Skip to main content

Indian air force a third of China’s: air force chief

 
New Delhi: India's air force is just a third the size of rival China's and far short of the aircraft required to meet the security challenges it faces, the country's air force chief said Wednesday.
"Our present aircraft strength is inadequate. Aircraft strength is one third that of China," said Air Chief Marshal P.V. Naik was quoted as saying by the CNN-IBN website Wednesday.
"The government of India is doing a lot to augment air force capability," he said in a speech in Gandhinagar, capital of India's western Gujarat state.

The comments come against the backdrop of media reports about Chinese army and air "incursions" into India in the past several weeks that have been denied by both New Delhi and Beijing.
The Asian giants and economic rivals have yet to agree on their more than 4,000 kilometre (2,480 mile) border, the dispute over which dates back to a brief but bitter conflict in 1962 that exposed India's military vulnerability.
India says China occupies 38,000 square kilometres (14,670 square miles) of its territory, while Beijing claims 90,000 square kilometres or the wholeof the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh.
Naik said there were two ways to counter China's reported incursions.
"One way is to take up weapons and go to the border. The other way is to build systematic weapons capability to tackle the threat," he said.
Naik's remarks follow similar ones by former navy chief Sureesh Mehta, who last month said India could not compete with China on defence spending and warned Beijing was "creating formidable military capabilities".
India has begun trials of the world's leading fighter jets as it prepares to place an order for 126 planes in a contract worth 12 billion dollars.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Pakistani JF-17 A Thunder OR A Blunder

Pakistan has witnessed new defense acquisitions in this decade than any other, and in the center of it all is the new fighter which was designed by China with partial funding from Pakistan. It is formally known as JF-17 Thunder. When the fighter was in development, Pakistani online communities were jumping with excitement comparing it with its arch rival India’s modern combatants Su-30MKI, Mig-29S & Mirage-2000H. There were claims of it featuring western Radars and long range missiles, & Chinese ordering some due to its superior capabilities. But the reality is far from it. China having spent significant amount of money into a fighter which it is never going to use, most probably forced Pakistan to accept its avionics to offset some its development costs. Chinese who are known for their self reliance first and quality next, are further downgrading JF-17s capabilities with their poorly copy-pirated avionics. Along with their dubious weapons, any chance of JF

Pakistani F-16s Shoot Down RAF Eurofighter Typhoons During Air Combat Exercises In Turkey

Pakistani pilots flying modernised versions of the 1970s-vintage F-16 Falcon fighter have beaten the RAF's brand-new Eurofighter Typhoon superfighters during air combat exercises in Turkey, according to a Pakistani officer. Analysis: The RAF Typhoon, formerly known as the Eurofighter, should nonetheless have been vastly superior in air-to-air combat whether BVR or close in within visual range (WVR). The cripplingly expensive, long-delayed Eurofighter was specifically designed to address the defects of its predecessor the Tornado F3 – famously almost useless in close-in, dogfighting-style air combat. The Typhoon was meant to see off such deadly in-close threats as Soviet "Fulcrums" and "Flankers" using short-range missiles fired using helmet-mounted sight systems: such planes were thought well able to beat not just Tornados but F-16s in close fighting, and this expectation was borne out after the Cold War when the Luftwaffe inherite

India Planned Attack On Pak Navy Mehran Base To Kill Chinese Engineers

The terrorist attack on Karachi's Mehran Naval Station on May 22 was conceived and launched by India with the primary objective of killing the Chinese engineers present there, a Pakistani newspaper has claimed, citing 'informed sources'. Four to six Taliban terrorists had entered PNS Mehran on May 22, destroying two maritime surveillance aircraft and killing ten military personnel during their 17-hour siege of the naval air base. "India is the only country in the region that feels troubled by the Pakistan Navy, which had awfully beaten the Indian Navy in Operation Dwarka of 1965. Since then, it has been an earnest desire of India to harm the Pakistan Navy but it was perhaps not possible on the battle front, hence it struck the PNS Mehran," The News quoted sources as saying.