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IAF plans to buy 350 warplanes

Indian Air Force has drawn up plans to buy 350 multi-role aircraft and other air assets, at an estimated cost of $25 billion, over the next 15 to 20 years, the Defense News said.

The weekly, in its latest issue, said the shopping list include early warning and surveillance aircraft such as the Israeli-built Phalcon, refuelling aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles and helicopters.

Air Chief Marshal A Y Tipnis, told the weekly that the IAF wants to upgrade its fleet with purchases of fighters such as the Russian SU-30 MKI, the French Mirage 2000 and British Hawk trainer aircraft.

He said the MiG-21s will not be phased out for another decade and that the first batch of the upgraded fighters will roll off production lines by mid-2001. The Hindustan Aeronautics Limited is upgrading 125 MiG-21Bs for the IAF at its Nasik unit.

India and Russia signed an agreement on October four to co-produce 140 SU-30 aircraft from a previous contract. In addition, India is also acquiring 40 SU-30s worth $1.8 billion from Russia. Of these, 16 have been delivered.

In February, Dassault Aviation of France offered to sell its standard version of the Rafale, which has an external payload capacity of 9.5 tons, to the IAF.

"We tried out Russian early warning aircraft during exercises and they do not meet our requirements. We are looking for the Phalcon and whatever else is available in the market," Air Chief Marshal Tipnis said.

Meanwhile, the weekly reported, India has begun to take deliveries of the first of a family of advanced Russian ship-and-submarine launched anti-ship cruise missiles (3M-54E).

They are being supplied as part of the weapon suit for the latest of India's Kilo-class 977EKM submarines. Russian officials told the Defense News that the vessel set sail from its construction site in St Petersburg in late August.

In another development, it reported that Russia's flagship defence firm wants permission from the government to invite Indian and Chinese companies to participate in the development of next-generation weapon systems to compensate for the looming decline in exports of ready-to-use arms to these countries.

Ruslan Pukhov, head of the Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, told the weekly: "Sooner or later, India and China will meet their needs for the present generation of Russian-made arms and we would have to offer them something much more capable."

However, attempts to export to them sub-strategic Russian systems such as TU-22 long-range bombers, nuclear submarines and ships - even those that do not carry ballistic missiles - will be strongly opposed by the United States of America and other Western countries (which are opposed to the emergence not only of China but also of India as a major military power), he said.

He, however, said the US and other Western countries would not object to the Russian government allowing domestic companies to invite India and China to share development cost of next generation weapons systems.

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