Faced with the reality that the deal to buy 126 new fighters from France's Dassault Aviation will not be inked for the next few months and could possibly be delayed till the next government is in saddle in May next year, the Indian Air Force has begun upgrading a major chunk of its fleet of fighters.
The IAF faces a crisis as the key IAS official handling the Dassault Aviation purchase in the Ministry of Defence died of an heart attack a couple of weeks ago. The process is complex and the new appointee may take a few months to understand the matter that relates to purchase of 125 twin-engine Rafale planes at the cost of $15 billion (approx Rs 90,000 crore at today's valuation). Moreover, the ongoing issue of localisation of production is yet to be sorted out.
As of now, the IAF is upgrading some 210 fighter jets in its fleet to meet the challenges and equip the planes with the gadgetry of today's war fighting scenario. The upgrades will be on the Mirage-2000, MiG-29 and Jaguar, all purchased in the 1980s from France, Russia and the UK, respectively.
The next phase will be to upgrade the older lot of Sukhoi-30 MKI planes to equip them with latest radars like the 'X-band' allowing a simultaneous track on 30 aerial targets and engage at least six of them. Also the radar signature will be reduced and it will have a new longer range missiles.
The upgrade was anyway needed to bring the planes in tune with latest technology, but the slow place on deciding on the purchase of 126 Rafale has added a tinge of urgency. The IAF Chief had said on October 4: "Negotiations are still on. I cannot place a timeline on when the deal will be signed"¦The Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and Dassault are in talks and hope they come with an agreement".
Besides this, starting next year, three different versions of the MiG 21 planes are to be phased out. Also the MiG 27, another Soviet-era plane used by the IAF, will be phased out. These two planes form the lowest layer of IAF fighter jets in terms of technology. The MiG 29, the Mirage-2000 and the Jaguar are the second layer while Sukhoi-30 MKI is the frontline top-layer.
The IAF has a sanctioned strength of 42 squadrons (some 16 to 18 planes in each) but it has just 33. The 34th, a Sukhoi-30-MKI squadron, is being raised at Sirsa in Haryana.
The upgrades will make the IAF carry on with the older planes for at least 15 more years. The MiG 29 fleet of 62 twin-engined planes inducted in the mid 1980s is being upgraded at a cost of $964 million. The upgrade will convert these planes into multi-role fighters, a new avionics suite, latest radars. Similarly the fleet of 51 Mirage-2000 planes is being upgraded under a $2.4 billion contract by Dassault Aviation, its manufacturer. This will also have a new radar, a night vision compatible digital cockpit, helmet-mounted sights and new missiles.
