Pilatus gives details on the high intensity training operations of the IAF using the PC-7 MkII basic trainer..

Pilatus hails Indian PC-7 MkII Trainer performance

Indian air force students have accumulated more than 3,000 flight hours using the service’s new Pilatus PC-7 Mk II basic trainers, the Swiss manufacturer says.

A first training course involving more than 80 students was launched at the air force academy in Dundigal, Hyderabad in mid-July. “By the end of August, the fleet had already logged 3,000 flight hours with almost 5,600 landings,” the company says, also noting that the inaugural course is running ahead of schedule.

Eighteen trainers from a 75-unit order have been delivered to India to date, with the manufacturer saying “a steady stream of additional aircraft is being added on a monthly basis”. Under an accelerated programme schedule, the entire order will be completed by mid-2015, it adds.

Even though some of this utilization may have been incurred during the preceding months, the tempo of training ops is remarkable really..

How is the IN supposed to have all 4th gen fighters by 2030? The MiG-29Ks are supposed to serve at least 30 years and the fleet is very young as of now. They’ll easily go on till 2045. And if the N-LCA does enter service, it’ll last as long if not longer. But, so far there is no certainty on whether it’ll be the MiG-29K, Rafale M, Super Hornet (very unlikely but still) or the F-35B/C that will be the next medium fighter for the IN’s IAC-2. If the IN does go for the F-35 (and it appears to be a lot more interested in the F-35 than the IAF), the IN may have a 5th gen fighter for the IAC-2. Also, there may well be a navalised PAK-FA variant as well.
If its the Rafale M or Super Hornet, they’re both 4.5 generation fighters. Only the MiG-29K and the N-LCA will be 4th gen fighters in IN service.

Too much uncertainty to be able to predict the IN’s fleet composition in 2030.

The more relevant issue you’ve totally missed out is the total numbers of fighters that will likely be in service in 2030 for each of the Air Forces you listed. Here, all of the EU AFs will see major cuts in numbers, which will have a large impact on their overall abilities. Having 3 dozen F-35s instead of 60 odd F-16s, like will happen to the RNLAF is actually a huge cut in availability and overall force projection, but based on your criteria, the RNLAF will have all 5th gen fighters and so appears to be doing well!

C-17 Globemasters deployed overseas already

The ‘SkyLords’ have already begun to spread their wings. India has quietly started deploying its latest aircraft, the gigantic C-17 Globemaster-III, on “special overseas airlift missions” in tune with its geostrategic objectives.

Defence ministry sources on Monday said while one C-17 made a trip to energy-rich Tajikistan in August, another is slated to fly all the way to Rwanda later this month. “The Tajik flight carried special equipment, including instrument landing aids. The one to Rwanda will carry heavy equipment to support our troops deployed in the UN stabilization mission in war-ravaged Congo,” said a source.

This comes even as the C-17s are being flown to places like Port Blair, Leh and Thoise within the country on different missions. Impressed with the “sheer ruggedness” of the four-engine C-17s, dubbed “game-changers” by Air Chief Marshal N A K Browne, IAF has finalised plans to acquire six more Globemasters in the 13th Plan (2017-2022) period.

Three of the first 10 C-17 aircraft ordered for $4.1 billion from the US were “formally” inducted into the 81 Squadron, nicknamed the ‘SkyLords’, at the Hindon airbase last week. While another two will touch down by November, the other five will come by end-2014. Designed to swiftly airlift a 70-tonne cargo across 4,200 km, the C-17s can even land at makeshift airstrips in forward areas.

The overseas missions are being seen as “crucial” to Indian interests abroad. India has forged a “deep strategic partnership” with Tajikistan, which shares its borders with Afghanistan, China, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. In March-April, India had also used its C-130J ‘Super Hercules’ aircraft to airlift a military hospital with doctors, paramedics and equipment to Tajikistan.

Moreover, the Indian military presence at the Ayni airbase, around 15 km from Dushanbe, helps New Delhi keep some tabs on its strategic interests in Central Asia as well as terrorism-infested Af-Pak region.

The C-17 flight to Rwanda, in turn, will be “critical” in supporting the 4,000 Indian troops deployed in Congo. “The C-17s have tremendously boosted India’s capabilities for strategic operations overseas. It would have required three to four trips by our older IL-76 aircraft to carry the heavy load to Rwanda, which is the gateway to Congo. The C-17 will do in a single non-stop flight,” said the source.

link to article

To suggest that Australia spend nothing on defence and spend that money on welfare strikes me as being more patronising than suggesting that India doesn’t need an SSN.

While Australia doesn’t have ‘natural enemies’ like India does we do inhabit a region which has seen its share of strife and fighting within my lifetime, and considerably more before I was born. In a chaotic environment there is nothing wrong with Australia equipping itself with the military tools to ensure that such strife and fighting does not cause too much damage to Australia and Australian interests.

Suits me fine. I don’t go around preaching what Australia ought to or ought not to do. Nor did I start this ridiculous assertion that India is pretending to be a superpower which leads me to dwell on what Australia really is and what it should do with the money spent on defence.

And no, the SSN program has nothing to do with a seat on the UN or superpower aspirations. The first SSN was leased from Russia just 3 years before India’s economy was literally in the doldrums, in 1991. Who called India a superpower back then?

Next thing, we’ll have someone say that the Indian nuclear deterrant is a prestige program, never mind that India fought a war with a nuclear armed China in 1962 and was threatened by the US sending a fleet into the Bay of Bengal in 1971. Nevermind that the IN noted the effect that Soviet nuclear subs that tailed the US fleet had on the US Seventh Fleet and even the British that threatened India, despite the East Pakistan genocide. This is another incident that will forever last in India strategic minds and made the IN and the political leadership seek a nuclear submarine fleet. Decades after this, that will finally be a reality.

How Russia sank Nixon’s gunboat diplomacy

That poster OTOH thinks he knows better and that India should simply surrender its claims and use the money saved by that for poverty alleviation. Its a very simplistic view of things. There are other fundamental issues that plague India’s politics and the economic policies that flow from them which have hampered poverty alleviation.

Just diverting money from defence to welfare programs will not mean that poverty will disappear from India. There are economic policies and a bloated govt. and bureaucracy that India inherited from the British Raj and then some bad ones that were implemented that have always hampered the potential that India and its citizens have. Just take a look at what Indians, unhampered by govt. policies achieve when they go as immigrants to other countries.

OTOH, there are 2 countries with big military forces that are just waiting to “Balkanize” India and have sponsored and abetted internal strife in India. There are 2 countries with whom the border perceptions do not match and hostile actions have erupted time and again.

so who’s being patronising by preaching India to reduce its defence spending, which at 2.5% of its GDP is just about average and spend it on poverty alleviation programs instead?

Australia’s defence policy is to defend itself without relying on the combat power of other countries, and looking at the capabilities in the region I’d say that is more or less being achieved. I doubt China has the power projection capability to mix it up with the ADF in East Timor, PNG, mainland Australia area with any great chance of success. They could probably have a go, but the expedition would most likely be badly mauled in the process.

As for leading a military operation, Australia led the intervention in East Timor in 1999. Not a hot war, but cool heads prevailed in the crisis and few shots were fired. Coincidently East Timor is about as far from Australia as Taiwan is from China.

So Australian defence capability against threats that are trivial, even if those posed by China, is justifiable, but an SSN capability that India fosters to develop a submarine based nuclear deterrant capability is a prestige program? That too when India and China have gone to war against each other and continue to have a border that neither can agree on?

I know you were not the poster that made this assinine assertion, but the sheer patronising nature of such a comment made me talk about who really faces a threat and who doesnt and who’s really pretending versus who faces a genuine threat. India is not under any nuke umbrella and will do what it feels it needs to be able to deter a nuclear enemy.

http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/indian-air-force-to-induct-its-biggest-transport-aircraft-on-monday-413034?pfrom=home-lateststories

IAF to induct the C-17 into No.81 Squadron “Skylords” on Monday. hope there are good pictures available of the induction ceremony.

It does depend on whether your self sufficiency comes at the expense of capability. No point in manufacturing tanks equivalent of T-55 if in a shooting war they’ll be facing Spike ATGMs and M1A2s.

As for India’s fighter self sufficiency program, I’d call it a disaster. They’ve been trying to become self sufficient in fighters since 1950s (HF-24 Marut and Ajeet). Yet in 2013, they’re still importing large numbers of foreign aircraft and have even reverted to importing such basic things as trainers.

In the meantime the Chinese who started off in an even poorer technological position are flying indigenous 5th generation stealth fighters.

so based on what happened in the past, why not forget the lessons learnt and abandon any hopes of self-sufficiency and be forever importing weapons that cost several tens of billions just to acquire, forget to operate and maintain over their lifetimes..not a smart idea IMO and one that the GoI and MoD would never allow to happen.