Skip to main content

IAF To Upgrade Its Fighter Pilots Training Programme

 From 2013 onwards, IAF will kick off a major upgrade in its entire training programme for pilots who go on to fly expensive top-notch fighter jets, transport aircraft and helicopters.

Better initiation into the intricacies of combat flying, inherently dangerous in contrast to civil aviation, is critical for new pilots since over 39% of the 1,010 crashes recorded by IAF since 1970 have been attributed to "human error (aircrew)".

Forced to drastically cut down the quantum of flying for pilots to only 25 hours in Stage-I "basic" training for the last three to four years due to acute shortage of trainer aircraft, IAF now plans to ramp it up to 65 flying hours, with an additional 25 hours on advanced simulators.

This will be possible with fast-track induction of 75 Swiss Pilatus PC-7 basic trainer aircraft (BTA) under the Rs 2,900- crore deal inked last month after a long delay. "The Swiss have promised to begin deliveries by next January itself," said a senior officer.

"So, we will begin the first course in July 2013 with the first 14 Pilatus trainers we get. Full-scale basic training of all new pilots on Pilatus will begin from January, 2014," he added.

Stage-II "intermediate" training on Kiran aircraft for fighter pilots will involve 82 hours, while another 107 hours will be clocked in Stage-III "advanced" training on Hawk AJTs (advanced jet trainers).

In effect, rookie pilots will then log 254 hours of actual flying, apart from simulator training. It takes Rs 11 crore to train a single fighter pilot, and around half that amount for a chopper or a transport aircraft.

Training schedules of IAF, which inducts 240 new trainee pilots annually, went haywire after the entire fleet of the 114 ageing piston-engine HPT-32 aircraft, which long served as the BTA, was grounded in August, 2009, after a crash killed the pilot.

IAF also has to get a replacement for the 80 virtually obsolete Kirans — currently used for both Stage-I and Stage-II training — that can be "stretched" only till 2015. By then, Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL) will have to deliver on its long-delayed project to manufacture 85 IJTs.
 
IAF will also need another 106 BTA to supplement the 75 Pilatus trainers already ordered. HAL had promised to deliver the HTT-40 aircraft for this, but the project is still stuck on the drawing board, leading some to suggest the defence PSU should scrap it and concentrate fully on the IJTs only.

India took two decades to ink the first contract for British Hawk AJTs in March, 2004. Since then, IAF has inducted over 60 of the 123 AJTs ordered for training at a combined overall project cost running into Rs 16,000 crore.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

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
48 comments
READ MORE

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
18 comments
READ MORE

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.
23 comments
READ MORE