The Indian armed forces operates one of the largest helicopter fleets in South Asia and the Indian military presently operate 38 Helicopter Units HUs) comprising of Russian built Mi-17, Mi-17 1V, Mi-17 V5 helicopters, which are the backbone of medium lift combat capability of IAE in addition to HAL licence-built Cheetah and Chetak helicopters and the Dhruv ALH MK-I, ALH MK-II, ALH MK-IV), along with American-made AH-64E Apaches and Boeing CH-47F Chinooks as the other workhorses. The IAF is presently short of just one HU to meet its sanctioned strength of 39. Helicopters are generally more maintenance intensive and have a Total Technical Life TTL), that ranges between 5,000 hours to 12,000 hours depending on their age and vintage.
The IAF due to budgetary constraints, ends up operating most of its platforms far beyond the lifespan envisaged by the Original Equipment Manufacturer OEM). Case in point is the obsolescent Cheetah and Chetak helicopters, that continue to fly, when they should have been retired by now. The IAF finally ended up retiring its MI-8 Pratap’ helicopters in December 2017, after inducting 107 MI-8s between 1971 1988. The MI-8 was inducted in ten operational helicopter units and it operated in several major IAF operations including Operation Meghdoot in the Siachen Glacier and Operation Pawan in Sri Lanka.
Current strength in numbers
Over the next few years, the IAF will induct three new helicopter types: 65 units of HAL Light Combat Helicopter LCH), 65 units of Kamov Ka-226T Sergei’ and 61 units of HAL Light Utility Helicopter LUH), for a total of 191 helicopters. Recently, India became the 14th nation to induct the Apache and the 19th nation to select the Chinook for its air force, for which orders were placed way back in September 2015.
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