‘Esoteric’ Airpower Issues

The customary press conference given by the Chief of the Air Staff (CAS) of the Indian Air Force (IAF) every year on the eve of Air Force Day (which falls on October 8) by and large targets contemporary issues on the state of airpower in the subcontinent and the more glamorous and glitzy issues regarding the IAF’s on-going force modernisation efforts and future plans. However, issues regarded as ‘esoteric’ by the mainstream media in India are very rarely raised and explored. Therefore, this is a honest effort by your’s truly to throw some light into the issue of Su-30MKI-related flying training for operational conversion, and for recurrent training for maintaining the Su-30MKI aircrew’s operational flying proficiency. The good news is that at long last, the first of three Su-30MKI full-mission flight simulators (also called tactical simulator) will become operational at Air Force Station Pune by the first quarter of next year. It should have been made operational by mid-2003 if one goes as per established practices with regard to the IAF’s new aircraft inductions (usually three types of simulators—the fixed-base cockpit procedures trainer, the full-flight simulator and a maintenance procedures trainer—are made operational by the time the first squadron converting to a new aircraft type achieves initial operational capability). But, as they say, better late than never. All three types of simulators are on order by the IAF from Russia’s RET Kronstadt, which is a subsidiary of Russia’s main civil/military simulation technology R & D entity, the Transas Corp. The full-mission simulator (photo 1) will be integrated with a combined mission planning system/post-mission debrief system developed specifically by Israel’s RADA Electronic Industries for the Su-30MKI.
The Indian Navy, meanwhile, has already taken delivery of its MiG-29K full-mission flight simulator from Germany’s Rheinmetall Defence Electronics GmbH (RDE) and this training aid will be commissioned into service at Dabolim by the year’s end. Final systems check-outs are now underway. The full-mission simulator comes equipped with the Evans & Sutherland-built Avior high-fidelity stereoscopic laser-based image projection system. For the MiG-29K aircrew it will ensure an exceptionally high degree of realism in simulating take-offs and landings on an aircraft carrier. In simulating a night landing, for example, the lights of the runway can be simulated extremely vividly. One can only hope that the IAF takes a page out of the Indian Navy’s pro-active, well-established and consistent practice-cum-timetables of acquiring full-mission simulators for both fixed- and rotary-winged aircraft.
On a related note, the IAF has begun creating its own state-of-the-art, network-centric, fully instrumented facility in the state of West Bengal. As per present plans, the IAF, like the USAF, has adopted the cluster approach under which it will equip the air bases in Kalaikunda, Hashimara and Barrackpore, and the air-to-ground ranged at Dega near Kalaikunda and at Chandipur-on-Sea with rangeless dissimilar air combat manoeuvring and instrumentation-related infrastructure (from both Israel Aerospace Industries [the EHUD ACMI pod, photo 2] and RADA Electronic Industries) as well as telemetric sensors for real-time tracking of air-to-ground weapons launches. By 2010 air force detachments from friendly air forces will take turns to converge at these installations and conduct highly realistic air exercises using large force employments of mixed aircraft packages flying against one another. The Indian Navy too will be able to use these facilities both over land and water. Further details of this project are available in the October 2008 issue of FORCE magazine.—Prasun K. Sengupta