Video of a USAF Lieutenant Colonel’s acerbic comments on the IAF’s performance at Exercise Red Flag finds its way to the Internet, triggering a mortifying diplomatic tangle.

It’s the proverbial chip of egg shell in an otherwise perfect omelette. Lauded and applauded during the workup phase at the USAF Mountain Home Air Force Base, the Indian Air Force (IAF) was still basking in all-round praise for having landed the Eagle in a spectacular demonstration of flawless execution during the exercise proper at Nellis Air Force Base—when a pinprick threatened to flatten its euphoria. Barely have the echoes of the thunderous welcome back home in the wake of Exercise Red Flag 2008 died down, a controversial video report has not only proved to be a source of major embarrassment but also put the IAF in a mortifying diplomatic tangle.

The offensive two-part video depicts a USAF Lieutenant Colonel, an F-15 pilot, acerbically ridiculing the IAF for poor tactics, equipment, training and battlefield awareness to an audience comprising largely of former USAF personnel, including some retired generals, who are seen laughing and clapping in response. In a self-gratifying tone, the Colonel goes on to explain how USAF pilots flying Boeing F-15s dominated and amazed the IAF’s Russian-built Sukhoi Su-30 MKI pilots in close combat exercises during the work up phase at Mountain Home. He claims the Indians were so badly outmanoeuvred by the F-15s that after a couple of days, they didn’t want to carry on with close combat exercises.

Disapproving of the Su-30’s big drag producing airframe and its Tumansky engines that are highly susceptible to foreign object damage (FOD), the Lieutenant Colonel is contemptuous of the over-cautious approach of the Indian pilots to carry out one-minute staggered take-offs to avoid FOD. The procedure, according to him, would be totally unacceptable during actual operations. The Su-30 MKI deployment to Mountain Home, Idaho, for the exercise was complicated by the low reliability of the Russian-made engines, he says. In the video, the Lieutenant Colonel further criticises the lack of situational awareness displayed by the IAF pilots, which, according to him, led to fratricide by the Indians on many occasions during the exercise. At the receiving end of the USAF pilot’s caustic comments were also French Air Force pilots whom he accuses of doing little except for sniffing the US radars with their sensors going full blast.