Wow! That’s pathetically low, is it not? 😮

The current 15 hrs per month comes out to 180 hrs per year. Even that seems to be on the lower side.

HHawk, dont the Mig-21 pilots log about 200-240 hours in a year in the IAF?

Dont know about the Mig-21’s , but in 1997/98 (just before the Kargil infilteration ) the IAF logged a total of 306,190 hours of flying .(Fighters and transports). (source : Report of the Kalam Committee on Air Safety)

yup, i think this was due to the sanctions at that time. 108 hours per year is very very low.

Only the F-16’s were under sanctions (and the C-130’s ?) were they not ? And there were only 32 F-16’s then. So it could’nt have been the sanctions. And if the F-16’s were under sanctions , what was their flying hours then ? Even lower tham 100 hours ?

How about a civilian part time pilot ? He/She can fly a certain number of hours to keep up with the training with the air force and fly the rest for Civilian Aviation. I dont recomend this for fighter pilots though ,just transports.
Fighter pilots can/must have a full time job.Keeps everyone happy, the booming civilian side poachers and takes the pressure off the Air Force.

We’re still operating Harriers off the carriers. But they’re not Sea Harriers.

Oops, sorry, you’re right, I thought all Harriers were being retired ! Rechecked and found that the GR 9 will stay till the JSF arrives.

HH, this article answers you

Thank You SS , It’s bad times ahead if the Indian navy and I are thinking alike 😉

HAL working on multi-role aircraft, new chopper

April 03, 2006

By Indo Asian News Service

Bangalore, April 3 (IANS) Aviation major Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) has begun work on two major projects to roll out a multi-role transport aircraft and a multi-role helicopter for the military.

‘The multi-role transport aircraft (MTA) is being designed and developed with Irkut Corporation of Russia for the Indian and Russian air forces. The aircraft is intended to replace the ageing AN-32 transport fleet of the Indian Air Force (IAF),’ the defence public sector behemoth said in a statement issued Monday.

‘The 15-20-tonne capacity MTA can also be converted into a 100-seat passenger aircraft for civilian use.’

The aerospace major has also set the ball rolling to manufacture a 10-tonne multi-role helicopter in collaboration with an overseas firm. HAL, however, did not name its partner.

The rotorcraft is intended to replace the ageing British-built Sea King helicopter fleet of the Indian Navy.

Company officials hinted Bell Helicopter of the US and Eurocopter were in the race to partner with HAL in the project to design and develop the heavy-duty helicopter.

During fiscal 2005-06, HAL spent Rs.4.13 billion on research and development, including preliminary work on the light combat helicopter (LCH).

This is an upgraded version of its 5.5-tonne advanced light helicopter (ALH), christened Dhruv. The LCH will be inducted into the IAF.

‘We have also launched project activities for the (British) advanced jet trainer (Hawk), which will be produced in our Bangalore facility under licence from BAe Systems of the UK. The first AJT is expected to be rolled out in the next fiscal (2007-08) for induction into the IAF,’ the statement said.

Certification process on the LCA and the intermediate jet trainer (IJT) being developed by HAL is underway to take up their full-scale production for the IAF.

Meanwhile, the Bangalore-based company has reported a provisional sales turnover of Rs.53.75 billion ($1.2 billion) for fiscal 2005-06, registering a growth of 18.5 percent over the last fiscal.

Exports accounted for Rs.1.85 billion. For the new fiscal, HAL has firmed up export contracts to the tune of Rs.2.5 billion.

‘We have also signed various contracts worth Rs.178 billion ($4 billion) for execution in the next couple of years,’ the statement said.

Posting a pre-tax profit of Rs.10 billion, which is an increase of 32 percent over the last fiscal, the state-owned firm declared an interim dividend of Rs.1.9 billion.

Totally off-topic, but does anyone know where Burger-Boy has disappeared to ?
Too many Mcburgers ? 😀

remember reading a science fiction short story where people were making a special type of glass that slowed down the speed of light.

The speed of light btw , has been slowed down to 17 m/s (in real life) by Lene Hau and her team way back in 1999 and now they are trying to slow it down to 1 cm/s .
So your special glass is not too far off in the future….lol

The meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan singh and attended by Home Minister Shivraj Patil, Finance Minister P Chidambaram besides Mukherjee, also gave sanction to full scale development of 20 Tejas Light Combat Aircraft at the HAL at a cost of Rs 2,439 crores.

Thats roughly ~$ 600 mil for 20 aircrafts . So a 600 mil order for HAL 🙂

In theory, by travelling at the speed of light you could get practically anywhere in our Galaxy in a rather short ‘ship time’.. But you could never return back because the Earth you’d find would be completely different from the one you have left.

Is’nt it true that if you travel faster than the speed of light , you actually travel backwards in time ?
So the space picnic’ers could use a mixture of both ‘faster than / slower than’ the speed of light ‘ to stay in the same time period . 🙂