Ukraine Completes India's An-32 Upgrade, Shoots Down 'Unreliability' Charge

[Rangila]

LIVEFIST: Ukraine Completes India's An-32 Upgrade, Shoots Down 'Unreliability' Charge

Ukraine's Ukroboronpromom today announced that it had delivered the eighth and last batch of 5 repaired & upgraded An-32RE aircraft to the Indian Air Force, completing the $400 million deal. Fears that India's fleet was missing -- or worse -- emerged last year at the peak of the Ukraininan conflict, heightened by the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in July 2014. The Ukrainian military-industrial complex had taken a heavy battering at the time, so it was only expected that they would use program completion to backhand those reports. Here's the operative part from the official Ukrainian press release today:

https://twitter.com/x/status/667715062384037890

https://twitter.com/x/status/667708634919366656

https://twitter.com/x/status/667706981239537664

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[SanjeevaniButi]

Nice

As per this contract the life of the aircraft has been increased from 25 to 40 years, which means they will serve IAF upto 2025 and beyond.

The deal includes life extension of the engines and the airframe, improved avionics suite, communication equipment and landing aids. The upgraded AN-32s have updated equipment including air collision avoidance systems, ground proximity warning systems, satellite navigation, and distance measuring equipment, upgraded radio altimeters, new radars with multifunctional indicators, new oxygen systems and improved crew seats.

40 of AN-32 aircraft has been overhauled and re-equipped in Ukraine.

The Rest of the 64 will be upgraded in IAF's No.1 Base Repair Depot (BRD) at Kanpur. Material and transfer of technology for upgrade will come from Ukraine and is expected to start by 2017.