I think Hell have just began to chill. I will know that Hell have frozen over when IAF purchases one of the teens fighter planes in the MMRCA competition.

See link below:

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_iaf-k...ansport_1265557

In order to replace the IL-76s, IAF would need to purchase 30 planes of these. Preferably IAF should get around 40 for high tempo surge operations. Hopefully IAF will also settle either on the C-130J or the C-27s Spartans to replace the An-32s and purchase those in a number of 232 units to have an operational capability of airlift for the nation's armed forces needs.

Also IAF is planning to purchase 6 Airbus 330 tankers. IAF need to jettison the IL-76s. I have no beef with them. It is just that Russia are notoriously unreliable when it comes to spares and they have stopped the production of the IL-76s ten years ago and have resorted to cannibalizing the remaining unused IL-76s for supply of spares. IAF needs to get at least 30 tankers.

I never understood why IAF went for the IL-76s in the first place for tankers and the AWACs platform. They would have been better off using Airbus platforms.

More details from StrategyPage:

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htairmo/a...s/20090618.aspx

Now the key is deciding to place the order before the production tooling is ancient history.

At least this (BIG!) order should, assuming it goes ahead keep the C17 in production for a while...

At first I thought we were talking about the Israelis and I was thinking why would the Israelis want C17's? Then I saw the comments about the Il-76 and went WTF?

Sorry slow brain syndrome took me awhile to figure we were talking at the Indian Air Force. In which case they couldn't afford to replace one for one with C-17's although the thought of it would give Boeing wet dreams for a month.

By the way, I am surprised that noone on this forum commented on the IAF receiving the Phalcon from Israel. That's a big game changer in the Indo-Pakistan picture.

Pakistan has also ordered 5 Swedish Saab S100B Argus turboprop airborne early warning (AEW&C) aircraft with the Erieye AESA radar system. The first aircraft are supposed to be delivered in October 2009.

Actually, there is a "new" Il-76 coming into production (...maybe), in the form of the Il-476.
Apparently, Ilyushin feels that a lot of Candid (cargo variant) users will be looking to replace their aging aircraft,
people who don't desire the LM route of C-130J's, can't afford or don't want the hassles of the Airbus A400M, and don't have the pockets to buy C-17s.

Although I tend to take GlobalSec's pieces with a grain of salt (often out-dated),
they do have an article about the Il-476.

There's also a dated article over at FlightGlobal, but I know I've seen something of the "new" Ilushin recently, within the past couple of months,
perhaps an Aviation Week or a Jane's report...?

No, they're not quite the S100B. The Erieye radars will be mounted on the bigger SAAB 2000 (the S100B Argus is a SAAB 340), & will, as with the Brazilian & Greek versions on the ERJ-145, have more operator stations than the Argus.

The Erieye system has been mounted on three different aircraft types so far, & in at least two different configurations, depending on customer requirements.

Ah, thanks for the correction!

I wonder if the non-Swedish Erieye systems also feature the capability to operate without onboard controllers and use datalinks to transmit the radar info to ground stations, which in turn send commands back to the plane.

An interesting question to which I don't know the answer. It's a capability which they may not be able to use, in the absence of Swedens integrated system, so it may have been omitted.

BTW, isn't that the default mode of operation for the Argus?

That's what I think, too. It certainly is an interesting feature, which (if I understand it correctly) permits the use of a relatively small aircraft and still have a comparable number of operator consoles like in larger aircraft.

http://www.canit.se/~griffon/aviation/text/100argus.html

According to this website, the Argus which were loaned to Greece prior to the delivery of the ERJ-145 were modified with three onboard consoles, but lacked the capability to display the datalinked information from the ground stations in the cockpit.

Do they usually just have the operator stations, & only plug in the consoles when needed? All the published stuff says they can have "up to" three operators.

The fact that the Erieye has a small number of operators mean they can only direct a small number of planes to battle whereas the IAF AWACs can direct a large number of planes. Besides, IAF is planning to purchase 3 more but on a different platform such as the Airbus.

Plus a coupple of Chinese AWACSes.

They rejected them.

The number of onboard operators of the Erieye system is not fixed. It depends on the installation, & the aircraft. The Brazilian implementation, for example, has 5 operators, plus seats for 3 reserve operators. Mount the radar on a larger aircraft, & you could install more consoles (the system has the capacity), & have more operators.

I don't know how many operators the Pakistani implementation has. Do you?

According to the entry on airforce-technology.com, Pakistan's Saab 2000s have 5 mission operator consoles. The Israeli Gulfstream G550 CAEWs with the Phalcon AESA apparently have six consoles.

http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/saab-2000/
http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/caew/

Which one were they offered (aren't there like three PLA-AF AEW projects)? And on what grounds did they reject it?

EDIT: back to topic, that would be awesome if the IAF bought C-17's. Its a good a/c, if a little gold plated, and keeping the line open I feel is a necessity since Congress is unwilling to fork over more money for additional USAF C-17's at this time.

From the link:
"The AEW system has six multi-purpose, Windows-based, operator stations with 24in colour monitors that are installed in the rear half of the main cabin. The forward section of the main cabin behind the cockpit accommodates the electronics."

I just hope these operators never have to face the "blue screen of death" in the middle of air combat operations.

It would bring new meaning to the 'death' part...

The Indian Phalcon AEW&Cs have 11 mission operator consoles.

So the InAF with its 3 Phalcons should process more vectoring and battle analysis than the PAF could with its 5 Erieye systems.

It isn't as simple as the number of operators. It depends on the hardware, the sophistication of the software, the comms, & the systems on the fighters. If you're having to vector aircraft by voice, or via a clunky UI, then the productivity of the operators will be lower than if they have good software, fast processors, & can send everything via fast datalinks to fighters which will immediately integrate the targeting information into their systems.

In other words, 3 Phalcons with 33 operators will probably be able to do more than 5 Erieyes with 25 operators, but not necessarily. We don't really know. It could be less, or it could be even more than one would expect from the number of operators. Also, it's complicated by not actually being 3 vs 5 in action, because you can't keep them all airborne all the time, & by the possibility of ground-based operators also being linked in.

If war between the two comes, it won't really matter. Each side will have several glowing cities. Hey, maybe India will rack up a higher kill-count than Pakistan does. Won't that be a wonderful thing for all of the Indian transplants in the US to cheer about?

If I don't seem to understand, it's because I have absolutely no emotions involving my ancestral homelands.

India is planning to purchase 3 more phalcons. I forgot to mention that the Phalcons can stay up in the air much longer because they have sleeping berths that allow crew rotation and thus can be on station for far much longer than the Pakistani Erieyes could.

IAF is planning to have a total of 12 to 15 Phalcons to cover her airspace.

India is silently building an ABM shield and is increasing HUMINT on the locations of the nukes.

Be bewwy, bewwy kwiet...We'we biwlding ABM shi-ewd...Eh-he-he-he-he-he

You seriously think that given the ranges and quantity of missiles involved as well as the broad front vectors involved in any nuclear exchange between the two countries would make any form of ABM even mildly plausible?

Even with the combined resources of the US and Russia there is no way it could be done.

So much for being silent....

That said, with what? I reckon it's S-300 or S-400? I really don't know what India has in the way of SAMs (I reckon Soviet types, yes?)

Look up Prithvi ABM or PAD-01, or Prithvi Air Defence. It's hardly silent: they issue press releases about it frequently. And they're nowhere near building it yet. So far, they've been testing prototypes for at least four years (& announcing them), & are still doing so.

Thanks swerve. Very interesting. Looks like a fully indigenous missile system (i.e., the basic missile isn't a licensed-built version or clone of Soviet/Russian, US, Israeli, or whatever-country's-missile missile). I find it interesting that its origin was a surface-to-surface missile.