It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. The opening words of the Charles Dickens classic A Tale of Two Cities sum up the dilemma that the world’s fourth largest air force is facing. The Indian Air Force’s strength—derived from its 1.5 lakh personnel and 1,700 aircraft, including fighters, tankers, helicopters, trainers and transport craft that guards India’s vast air space of 40 million cubic kilometres—also doubles as its weakness.
Into its 91st year of existence, the Air Force now has a fleet of truly staggering range. It has fighter aircraft of Russian (Sukhoi 30, MiG 21, MiG 29), French (Rafale, Mirage 2000), and Anglo-French (Jaguar) origin; an indigenous light combat aircraft (Tejas); a transport fleet of Russian (AN-32, IL-76), American (C-130J Super Hercules, C-17 Globemaster), British (Avro), Brazilian (Embraer), Spanish (C-295) and German (Dornier) origins; Russian mid-air refuelling tankers (IL-78) and helicopters (Mi-17); American (AH-64 Apache and CH-47 Chinook) and indigenous helicopters (Prachand, Rudra, Dhruv); and unmanned aerial vehicles from Israel and the US, to name a few.
It means the Air Force is in a happy position to pick and choose from a broad range of aircraft with different configurations, mandates, roles, and operative and military capabilities. A superb example of the various air assets at work was the Balakot operation of September 26, 2019. It saw 12 Mirage 2000 fighters—loaded with SPICE 2000 and Popeye precision-guided munitions—cross over to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and drop their bombs. Standing guard were a few Sukhoi-30 MKI fighters, along with IL-78 mid-air refuellers, a Heron drone, and aircraft carrying the Netra and Phalcon airborne early warning and control systems.
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