Guest Column | A Serious Concern || February 2019

Gp Capt. Gopal Sharma

Amidst the on-going political controversy on the alleged irregularities in purchase of French Rafale, one does not get the sense that Parliamentarians are aware of the seriousness of the situation that the Indian Air Force (IAF) is critically short of combat aircraft needed for the security of the nation. It is keeping up with some aircraft which are old, unsafe and on repeated life extensions much beyond their service life.

The defence minister, replying to the Opposition charge on alleged irregularities informed the Parliament that combat strength of the country has fallen substantially during the last decade in contrast to China and Pakistan. While in India the strength has fallen to much lower levels than authorised due to the retirements of fleets of old aircraft, China and Pakistan have been adding to their strength of the combat aircraft. China has added over 400 aircraft in 2004-15; and Pakistan has doubled the number of its F-16s, besides adding 43 JF-17s.

In 2018, the IAF had 31 squadrons, down from 40 in 2004. It would lose another 14 squadrons of vintage MiG-21s and MiG-27s aircraft over the next decade leading to a serious aircraft state unless induction plan to fill up the shortfall is pursued punctiliously.

Required Combat Strength

The IAF was sanctioned for 42 squadrons of fighters to protect its western and northern borders with Pakistan and China. Though in the past, the IAF at best had the strength of 39.5 squadrons in mid-1980, the realists feel that the IAF needs more than 42 squadrons to effectively counter the adversary’s threat. This has been supported by the 2014 parliamentary panel which averred in its report that India requires 45 squadrons to counter the two front collusive threats of Pakistan and China. It also flagged concerns about India’s depleting military capability in the context of tackling a two-front challenge, i.e., combined threat from China and Pakistan.

The problem is accentuated with the variety of aircraft in the IAF inventory which makes their maintenance difficult. The IAF wants to reduce the inventory of its combat jets to mainly three aircraft categories, i.e., 300-350 light combat aircraft (LCA), 200 medium combat aircraft (MCA), and 300-350 heavy combat aircraft (HCA). Eventually, the indigenous Tejas will fill the requirement of LCAs, Rafale MMRCA and indigenous Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) will make up for the medium combat aircraft. Finally, SU-30MKI will meet our requirement in heavy aircraft category.

Thus, a common perception that the IAF has a preference for aircraft genre imported from abroad against the indigenous one is far from true as most future replacements of combat aircraft are likely to be met both from indigenous and external sources. Even though AMCA is still at the design stage, the former chief of air staff ACM Arup Raha has on record stated that the IAF will induct indigenous AMCA under development in the medium weight aircraft category to fill the vacant slot of Jaguars, Mirages and MiG 27 fighters which eventually will get phased out at the end of the next decade.

Current Combat Strength

The IAF has an effective strength of 31 combat squadrons, although it has 34 combat squadrons in total. These include six of MiG-21Bison, three of MiG27 UPG, 11 of the Su-30MKI, three each of the MiG-29 UPG and Mirage 2000 (currently undergoing an upgrade) and six of the Jaguar (at the initial stage of an upgrade process).

The estimated current strength of combat-worthy aircraft is given below:

Expected Retirements

1. MiG Bison: Retirement planned during 2019-20. Maybe extended until LCA’s induction.
2. MiG 27UPG: Likely life extension by 15 years after upgradation. Maybe retired by the