C-17 Globemaster III (IAF)

[Neil]

IAF looking to induct seven more C-17 aircraft: Air Chief Marshal NAK Browne


The Indian Air Force is looking forward to add to its fleet seven more C-17 heavy lift aircraft which are capable of ferrying tanks and artillery guns close to the borders with China and Pakistan.

"As far as the transport fleet is concerned, we are looking at inducting six additional C-130J and seven C-17s in the near future," IAF Chief Air Chief Marshal NAK Browne said.

"Also in the pipeline is the procurement of 45 Medium Transport Aircraft, presently, under joint development between Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and Russia," he said in an interview with Defence Ministry's Sainik Samachar magazine.

India already has placed an order for 10 C-17 aircraft from the US Air Force worth over Rs 20,000 crore and three have already been inducted at its Hindan air base near here.

A C-17 has the capability to land at short airfields such as the Daulat Beg Oldie advanced landing ground in Ladakh sector and carry 150 combat-ready troops to a distance of 4,200 km in one go.

Meanwhile, the IAF chief said the three services are working towards creating a separate command to tackle threats and issues in the Cyber arena which will soon be sent for approval of the Cabinet Committee on Security.

"The Services are working towards the formation of a Tri-Services Cyber Command and a comprehensive draft CCS note has been worked out along with the requirements of manpower and financial costs," he said.

"An interim structure for the cyber command would be formed after the approval of the Defence Ministry and the full fledged command structure would take shape only after the CCS approval," the IAF chief stated.

The IAF chief said the proposed Cyber Command would be fully integrated with the other existing national structures of cyber security.

Browne said with the induction of latest equipment and platform, the force has emerged as a strategic force from being a tactical one earlier. Similar proposals to have a Special Forces command are also pending for approval by the government.


IAF looking to induct seven more C-17 aircraft: Air Chief Marshal NAK Browne | idrw.org

 

[Neil]

Indian C-17 Debuts Operations With Phailin Cyclone Relief

http://www.livefistdefence.com/

 

[p2prada]

It could if it was replaced by the F-35. Honestly, I see little advantage in the Rafale.

The first and foremost requirement of the MRCA deal was that IAF wanted a proven aircraft and not in-development aircraft. That's why the F-35 wasn't even a contender to begin with.

Respectfully, I think you could make a better case for a Stealthy Twin Seat Version of the PAK-FA.

According to the announcement in Aero-India 2013, twin seat FGFA will be developed. This is a "huge" project and there's plenty of time.

I've suggest that India could purchase the rights of such at type and maybe able to export it! As what country has a 2-Seat Stealthy Strike Fighter. Something like a 5th Generation F-15E Strike Fighter.

That was the plan. But now it looks like IAF doesn't want the FGFA exported.

 

[pmaitra]

Let's keep the discussion about C-17.

 

[nirranj]

Boeing to cease C-17 production in 2015

Boeing will shutter the production line for its C-17 Globemaster III strategic airlifter in 2015, the company announced on 18 September.

"Despite strong international interest we did not receive sufficient orders to continue to protect the C-17 production line beyond 2015," says Nan Bouchard, Boeing vice-president and C-17 programme manager. Thus far, the company has delivered 223 C-17s to the US Air Force and 34 additional airframes to international customers.

There are still 22 C-17s being built. Seven are destined for the Indian air force, while two more are for an undisclosed customer, Bouchard says. The thirteen remaining aircraft have no firm orders, she says, but the company will sell those machines.

Even though the C-17 line will close, Boeing will continue to support the aircraft via its Globemaster Integrated Sustainment Programme, says Bouchard. The engineering talent to design and build strategic airlifters will be retained within Boeing via the C-17 sustainment programme, she adds. However, to what extent the skills to design an entirely new airlifter from scratch will be retained is an open question.

Boeing is under contract to the USAF to transition the tooling to a post-production state to supply spare parts and repairs, Bouchard says. All of the tooling for the aircraft, including those belonging to sub-contractors are being examined to determine whether the production hardware should be retained. Potentially, the USAF could retain enough of the tooling to restart the C-17 line, Bouchard says. However, there are no plans to do so.

It will be good for India if we can bring these machinery to India and build some 20-30 Airrafts in India. they can retain the critical elements. We can do majority of the non critical work and assemling the Aircraft in India... Any how India will have the requirement of more of these types of Aircraft. Can we request this with the US govt to approve this under TOT or something?? It will help us to learn valuable expertise in building such heavy Aircraft... Or some Indian Private entreprices can buy this assembly line under Govt initiatives...

Thoughts on this...

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/boeing-to-cease-c-17-production-in-2015-390717/

 

[ramakrishna]

Can we request this with the US govt to approve this under TOT or something?? It will help us to learn valuable expertise in building such heavy Aircraft... Or some Indian Private entreprices can buy this assembly line under Govt initiatives...

u just provided the question and as well as the answer .... I dont think US can do TOT as they fear we will learn the technology and we will develop the things on our own .... that will make us free from depending on US for the aircrafts ....

but one more thing is even if they allow TOT are we capable to do the things on our own? if we do have that much capacity we would have by now produced healthy number of fighter jets on the basis of mig or mirage or raffale .... correct me if I am wrong ...

 

[shuvo@y2k10]

has the iaf considered An-120 which can carry twice the payload as globemaster?

 

[arnabmit]

has the iaf considered An-120 which can carry twice the payload as globemaster?

Hasn't both AN-120 and C-5 Galaxy ceased production?

 

[Blackwater]

has the iaf considered An-120 which can carry twice the payload as globemaster?

Only payload is not THE only criteria to select these birds.

There other things like spares, maintainence Cost , crew needed, fuel economy, easy to fly and many more

 

[pmaitra]

has the iaf considered An-120 which can carry twice the payload as globemaster?

Hasn't both AN-120 and C-5 Galaxy ceased production?

Can you guys provide a link to An-120 please?

 

[Blackwater]

Hasn't both AN-120 and C-5 Galaxy ceased production?

Can you guys provide a link to An-120 please?

BTW what is AN-120.??? there is nothing called AN-120 its AN-124 condor

 

[arnabmit]

Can you guys provide a link to An-120 please?

BTW what is AN-120.??? there is nothing called AN-120 its AN-124 condor

Yeah, AN-124 it is...

 

[DivineHeretic]

Only payload is not THE only criteria to select these birds.

There other things like spares, maintainence Cost , crew needed, fuel economy, easy to fly and many more

Absolutely correct..

You know, when you are not skewering the Mard-e-Moins, you are quite the knowlegeable guy.

But I'll add another two very important requirements for a transport AC.

1). Aircraft availability : This is very important for any aircraft, but is especially true for transport fleet. It becomes extremely difficult to perform effectively and optimally if most of the fleet is unavailable when the call of duty comes. It is especially seen in the Mi-26 of the IAF.

It also forces the induction of a larger number of AC than originally planned to ensure minimum fleet availability. This then again brings about higher pressure on supply chains which in turn effects their availability even further. Classic downward spiral.

The damping effect on transportation of vital assets is amplified by the fact that the transport fleet in India is almost always on duty to different parts of the country (and abroad) and thus any loss of availability will effect schedules all over the country.

Just imagine the simultaneous requirement of moving heavy assets by air to Sikkim and Ladakh and Eastern Arunachal Pradesh. If out of 10 AC suitable for the job 4 are out of operation, you are left with 6 to do the job. Now, its possible to do it, but your timelines will have suffered which will then again bring about additional delays.

For examole, If the aviation fuel supplies via air fail to reach a particular location, your helicopter transport fleet at the location gets grounded, which then results in the mule trains or other transportation assets being idled. This in turn slows your advance or even grinds it to a halt.

It will restart again once the supplies resume, but then the delays will just add up for each segment of transportation.So one cog moving slowly slows down the entire supply machinery by several multitude of order of the original delay.

 

[DivineHeretic]

2) Turn around time: Sure now you have finally conducted a sortie and delivered vital assets to a location. But that is not the end of the day for the AC. Especially in the strategic airlift segement, where we will always have few AC, it becomes imperative that the AC can be readied ASAP for the next run.

This is extremely imoortant when flying in air assault brigades or divisions, and even for supplying para borne forces. There is no way any air force save the USAF of WW2 can deploy such a large fighting force in a single lift sortie. And then even if someone could, they would still need to fly in supplies very quick.

The longer the turn around time for an AC, the longer it takes to build up the fighting force, which again diminishes their effectivenes and speed and surprise.
Couple that with low fleet availability and it might simple make it unfeasible to conduct such a raid operation even when the opportunity presents itself.

 

[arnabmit]

As the C-5 has pathetic lifecycle costs, India could surely look at An-124s and get back into the good books of Russia once again.

6 of these can do wonders to India's strategic lift capabilities. Out of 6, even if 4 are operational at any given time, with a 1 day TAT, imagine the capability to airlift 4x4=16 MBTs to any corner of India in a day! More than a 100 MBTs in a week!

This could be vital in a 2 front war scenario...

 

[Blackwater]

As the C-5 has pathetic lifecycle costs, India could surely look at An-124s and get back into the good books of Russia once again.

6 of these can do wonders to India's strategic lift capabilities. Out of 6, even if 4 are operational at any given time, with a 1 day TAT, imagine the capability to airlift 4x4=16 MBTs to any corner of India in a day! More than a 100 MBTs in a week!

This could be vital in a 2 front war scenario...

even AN-124 running and maintenance cost is also not good either. Antonov has stopped AN-124 production 2 decades ago. they are using old ones with spares .its only fruitful if u use them commercially otherwise militarily they have no significance.

India dont need either C-5 or AN-124.

I think C-130 and C-17 along with Gajraj and few AN-32- will serve the purpose

 

[SilentKiller]

has the iaf considered An-120 which can carry twice the payload as globemaster?

Do we really need them, currently do we have infrastructure and knowledge enough to maintain An-120 in india?
buy what we need first.

 

[pmaitra]

Do we really need them, currently do we have infrastructure and knowledge enough to maintain An-120 in india?
buy what we need first.

That was a typo. It is Antonov-124 'Condor.'

 

[ladder]

Indian Air Force gets fourth airlifter

The Indian Air Force (IAF) has received its Fourth Boeing C-17 Globemaster III, a large, versatile military transport aircraft capable of carrying heavy, oversize loads long distances and landing on rough and unprepared surfaces. Once India receives its full complement of ten aircraft, it will be the largest C-17 operator outside the US.

detailed news

Indian Air Force gets fourth airlifter - The New Indian Express

 

[rugved]

USAF has 223 C-17s? :shocked: