and clear hints from the Pentagon that the programme will soon shut down.

The C-17 is a long running programme that the Pentagon has been desperately trying to kill off for years without success as US Congressmen, scared of the economic impact of a plant closure on their constituents, keep it alive under some pretext or the other.

1,700 assembly-line workers at the Long Beach, Calif, plant struck work for a second day Wednesday, demanding better pension and medical benefits. Earlier, talks between management and the United Aerospace Workers broke down last week after employees rejected a 46-month contract offer from the company.

On an average Boeing builds around 16 C-17s a year, primarily for the US Air Force, at an average price tag of about $200 million each. Orders, though, have been declining and the company has recently said it would further bring down annual production rate to 10 by mid-2011.

For the US military the aircraft has become a prize lemon being too costly to acquire. In any case the unnecessary additions to the air force fleet have ensured that the USAF fleet is already chock-a-bloc with it. But as has been the political practise, interested Congressmen keep the programme alive by compelling the Pentagon to acquire sufficient numbers each year so that the plants never close down.

The US military, for long, has sought an end for the programme and focus on upgrading its ageing Lockheed Martin Corp C-5 Galaxy fleet which can happen at a fraction of the cost of acquiring the C-17s.

It is also interested in acquiring more C-130J Hercules planes, a proven, though smaller, transport aircraft.

In a speech, delivered Saturday, defence secretary Robert Gates said

“The leadership of the Air Force is clear: They do not need and cannot afford more C-17s,” he said. The attempt by the US Congress to keep the programme alive is being done “at an unnecessary potential cost to the taxpayers of billions of dollars over the next few years,” Gates said.

Gates has already initiated a wide ranging review of the US military’s big-ticket acquisitions. In a desperate bid to balance the massive budget deficit a number of programmes are now facing extinction.

Congress’ main concern, on the other hand, is the high-paying jobs the aerospace sector creates.

In line with an across-the-board tightening of the defence budget the US Defense Department seeks to end acquisition of C-17 jets in the proposed 2011 budget. This, say defence analysts, will likely kill the programme.

Boeing has a current backlog of 36 orders for C-17s, of which just seven are for foreign customers. The Indian Air Force has placed an order for ten more.

The impending closure of the programme and the plant raises important questions as to how the IAF will continue to source aircraft parts and services in the long-run as plants shut down and experts associated with the programme retire.

Indeed, as an upcoming power India may look to expanding its fleet of heavy-lift transporters in the future and will find itself with a museum piece collection of ten C-17s as the programme shuts down. It will then go seeking another bunch of heavy transporters from some other nation

Haphazard acquisition of equipment of strategic interest needs to be questioned. The acquisition of an aircraft that has for long been surviving on oxygen is a matter of concern and certainly it is required that the Indian ministry of defence issue a clarification in this regard as the woes of the C-17 programme have been in the public domain for a very long time and yet New Delhi has opted for its acquisition.

The US Air Force has been attempting to end acquisition of the C-17 atleast since 2006.

Boeing’s California facility employs about 5,000 people and the unions, sensing that the programme is in the last phase of its existence, are now negotiating higher pay and benefits so as to win better severance packages when the plants finally shut down.

Boeing sold nearly $3 billion worth of C-17s in 2009.

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Attack helicopter evaluation trials likely in summer

With the Indian Air Force embarking on modernisation, the skies over different parts of the country will witness yet another high-profile test with evaluations of attack helicopters due to start this summer.

Seeking to get off the mark, Boeing is fielding the AH-64D Apache helicopter for the trials, Dean Millsap, regional director, Asia Pacific International Business Development, told a group of visiting Indian journalists here.

Mr. Millisap said an IAF team was due to arrive in the United States and thereafter dates for the trials in different weather conditions would be finalised. Boeing is among the international companies that responded to the Request for Proposal (RFP) issued by the IAF last year for supply of 22 attack helicopters.

These will replace the Russian-made attack helicopters being operated by the IAF. Boeing is also offering Chinooks, its tandem rotor, twin engine, heavy lift twin rotor helicopters. The deal is estimated to be around $ 2 billion.

The Boeing representative told the journalists, after a tour of the facility where Chinooks are manufactured, that in the case of Apache, India would get the Block 3 helicopter, the same version that was being acquired by the U.S. Air Force.

Since 1984, over 1,700 Apache attack helicopters have been manufactured and Block 3 came on the assembly line last year equipped with improved target detection, increased situational awareness and survivability. One of the features, he said, was connectivity with unmanned aerial vehicles.

The present-day Apache helicopters can perform multimissions, including with fire-and-forget missiles, auxiliary fuel tanks, air-to-air missiles, crashworthy structure, advanced sensors, advanced targeting sight and integrated electronic maintenance.

Boeing is also augmenting its manufacturing facility to meet its orders by ramping up production from 4.5 Chinooks a month to six by 2011. The company is in the race for 126 Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft and has completed a set of trials.

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