As an instrument of national policy, air power is both a strategic asset and a tactical tool. When applied under conflict situations, it has its own nuanced iteration to make about political resolve of the nation using it. However, the intent behind deployment and employment of air elements is one thing and their ultimate effect, quite another. Myriad factors are often enumerated by historians for the degree of success of the application of air power in autopsies of wars, conflicts and increasingly, skirmishes and engagements in Kargil, for example. Common sense would indicate that the quantity and quality of aircraft, armament and infrastructure available would be the primary factor.

However, the men behind the machines would be critical to achieving decisive triumph and their performance in operations would be directly proportional to their training for their roles. To constantly train to achieve levels of excellence worthy of its size as the fourth largest in the world, the Indian Air Force (IAF) has a functional command directly tasked to address training requirements, including flying training. Regrettably, the legitimate demands of the IAF in respect of acquisition of modern trainer aircraft to produce top grade pilots have been undermined by various factors including an apathetic political leadership and a smothering bureaucracy. Perhaps the most cheerless trainer saga relates to a jet trainer for the intermediate stage of IAF training.

Three-Stage Flying Training

In the case of most modern air forces, flying training involves a basic stage on a turboprop aircraft, an intermediate stage on a jet aircraft of moderate performance and an advanced stage which employs an advanced jet trainer. The IAF too has a basic turboprop stage lasting 24 weeks as a common denominator for all trainee pilots, trifurcating thereafter into the fighter, transport and helicopter streams depending on the policy in vogue which in turn is dependent on the requirements of the three streams. The intermediate stage training lasting 24 weeks is carried out at the respective training establishments for the three streams. After completing this stage, successful pilot trainees are commissioned as Officers in the IAF and then move on to the advanced stage for specialisation in their streams. For the fighter stream, intermediate stage training is conducted at Hakimpet (Hyderabad) and advanced stage at Bidar (Karnataka). For the transport stream, both are conducted at Yelahanka in Bengaluru while for the helicopter stream, the intermediate and advanced stages are conducted at Hakimpet and Yelahanka respectively. On completion of the three stages, pilots are assigned to operational squadrons for operational training and utilisation. Training for the transport and helicopter streams is fairly well established and, as long as a trainee pilot arrives at the threshold of intermediate stage with a modest amount of flying experience on a basic trainer, his progression is fairly well ensured with the present training platforms. As a general rule, the attrition rates are about 15, 10 and five per cent during the three stages respectively. Based on this attrition rate and other considerations including projected aircraft inventories, the IAF has worked out its current requirement to be 181 basic trainer aircraft (BTA), 85 intermediate jet trainers (IJT) and 106 advanced jet trainers (AJT). The absence since mid-2009 of a BTA since the grounding of the HAL-built HPT 32, has been alleviated by the Pilatus PC-7 MkII which was inducted into the IAF on May 31, 2013, and the AJT spot by the BAe Hawk for which the order was placed in 2004. However, there is a critical debility in the IJT space for the training of the leading edge of the IAF, the fighter pilot.

Since the grounding of the HPT 32, the first two stages of training were being carried out on the HJT 16 or Kiran, an HAL product, is an old aircraft which entered service in 1968, with training commencing on it in June 1970. Around 250 Kirans have been produced and 80 or so are still in service but maintaining them is a task that HAL is finding increasingly difficult due to shortage of spares. Kiran Mk II is the latest variant, having entered service in 1989, but the Mark I/IAs are much older airframes and their reliability is unacceptably low. Flying the Kiran fleet beyond 2015 could be hazardous. Moreover, in an absurd situation, trainees now fly the Pilatus PC-7 at the basic stage and use modern sophisticated avionics in a glass cockpit and then ‘progress’ to the Kiran which is a design dating back to five decades. However, the IAF is constrained to continue their use as there is no other choice.

The Need for an Intermediate Jet Trainer

The IAF had projected the need for a replacement well in time and, as a result, HAL did indeed begin work on designing an IJT to be called HJT-36 (Sitara) in 1997. The first prototype flew on March 7, 2003 but disappointingly, the basic aircraft design weight increased inordinately and the French Larzac engine selected for the aircraft was found to be underpowered and hence inadequate. It was decided to use the Russian AL-55I as a substitute. The development cost was revised upwards to Rs. 467 crore from the initial Rs. 180 crore and the date for Initial operational clearance (IOC) rescheduled from March 2004 to March 2007. Contract for initial 12 aircraft was signed in March 2006 at a total cost of Rs. 486.82 crore. The value of the order for 73 IJT aircraft with associated spares and equipment was around Rs. 6,200 crore. However, the new AL-55I engine is much heavier than the original choice and its additional thrust is more than counterbalanced by its weight. Thus the final performance remains in doubt and some analysts feel that it may be close to that of Pilatus PC-7 MkII.

According to the original contract, IJT deliveries were to be completed by March 2010 with more orders to follow. However, the Sitara is yet to be anywhere close to entering service with the IAF due to delays attributable to engine selection, flight test accidents and flying control problems. Indeed, the Defence Consultative Committee of the Parliament had repeatedly raised the issue of delays in Sitara development and the consequences for IAF’s flying training machinery. The IAF was faced with a dilemma allied to the IJT requirement—how to replace the doddering Kiran fleet with a modern aircraft bridging the gap between the Pilatus PC-7 BTA and the Hawk AJT in performance and avionics. With HAL’s Sitara IJT nowhere close to reality, one choice was to extend the life of the Kiran fleet until the Sitara was available. However, that would have meant flying it beyond its safe airworthiness envelope. The other choice was to use the Pilatus PC-9 which is essentially a PC-7 with under wing hard points for weapon training, for the intermediate stage, with self-evident deterioration of the training standards as well as a considerably larger performance gap between the intermediate and the advanced stages. Both these possibilities were considered as interim measures with the intent of avoiding all the development cost of the Sitara going down the drain. However, they were both premised on the misplaced optimism that the Sitara would meet the IAF’s IJT requirements to it’s satisfaction.

Search for an Alternative

HAL’s track record finally tilted the balance away from the Sitara and, despairing of an acceptable solution, a request for information (RFI) for a new IJT was issued in February 2014 by the Ministry of Defence. The last date for acceptance of the filled response forms was April 4, 2014. The next logical step, i.e. the issuance of a request for proposal (RFP) is yet to be executed. Meanwhile, a decision has been taken to extend the technical life of the Kiran upto 2018. The former Defence Minister A.K. Antony had told the Lok Sabha in a written reply in February 2014 that “After the study of the fatigue life spectrum of Kiran MkI aircraft, the Regional Centre for Military Airworthiness (Aircraft) has recommended extension of Total Technical Life of the aircraft. This will help IAF to utilise the fleet till 2017-18, though in gradually reducing numbers.” However, this decision is fraught with the risk of more lives being lost during training and would not be something the IAF would have found comfortable. Moreover, the current strength of the Kiran fleet is around 80 and this will undergo steadily increasing attrition over the next few years while the projected IAF requirement for IJTs for optimal flow of training progression is 85.

The RFI included a fixed-base full mission simulator for the type selected as the IAF’s IJT and was sent to all possible contenders. The RFP is yet to go out but that is not unusual as the paperwork could take considerable time to be finalised (although the urgency of the situation demands speedy action to get the procurement process accelerated). Needless to say, HAL can be expected to use all the lobbying muscle at its disposal to thwart any attempt to get an IJT other than the Sitara. It is only to be hoped that the present government is not susceptible to unreasonable manoeuvring and keeps in mind the critical role the IJT would play in the IAF methodology of training for operations. Meanwhile, with the inexorable winding down of the Kiran fleet, the clock is ticking towards the procurement of an appropriate, modern IJT to complement the Pilatus PC-7 and the BAe Hawk.