This is from Forces TV, the official British Armed Forces TV channel

“Our analysis does not match what has been reported, RAF pilots and the Typhoon performed well throughout the exercise, with and against the Indian Air Force.”

http://forces.tv/00317417

What the RAF are saying about IAF performance and bragging on RAF Forums is even less….er…polite….

Ah, a response from the RAF to the claims from IAF:

Full story: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/indian-air-force-beats-raf-120-in-training-exercise–using-russiandesigned-jets-10444466.html

🙂

Edit:

Hmm — in 2011 there was “no comparison”

http://www.globalaviationresource.com/v2/2015/08/06/military-exercise-indian-summer-indradhanush-2015/

I may be wrong, but I suspect that perhaps the IAF were unhappy with previous comments from the RAF on previous exercises and used this opportunity to “even the score” in the media…

Well, proves there was more to this exercise then the Indians were claiming. As most (sane) people suspected all along. Got to hand to the IAF for bearing a grudge for years….

It doesn’t take much to realise that a 12-0 victory of the MKI against the Tiffy is highly unlikely. We don’t know what the RoE were in such a scenario, and whether the RAF was severely handicapped to favour the MKI’s strengths. What this story suggests is that a fighter designed for a specific purpose is utterly and completely useless against the very type of fighter it was meant to counter?! That would mean our entire air defence strategy during the cold war has been completely wrong and that those QRA flights in the North Sea are utterly futile?! And if in the highly unlikely event this were true, does that mean the MKI would trounce the Rafale’s the IAF is so keen on getting?! Complete b0ll0cks. In most cases such as this, there is usually a fairly well balanced outcome, one side may prevail under some conditions, the other side in other conditions.

No one disputes that what is signficant is the IAF’s need to comment almost immediatley after every exercise. Empty vessels creek the loudest and all that…

You sound really gotten to.

There is no need to be upset over some potentially embellished defense reporting.

Not at all, just the frequency of it amuses me. A bit like you do…

Would not be surprised if the IAF got thrashed and a few RAF flyboys are having a beer laughing over this news…..

Well, the way they seem to behave seems amateur. The difference is that givernments are trying to sell aircraft. In this case pilots went up against other pilots. One team packed off and went quietly home, the other team shouted about how great they were. It really is that simple, just like the bully at school who mouths off about how tough he is until he gets smacked in the face by the quiet unassuming guy.

This really does paint the IAF in a poor light.

To be fair, what the IAF actually said was –

1. Group Captain Ashu Srivastav, the Contingent Commander in the exercises, told NDTV that the performance of his pilots was “exceptional.” According to Group Captain Srivastav, who happens to be the IAF’s most experienced Su-30 pilot, his pilots showed “flexibility and adaptability to a new environment and operating conditions and on this benchmark, I would rate them exceptional.”

2. Group Captain Srivastav told NDTV his pilots performed “fairly well” though “quantifying [the results] is difficult”.

No IAF officer has been quoted making a 12-0 claim in there. No IAF pilot commented on the Cope India results either AFAIK (those results were put out by the USAF brass IIRC, likely looking to shore up support for the F-22). As for what the media can get hold off, I’m sure you remember the RAF Typhoon that ‘killed’ two USAF F-15Es single-handedly. Now where did that story come from?

So you are admitting that the 12-0 score is total BS as we suspect then? No IAF officer mentioned it, but already the fragile Indian Media ego is making it sound like an outstanding victory….

This reminds me of a near-incident in Toronto a few years back. We took an SR-71 up for the Toronto Air Show (Canadian International Air Show) in about 1967 and operated out of Toronto International Airport, across the ramp from a huge Air Canada maintenance hanger capable of holding,and was actually full of, many aircraft of various types (747s and others). The hanger was built with a drainage system running along the center of the bays, with aircraft nosed in from both sides. Part of the drain was system that sensed hydrocarbon fluids (i.e. fuel) entering the drains and would flood the entire hanger with foam like the helicopter facility pictured above even if, as a preventative measure, there was no actual fire. The night before we were to fly in the show (a couple of passes over the lake then a max performance departure) and return to California, we prepared the aircraft for the morning and most of us left for the night. During the night it began to rain and the very helpful Air Canada night crew decided to help us out and tow the aircraft forward into an empty bay to keep the aircraft dry (they did notify us but did not mention the drain and its fire suppression system). Our maintenance people still with the aircraft monitored the tow and all went well. However, as some of you might know, because the JP-7 is such a good solvent it tended to dissolve the fuel tank sealant over time…the longer the aircraft has been out of major maintenance the more it leaks. Therefore, when the SR is fueled it has a tendency to leak a little around the fuselage expansion joints, something the local guys were unaware of. So, about 10PM they towed it into hanger, and by midnight virtually everyone was gone. When the morning shift arrived about 6AM, they discovered a nice trail of JP7 extending from the aircraft to a point about two feet short of the drain. There was a mad panic (including, I was told, a desperate clash with the fire department who had responded and per SOP were on the verge of flushing the site from their trucks which would have put all the fuel into the drains!) to sandbag the drain and clean up the spill. It was successful, but a near thing. Ultimately nothing happened, but they figured they were about 15 minutes from the spill hitting the drain and activating the foam…that would have been something like 500,000 square feet of foamed hanger about 15 feet deep (or roughly 8 million cubic feet we figured) covering the SR and about a dozen various Air Canada aircraft. It would have been really, really ugly!!

By the way, given the high flash point of JP7 (its sea level vapor pressure is so low you could drop lighted matches into it and they simply went out) there isn’t much fire hazard from a spill. In fact, I was told by one of the Lockheed people that many years ago there was a tanker that landed with a collapsed nose gear that resulted in a small hydraulic fluid fire as it slid along the runway. The forward body tank containing JP7 ruptured as the aircraft came to a stop and the resulting spill put out the fire.

Wow!

Air Canada had 747s 2 years before the types first flight! The sh*t those guys at Boeing pull huh?