The Hindu : IAF to get mid-air refuellers

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Nov 28, 2002

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IAF to get mid-air refuellers

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI NOV. 27. The Government today confirmed plans to increase the potency of the Air Force by purchasing mid-air refuellers. The deal for acquiring IL-78 refuellers has been finalised and they will be delivered by December 2003. Talks are at a preliminary stage for acquiring the latest Mirage version.

The air-to-air refuellers of Russian origin will be the first to be used for the latest generation of Sukhoi-30 MKI aircraft. At least 50 are in the process of being imported from Russia, while 140 would be manufactured in the country. Later, the refuellers will be utilised for the present inventory of the French Mirage-2000 planes, which are being refitted for the purpose. Their latest variant, Mirage-2000-5, already has mid-air refuelling capability.

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, along with the IAF, had participated in joint technical discussions with three French companies — Dassault Aviation, Thales and Snecma — to assess the feasibility of production and transfer of technology for manufacture of the Mirage 2000-5 MK II aircraft. The discussions were at a preliminary stage, the Defence Minister, George Fernandes, told the Rajya Sabha today.

In reply to another question, he said the IAF would conduct a combat exercise with France in Gwalior next year. Other major countries with which the IAF had such defence cooperation programmes were the U.S., the U.K., Russia and Australia.

Although the IAF had purchased reconditioned engines for MiG-21 after a "thorough scrutiny of their health by a team of experts", no second hand spares for MiG-21 had been procured.

As per preliminary investigation, the crashes of two MiG-21s in September this year were due to the malfunction of the main fuel pump and not due to spares.

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