India's air force at risk against tou... - Economic Times

BENGALURU: India's air force risks a major capability gap opening up with China and Pakistan without new western warplanes or if local defence contractors can't produce what the military needs in a timely manner.

A 2012 agreement to buy 126 Rafale fighters from France's Dassault Aviation has stalled due to a dispute over the assembly of the aircraft in India.

India's first homegrown fighter, the Tejas light combat aircraft, will finally be delivered next month, 30 years after it was conceived. But senior air force officers privately said they were unimpressed, with one former officer, an ex-fighter pilot, saying the plane was "so late it is obsolete".

While the navy is undergoing an accelerated modernisation drive, experts said India was vulnerable in the skies because of its reliance on a disparate fleet of ageing Russian-made MiG and French Mirage fighters, along with more modern Russian Sukhoi Su-30s. Half of India's fighters are due to retire beginning this year until 2024.

"It could lead to humiliation at the hands of our neighbours," AK Sachdev, a retired air force officer, wrote last year in the Indian Defence Review journal.

A coordinated attack by China and arch-rival Pakistan could stretch the Indian military, he added. It's a scenario defence strategists in New Delhi have been asked to plan for, Indian air force sources say, although experts say such an event is highly unlikely to happen.

India's ties with China are still hamstrung by a dispute over their Himalayan border that led to war in 1962. New Delhi is also wary of China's expanding naval presence in the Indian Ocean and its close relations with Pakistan.

MULTIPLE CRASHES

India's air force has 34 operational squadrons, down from 39 earlier this decade and below the government approved strength of 42, a parliamentary committee said in December.

More than half of India's MiGs have crashed in recent decades, the then defence minister said in 2012.

At the same time, China is flying locally built fourth-generation J-10 fighters and is testing two fifth-generation stealth fighter jets.

Pakistan is upgrading its Lockheed Martin F-16 fighters as well as using JF-17 warplanes developed with China. It is also in talks to buy J-10s, according to Pakistani and Chinese industry sources.

India would still win a war against Pakistan because of the sheer size of its air force, but the slow modernisation means victory would come with heavy casualties, said Richard Aboulafia, Washington D.C.-based vice president of analysis at the Teal Group, an aerospace and defence think tank.