Multiple Origin Fleets – Complexities for IAF – Time to Rationalise

At the time of independence, Indian Air Force (IAF) inherited some of the aviation assets left by the British including Hawker Tempest and Spitfires. India also procured more British aircraft like the Hawker Hunter, the Gnat, Devon, and Vickers Viscount. The USA was reluctant but offered some helicopters. The French offered fighter aircraft in the 1950s such as Dassault Ouragan (Toofani) and Mystere. By the late 1950s, India had inducted Soviet medium transport aircraft IL-14 and Mi-4 helicopters, and in the 1960s An-12 and a top-line MiG-21 fighter. India also procured many Soviet air defence systems and weapons. With this began a relationship of “Bear Hug” that even today nearly 65% of the IAF aircraft fleet is of Soviet/Russian origin. Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) also initially began manufacturing foreign aircraft under license production, including the French Allouette, British Gnat, and Russian MiG series, Jaguars, among many others. Sourcing from different countries had its own complexities of mixed spare inventories and overhaul management. This sometimes resulted in lower aircraft serviceability and higher maintenance cost. Also in many cases, the Life Cycle costs went up. 

Light Combat Aircraft LCA ‘Tejas’. Image Source: HAL

Current Fighter Fleets IAF Aircraft

The SEPECAT Jaguar, the Anglo-French deep-strike ground attack aircraft was ordered in 1978, and 120 were built by HAL under license. India made major avionics updates including the inertial attack system (DARIN), autopilot, cockpit avionics, weapons, and radar. IAF still flies nearly 140 aircraft in 6 Squadrons and plans to operate till 2030. IAF operates 36 French Dassault Rafale. It had earlier bought Dassault Mirage-2000 in 1984 and the same has been upgraded to Mirage-2000-5 Mk II standards. Mirages will fly in IAF beyond 2030. HAL carries out Mirage aircraft and engine overhauls. Most components and spares still come from abroad. 63 of the 80 MiG-29s procured from the Soviet Union have been upgraded recently. Three upgraded MiG-21 ‘Bison’ are still with IAF and will phase out by 2025. India has nearly 260 Sukhoi SU-30MKI, most of which have been licensed-produced in India. The aircraft will soon be upgraded as ‘Super Sukhoi’ with AESA radar and will be the backbone of the IAFs fighter fleet for at least the next two decades.

Indian Air Force C-130 J. Image Source: Lockheed Martin

Transport Aircraft

89 British Hawker Siddley HS-748 medium turboprop aircraft were licensed-produced in India by HAL. A few of these aircraft are still used for communication duties. HAL built the German, RUAG Aviation Dornier-228 under license in India. IAF operates Russian Ilyushin IL-76MD (freighter), IL-78MKI (Flight Air Refueller), and A-50 with Israeli Phalcon radar as AEW&C. IAF’s over 100 An-32 had come from a plant that was in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Indo-US relations have come a long since the cold vibes of the 1950s which had pushed India into the Soviet camp. Starting in 2004, the Indo-US Cope India series of joint exercises began, and IAF also participates in the Top-Gun Red Flag Exercises in the U.S. The more serious relationship began with the USA offering high-end aircraft. India procured the Boeing P-8I for the Indian Navy and Lockheed C-130J-30s “Super” Hercules”, and Boeing C-17 Globemaster III, strategic lift aircraft for IAF. India has recently signed a contract with Airbus for 56 CASA C 295 W, 40 of which will be built in India.  

IAF LCH ‘Prachand’. Image Source PIB

Helicopters

Over 300 Aerospatiale Allouette III, Light Utility Helicopters (LUH) were manufactured under license by HAL. Variants ‘Chetak’, ‘Cheetah’, and ‘Cheetal’ are still flying in India, including for high-altitude operations on the Siachen glacier. Mid-sized Russian utility and assault helicopters Mi-8s joined IAF in the early 1980s. Later more advanced versions of Mi-17, Mi-17-1V, and Mi-17V-5s followed. Nearly 240 are in service. The IAF procured Boeing Apache AH-64 Longbow attack helicopters and CH-47 Chinook heavy-lift helicopters. The USA has thus gotten into India’s transport and helicopter ecosystem. They are now offering the F-16, F-18, and F15 for the MRCA completion.

BAE Hawk 132. Image Source: Indian Air Force

Trainer Aircraft

         HAL Kiran (HJT-16) intermediate stage jet trainer was influenced by the British Jet Provost design. Kirans have the Rolls Royce Viper engine and later versions Bristol Siddeley Orpheus engine. India acquired nearly 75 Swiss Pilatus PC-7 Mk II trainers. BAE Systems Hawk Mk 132,a British single-engine advanced jet trainer is used for training and low-cost combat. Being built by HAL under license, the numbers will soon be around 140. A Russian engine is supposed to power the indigenous Intermediate Jet Trainer (IJT).

Harop UCAV. Image Source: IAI

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Israel has been a very significant aerospace partner of India since the two established formal diplomatic relations in 1992 and defence ties in 1996. India acquired Heron and Searcher Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) and Harpy and Harop Combat UAVs (UCAV) from Israel. In addition, the Phalcon advanced airborne early warning radars for India’s IL-76 based AEW&C, Night Vision Goggles, Green Pine early-warning and fire-control radars, and many other items like Laser guidance kits, Head-Up-Displays. The Multi-Mode Radar on IAF’s maritime Jaguars and India’s LCA Tejas is also from Israel. Adani-Elbit joint venture makes Hermes UAVs in India. Rafael supplies the IAF with Spyder Low-Level Quick Reaction Missile systems (LLQRM) armed with Python and Derby missiles, and India and Israel work closely on medium-range surface-to-air missiles (MRSAM) and LRSAMs.

India is also likely to acquire 30 MQ-9 UAVs for the three armed forces from General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) of the USA, two of which have been on lease with the Indian Navy for two years and have flown nearly 10,000 hours. Meanwhile, India has ambitious plans for indigenous UAVs and drones.

Aircraft Engines

         India has been dependent on foreign-origin aircraft engines. India has been making Russian, British, and French engines under license for many years. Even the ALH engine Shakti is through a joint venture with France. The US-origin General Electric engines power LCA variants and are likely to be used for AMCA for some time to come.

DRDO ‘Ghatak’ UCAV. Image Source: DRDO

HAL, PSUs, and Private Industry

HAL has made thousands of fixed and rotary-wing aircraft in the last 75 years. Other than HF-24 Marut, ALH helicopter variants, a few trainers, and more recently LCA, all aircraft have been of foreign origin, licensed, and produced in India. HAL built aircraft using foreign production technology drawings. In most of these cases, India has been dependent on foreign suppliers even for relatively low-end technologies. Often license production was at the mercy of foreign-supplied systems or parts. At times small parts become obsolete because no one manufactures them due to poor economics of scale. HAL did succeed in creating local vendors for these parts. Even today, many major components of LCA, the engine, radar, ejection seat, many avionics, and weapons are imported.

The logistics chain for IAF often means routing spare parts from foreign vendors through HAL. HAL’s ability to arm-twist foreign vendors is relatively low. Also, many foreign suppliers are worried about India becoming independent of them and keep delaying supplies to HAL intentionally.

India has successfully used the joint-venture route in some cases, but there has been no significant transfer of technology (ToT) in most cases. China has used intellectual theft and reverse engineering to build top-end defence systems but has now invested large sums in research and development and become independent.

Indian private aviation industry is also dependent on many DRDO labs and other Defence PSUs who in turn are also dependent on foreign firms.  Complexities for private players are similar. The Drone Federation of India has listed the many critical components of drones made in India that are still imported. While it is encouraging to see some major private players entering defence production, the industry still needs hand-holding and support with India-friendly policies and it is presumed that the new Defence Acquisition Procedure will make a difference.

Rafale Fighter. Image Source: IAF

Logistics and Maintenance Complexities of Multi-Country Fleets

From the above, it is clear that India is dependent on many countries. Managing aircraft fleets from many countries has its complexities. Each country follows different methods of inventory management and in many cases, India has to follow a similar system. Each country has different import and export regulations and follows different customs procedures. There are different timelines for repairs and spare supplies. Each country has different agencies to deal with and many have further placed orders to sub-vendors. 

Many unpredictable trigger events bring in logistic chain disruptions. The break-up of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s caused a level of turmoil for supplies. Though Russia took over the contracts and supplies, India still had to deal with other countries like Ukraine for many items. Similarly, with the recent Russia-Ukraine conflict, there has been disruption of some supplies. Russia’s own internal arms replacement requirements due to the war would bring in their own supply priorities. On India becoming a nuclear weapons power, many countries led by the USA put arms supply restrictions. Luckily Russia and France stood by India then.  

A few Western countries like the USA do have strategic or political reasons for military supplies but most European countries primarily have commercial interests. The Soviets, to politically win over India, earlier supplied aircraft in barter for ships loads of bananas, shoes, or hosiery. After the breakup in 1991, the payments began in hard dollars, but the mindset of many in the Russian aircraft industry has still to recover from the Soviet hangover. The signing of even small contracts for spares takes much longer time with Russia. Some Russian production houses are financially weak because of considerably reduced orders.

Post-Ukraine conflict, it is clear that supply chains can be disrupted through financial and shipping-related sanctions. One of India’s submarines on repair in Russia cannot return back due to such sanctions.  

The initial per unit cost of Russian combat aircraft has always been lower, but the Life Cycle Costs (LCC) have invariably been high because of faster replacement rates and shorter overhaul cycles. Because of the long repair cycle involving complex export-import procedures, the Russian fleet serviceability has often been seen at between 50-60 percent. While Western countries have adopted modern online means of spare monitoring and supply, Russians mostly follow the old system of indenting. Serviceability and mission accomplishment rates of some Western fleets have been fairly high. Any force with around 650 combat aircraft having 60% serviceability would mean 320 aircraft in the hangar. The government-mandated serviceability is stipulated at 75%. Taking the cost of a typical fighter even at around Rs 400 Cr, nearly 260 aircraft on the ground would mean assets worth Rs 1,04,000 Cr being non-operational. This is a very high figure.

Indian Air Force SU-30 MKI. Image Source: Wikipedia

Balancing the Arms Basket

Undoubtedly the Soviet Union and Russia were a great help to India for arms supplies during critical initial years and the relationship remained rock-solid. However, after the 1990s, Western countries pushed ahead in some technologies. Also as India started becoming a significant economic and military power, the West began to woo it and was more ready to give advanced weapons. This gave India greater options to choose from. In the long term, it is not in India’s interest to have most of its eggs (arms) in a single basket.

India has to thin its Russian aircraft basket. India finally backed out of the joint Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA) program with Russia, ostensibly for technical reasons. It also did not pursue the twin-engine Multirole Transport Aircraft (MTA), and the Ka-226 light utility helicopter. IAF which at the peak had nearly 85% Russian aircraft has already come down to around 65%. Yet just the Su-30 MKI constitutes nearly 40% of IAF’s fighter fleet. The arm’s basket needs balancing. 

Jaguar Aircraft. Image Source: IAF

Operational Management of Multiple Fleets

         IAF has airborne platforms from Russia, the USA, the UK, France, Israel, Ukraine, and Switzerland. India has seven types of fighters in Su-30 MKI, Rafale, Mig-29, MiG-21 Bison, Mirage 2000, Jaguar, and LCA Tejas. Clearly, IAF had no choice but to master the art of operationally managing mixed fleets. India has also managed to integrate a large number of fully programmable Western and Indian avionics even in Russian aircraft such as SU-30, Mig-27, and MiG-21 Bison, etc. Russian aircraft do have some commonality of systems with each other, but spare part nomenclatures being different did make it difficult for IAF to manage inventories for many years. For many initial years, the combat employment approach of IAF was Russia-centric, but after the induction of the Jaguar and Mirage-2000 the same changed, and also the Tactics and Air Combat Development Establishment (TACDE) supported the evolution of the Indian combat employment approach. 

An artistic rendition of Tejas Mark II. Image Source: Wikipedia

Action Time

IAF’s depleting air assets are already inadequate for an air campaign in a two-front scenario. Technology-intensive air power requires faster replacement of assets due to quicker obsolescence. IAF is down to 30 combat Squadrons vis-à-vis the authorized 42. Low serviceability adds to the already dismal scenario. A critical component of improved serviceability is the improved logistics chain. Many fleets mean many aircraft inventories. Every 5% improvement in serviceability would mean adding 32 aircraft (1.5 squadrons). By merely improving the average serviceability from 60% to 75% IAF could be at around 4.5 squadrons. Serviceability is also linked to supply chains.

  The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) has decided to restrict its fighter aircraft fleet to just 3-4 types in the long run. These would primarily be the F-16, J-10C, and JF-17. China is also working towards that end. In the long run, India must start rationalizing its fleets. I feel India should primarily have the AMCA, LCA, Su-30 MKI, and one more foreign fighter type, bringing down the fleets to just four. The MiG 21 Bison will phase out and the LCA Mk2 will replace the Mirage-2000, Jaguar, and MiG-29. India will have to buy a foreign MRCA. IAF already has two squadrons of Rafale. It has already paid for India-specific enhancements, two air bases have the infrastructure to take on more aircraft, and reports are that the Indian Navy has shortlisted Rafale-M for carrier operations. It would then make eminent sense to go for more Rafale aircraft, making it much more viable to Make-in-India.  

Rationalizing and reducing the number of fleets should be a priority. Till we induct more indigenous aircraft, all future procurements must keep this factor in mind. Geo-politically it is best to spread eggs in different baskets. In the long run, India must target what I call a 30-30-40 aircraft mix. This means 30% Russian, 30% Western, and 40% Indian. It may take us over two decades to reach there but should be the target. 

Header Image Source: Indian Air Force

Note: This article by the author was first published in News 18 on January 28, 2023