sanctioned number is 1.25 pilot to fighter, and currently it stands at 0.81. Who plans the sanctioned squadron strength for the IAF based on strategic roadmap, I am sure it's not the crpf or the railway police it must be the Air staff HQ of India. So when they plan for 42 sqdns and they are already running low on pilots despite the fact they are extremely low on squadron strength, then whose responsible for the gap? Will it be safe to assume it is Air staff HQ which cannot attract enough talent. So instead of solving a recruitment problem, we want to buy single seat fighters because we don't have enough pilots. Wonder if we use the same logic for Indian navy, what if the navy comes out tomorrow and says we are only going procure missile boats, because it takes 1/4th the crew to man a missile boat compared to a destroyer.
Sorry bro but I don't buy this regressive logic at all, it makes for a good argument, but the fact remains essence of plan is to look ahead, not look behind. Let's not blame the two seat construction of MKI as a negative to cover the buffonery that goes on in Air Staff HQ.
Now to the idiotic proposition of SU30MKI' as solution - Chinese are ok with fielding Flankers against their most active potential theaters, so are the russians, IAF apparently is ok with fielding the Flankers for Air Sup, Strike, and maritime application, but when it comes to this mythical medium multirole, flankers are no good. Russians and chinese dont have a rafale, but they don't seem to be crying everyday for the requirement, Russians are ready to take on EFT/ Rafale/F15's/f16's/F/A18/Gripens still with the same Su30/Mig29 Combo, but somehow in Indian context, without the rafale, our security paradigm seems incomplete. Is there some special powers of the rafale that are not visible me.
Talk to any IAF fulcrum or flanker driver and ask them which other platform they think can outperform them, and listen very carefully to their answers.
Solid points Sir, no doubt when it comes to recruitment part, Air Staff HQ has to share partially the blame along with our media and Government too. From my own personal experience, i can tell you a short small story of my own life experience. Sorry its a bit off topic but perhaps i can throw some light on multiple factors.
Back in my young days, i wanted to be a pilot. In my family, we had a very democratic setup (namesake its basically a dictatorship run by mother but you cannot officially claim it as dictatorship, specific ops role, source of money being father utilization of money by mother led broad structure). So i was asked what commercial plane i wanted to fly as pilot? and i said no commercial jets. I want to become an IAF pilot. The response was a complete silence that day and no discussion further. In the following days there was a emotional outpouring with a major focus to either drop the pilot ambition or stick to commercial jets. The major line was always "I dont want to lose my son" and i was not able to understand why this line. Who is losing their son's if they are AF pilots for fighters? My family and relatives over next many months kept on repeating the same story of "losing son" again and again till i stopped saying the ambition of pilot thing...
Much later when i grew up and wanted to understand what really transpired that an entire family, relatives, near by neighbors etc etc were against becoming fighter pilots.. It led me finally to the story.. "flying coffins" . In effect, this whole saga, followed relentlessly by Press showing one side of loss, despair, hopeless situation and IAF/MOD/GOI not able to come out with a vindictive stand to clear out the wrong perceptions, negative marketing and hit on IAF brand value kind of added fuel to the fire mix.
I am not saying this could be the only reason, but i do believe it was probably an over played trigger in response to the situation. If you see 80s, 90s the fall out looks apparent. Of course, now what we see is a cumulative effect of multiple decades of lower intake or due to lack of appeal among the youth.
Even today, the AIr staff HQ has not been able to come out with a much bigger brand building exercise. Something which can attract more talent. Fresh boots. They have made efforts but the results cant be seen over night. and uptill we see substantial result, perhaps we wont see big changes in that number creeping from 0.81 to 1 to finally 1.25.
About Flanker part, i am not pointing a two seater as just a base for an excuse. Rather i am feeling that if 272 MKIs as and when it comes online, if thery are sufficiently equipped with pilots, and assuming we are unable to either increase the pilot to fighter ratio from 0.81 upwards, the other frontline fighters would face shortage. True take out 100 odd fighters owing to retirement and you get say 81 pilots free (based on 0.81 ratio).
This is where i do have an issue as you see since we failed to attract new talent for reasons like what i said above, this 81 say has an option of being retrained and utilized in
1. Say 80 LCAs or Rafales or any other single seater
2. 40 new MKIs or double seater.
Now single seater could be a Su35 flanker too.. No one says No to it. At least not me IMO. But IAF saying no to it more seems to be from the fact that they dont want Russian jet in this category than anything else plain as daylight type logic. But inducting new twin seaters without addressing the staff shortage issue is an added twist to this complex issue.
Apparently, i had just noticed one small fact. You know a week or 10 days back the intrusion of airspace by a balloon over Rajasthan. Now consider few facts.
- Bogey detected by radar
- The size and speed of detection meant we knew its not a fighter
- We still presumed it could be a UAV
- We sortied a "Su 30 MKI" to intercept and bring it down
Now we can say that based on air intrusion risk, we needed the best fighter to engage and bring it down. We know its an overkill but threat matrix response needed that.
So then it brings to second most important question in my mind. The air interception for bogey is whose task? Original class notes says Light fighters are for air interception for operational performance benefits and heavier fighters for interception when adverse situations like weather or bogey speed led initial detector to conclude a sophisticated jet intrusion, raising the risk aspect in threat assessment matrix and deployment of Air superiority heavy jets to also handle intrusion threat.
I am sure IAF might have followed and have based on threat level matrix Light , medium and heavy fighters overlapping area of theater under coverage.. But in this case, in a broad daylight, with the bogey identified in radar to be max a low speed UAV does not deem necessary for a higher threat response. Yet we did it..
It critically points me to the fact that threat matrix lower tiers of light and medium category to be addressed by LCA/Mig21 and medium by say Rafales/Mig29/Mirages etc are either not adequate in numbers, not in operational readiness, not in the theater of operations, or most importantly not inducted. And yet result is also inflated opex cost. Imagine a case if it was terrain hugging or low altitude UAV, the present response means we will deploy MKI for such cases too,,. is it optimum use of our own resources?
This leads me to conclude we are over reliant on our warhorse Su 30 MKI only and thus a Plan B with MKI is not an optimum solution. I agree a flanker fitting medium category is not a bad choice but these two categories do need urgent attention. LCA in light at least is a done deal for first phase. But we do need either Rafales or a flanker or another medium category also with a clear cut idea of numbers of production + induction schedule finalization within next few months. Unfortunately, since we have already moved ahead with Rafale so far, its imperative we try our best with them and then if it fails seek another one. But definitely not MKI as we are over relying on the beast.
The best solution could be a in house developed jet but for that first we need LCA program to succeed. Only then we can move to next category building in a progressive manner. and side by side Kaveri program needs fresh infusion to see it through to power such jets in the future. These are time intensive solutions and need at least 2 decades to see fruitful results. Unfortunately, during these times, we have to buy and see from which place we can get best deals.
Sorry for a long reply!!
However although I am not a big supporter of anything more than 72 Rafale and 60-100 FGFA. But there seems to be a possibility of making more Rafales in India if they eventually manage to create a parts productions line and lower the prices further. for example this.
