Bell wants USAF to trade Huey for Huey

PAF’s entire A/B fleet went through Falcon UP/Falcon STAR. No Indian plan has been through such an upgrade, This essentially gave the PAF zero timed airframes.

Thanks

Zero time airframes? LOL..yeah right..so then you’re saying that the F-16’s life is now 8000 hours + whatever hours were already on it? And when it reaches the end of those 8000+x hours, just go do another Falcon STAR and voila! another zero-timed airframe is available for the PAF to keep around for another 40 years..:D

The Falcon STAR upgrade was just so that the F-16s could attain their designed 8000 hour life, not to re-time them back to 0 airframe hours. If they already have had x % of their 8000 hour airframe life used up, this upgrade ensures that they won’t fail before the remaining 100%-x % life is used.

Thursday, January 27, 2005 – Defense Supply Center Richmond officials are working on a billion-dollar, multiyear project that will extend the service life of the Air Force’s F-16 Fighting Falcons.

The F-16 Structure Augmentation Roadmap, or “Falcon STAR,” program uses parts kits to strengthen the aircraft’s structure, officials said. The kits contain everything necessary to accomplish a maintenance task.

Officials said using the kits reduces maintenance turnaround time, ultimately increasing readiness.

Center officials develop support strategies and initiate kit contracts.

Without the modification, the F-16 will not be able to attain its projected 8,000-hour service life under current operational usage, said Pat Livingston, the center’s F-16 weapon system support manager. Falcon STAR will allow the aircraft to remain in service through 2025, she said.

“(The Air Force’s) aircraft structural integrity program continues to identify areas that will not meet the service life of 8,000 flight hours,” Ms. Livingston said. “The (goal is) to modify the aircraft structure before the onset of widespread fatigue damage and aircraft grounding.

“This is a ‘tip-to-tail’ modification — 13 structural modifications including replacing bulkheads and wing-attachment fittings,” she said.

Falcon STAR contains the list of structural parts necessary to address the areas identified by the aircraft structural integrity program, she said. There are more than 79,000 parts under 428 national stock numbers, all of which are managed by Defense Logistics Agency officials.
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link

PAF K-8 trainer crashes..both pilots ejected

PAF K-8 trainer crashes in Swabi district

Mirage-2000 lands on Yamuna expressway near Delhi

Noida: A Mirage 2000 fighter jet of the Indian Air Force (IAF) test-landed this morning on the Yamuna Expressway just outside Delhi, as part of emergency landing drills on national highways.

At 6.40 am, the fighter plane skimmed the highway and landed briefly before it took off again. Local people, including villagers, gaped at the sight.

“The aircraft made a practice approach on the highway, coming down to a height of 100 metres before landing off the next approach,” said an IAF statement.

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Officials called it a practice drill to scope out possible landing strips on the national highway for fighter planes in case of an emergency. “IAF has plans to activate more such stretches on highways in the future,” said a spokesperson.

The six-lane Yamuna Expressway on the outskirts of the capital connects to Agra in Uttar Pradesh. The jet landing stalled traffic on the highway for a few hours.

For today’s trial, “all facilities like make shift Air Traffic Control, safety services, rescue vehicles, bird clearance parties and other requirements were set up by IAF personnel from Air Force Station Agra,” the IAF said.

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Well I guess to answer this you have to ask yourself what types are doing exactly the same role?

Between the Mirage2000, MIG-29, Jaguar, MIG-27, SU-30, Rafaele and LCA there is much overlap.

Pretty insane

I suppose it would be a waste of time trying to explain how these fighters came into the IAF, since your real intention is known to us all..anyway..

the Jaguar was chosen based on a requirement for a strike oriented DPSA aircraft for the IAF in the 1970s and replaced the Marut. the MiG-23/27 was offered to India for CAS at friendship prices along with licence manufacture and the offer was accepted since it allowed the IAF to retire obsolete aircraft like the Hunter, Gnat and Ajeet. the MiG-23MF came into the IAF as an interim fighter to tackle the IAF’s F-16 acquisition, and this was the one fighter that really didn’t add much at all and consequently was retired quite early.

the Mirage-2000 was the fighter chosen as a result of PAF’s F-16 deal and then this deal was supposed to grow into a licence manufacture but high cost and the Soviet Union’s offer for much cheaper MiG-29s scuttled the licence manufacture deal.

The LCA has no overlap with these heavier fighters and arose from a requirement for a light weight MiG-21 replacement.

the Su-30MKI is nowhere near the other fighters and qualifies as a heavy fighter that completely changed the IAF’s orbat from a mostly tactical, single mission oriented force to a large number of long range, heavy multi-role fighters. Before it, the Mirage-2000 had some modicum of multi-role capability but even that was quite limited compared to what the MKI brought.

As Rii has explained in multiple posts earlier, geo-politics influenced many of these decisions. What the IAF’s requirements were, what was on offer, for how much and with whom India wanted to strengthen its relations or diversify its suppliers to avoid complete dependence..all these factors decided the mix.

In fact, the dependence on a supplier with whom they had already had a bad experience nearly got the PAF screwed..thanks to their dependence on the F-16 as their premier fighter..we all know how the PAF sat out the Kargil War thanks to the lack of spares and what would’ve happened had a real aerial war broken out between the IAF and the PAF..even with all the mix of fighter types, the IAF would’ve managed to put them into the air..wouldn’t have been so with the PAF, with its main fighter being hobbled. And we have this on record by a former PAF Air Cmde, Kaiser Tufail.

India launches new ASW corvette

Hungarian Gripen D crashes in Czech Republic

Its a writeoff..looks like the HuAF will need to replace this lost twin seater, one of only 2 they have..or else their training will be impacted.