Air Marshal R. Nambiar, Deputy Chief speaking on Technology Perspective and Capability Roadmap (TPCR) and Make In India at 13th International Conference on Energising Indian Aerospace Industry: Mapping the Change
- Our modernization plan is to induct state of the art weapon system and to upgrade all our existing system to retain their operational relevance.
- Our current drawback is the fighter fleet.
- We have a req for a contemporary multirole fighter aircraft to replenish our declining stock which is now 31 sqd against 42 sqd.
- Our major future induction at spotlight on wrong reasons is rafale. Will arrive starting next September.
- Rafale will give us full spectrum capability to a large extend and would revolutionize air power in our subcontinent.
- Along with rafale, LCA induction is also ongoing.
- Govt plans to increase the production rate of LCA to 24 per year.
- In 2-3 years LCA Mk1A will start production which will have addition capabilities like AESA radar and Advanced long range BVR missiles.
- IAF intent to make LCA mk2 as a replacement of Mirage 2000, Jaguar and Mig 29 which will start retiring after 5 years. LCA MK2 will be a gen ahead of mk1.
- LCA mk2 will come about 10 years time and it will be the mainstay of our airforce with over 200 in our inventory, All in all by the year 2032 the LCA series will represent about 18 sqd of our air force.
- Meantime we intent to procure 114 Multi-Role Fighter Aircraft(MRFA) through Strategic Partnership route. Will start induction within 3 years of contract signature.
- Along with this AMCA is also under development which starts induction in the early 2030's. NGTD will be manufactured, produced and flown from Coimbatore. Land for setting up the final assembly and checkout facility will be given by IAF.
- AMCA will replace Su-30s.
- The transport fleet is in good shape. We are in an advanced stage of negotiation for Avro replacement with TATA/Airbus for C295 aircraft.
- Helicopter fleet is a success story. It's a very modern and capable fleet. Performed very well during Kerala floods. In near future, we will be inducting Chinook and Apache. In addition Ka-226, HAL LUH, HAL LCH orders are also under process.
- HAL IMRH will replace MI-17 fleet of helicopters.
- The ISTAR is another program we are running with US govt as a part of our defense tech trade initiative. It will be Gulfstream 550 platform, avionics initially coming from them and subsequently made by DRDO.
- Air defence : 7 Akash sqd deployed + 8 more on order, 16 Pechora sqd will be upgraded, 18 sqd of MRSAM is on order induction starts next year. We are also in an advanced stage to procure 5 sqd of S400 missile system. (Its a global procurement without any offset or indian element).
- Gun based CIWS tender is out and is now in the evaluation stage.
- Radars: All ongoing and future inductions will be Indian radars.
- Rohini and Aslesha (Low-level Light Weight 3D) already inducted. Orders will be placed in the near future for Arudra MPR (Medium Power Radar) and Ashwini LLTR (Low-Level Transportable Radar). Trials have been completed.
- Future development is HPR (High Power Radar). Which will be under IDDM. AoN is out for the program. IAF is looking for 12-15 radars of this nature. This will be a completely Indian program.
- IT System: IMMOLS (Material Management system) is fully operational, e-Maintenance Management System under implementation by Wipro, IACCS network is also fully functional. Next step will be to establish a network system in the air. Every aircraft and node in the future will use SDR(software defined radio). This will revolutionize the way we fight wars in the future.
- Airfield infrastructure modernization is spearheaded by the TATA group. This will make IAF all weather.
