Vina,the Gnat trainer was found inadequate for an advanced trainer given the new generation of fighter aircraft arriving on the scene.We too were getting the M-2000 and MIG-29 apart from MIG-23/27 and 25s.Therefore the Gnat was rejected and a new requirement for an AJT placed before the govt.But it is not the IAF who sat on its backside for 30 years ,but the GOI/MOD! Here's a quote from a former AOC-in-C WC in 2003 when within days a MIG-23 and MIG-21 crashed.The foll. quotes are from a 2003 Sunday Tribune report.
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2003/200304 ... /main1.htm
“Had we bought the AJTs 10 years back, it would have cost us one-fifth of what they would now. Perhaps, if an odd Air Chief had resigned on the issue to drive home the point, it would have registered and placed the responsibility squarely on the government.”
— M. M Singh, former AOC-in-C of the Western Command
The MiG-21 was of the type-75 variant. As many as 20 MiG-23 aircrafts have crashed so far. They were inducted into the IAF two decades back and the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence has been repeatedly asking the government to phase them out. The government, however, has ruled out phasing out of these warplanes saying that massive upgradation of the MiGs was underway.
It was in the early ‘80s that IAF asked a committee to go into the causes of so many crashes. It was the La Fontaine Committee, headed by Air Chief Marshal La Fontaine, the then Chief of Air Staff himself, which had stated in unequivocal terms that the causes could be attributed to three main causes: bird hits, maintenance failure and pilot error. For pilot error, which in turn, implied a failure of the establishment to train the pilots, the main cause was the qualitative jump, which the pilot was required to take from sub-sonic aircraft like Kirans and Ishkaras to super sonic aircraft flying at Mach 2 speed, like the MiG 21. It was around 1985 that the Committee had recommended that the IAF should acquire the Advanced Jet Trainers (AJT). Acquisition of 66 aircraft was sanctioned in 1986. However, they are yet to be acquired.
As many as 62 per cent of the cases involved the MiG-21 fighters made by the HAL in the 1960s. The "human factor" caused 42 per cent of the crashes, technical malfunctions 44 per cent, and collisions with birds 7 per cent. As for the training of IAF pilots, there is complete absence of the necessary equipment and infrastructure.
Now look at this fact.HAL re-exports genuine spares from Russia to other nations and instead buys cheap substandard imports for the IAF!
Poor maintenance
The root cause of the great number of crashes of the MiG-21 fighters of the IAF is the bad maintenance and "substandard uncertified" spares to the force.
The Daily Izvestia said quoting experts that the certified quality spares imported from Russia were being re-exported by HAL to Algeria and Vietnam while the IAF was being supplied with "cheap and uncertified spares picked from former Warsaw Pact countries in Eastern Europe and CIS countries."
In some cases, the planes were a product of 'cannibalisation',with the front portion being picked from one country, wings from another and the engine from the third. Some of these planes were delivered to the IAF after overhauling in Romania, while others were overhauled on IAF's order by HAL in India.
Against this backdrop and to protect the prestige of its brand, the Russian Aircraft corporation MiG (RAC MiG) has been seeking access to the investigations into the crashes of MiG-21 trainer jets to no avail.
The Russian side has already raised some of these issues in April at the Moscow session of the Indo-Russian sub-group on aviation attended by senior officials of HAL and the IAF.
More in an interview given by Air Marshal M.M.Singh (retd)
“The Ministry of Defence is a non-professional body”
What are the reasons for so many MiG crashes?
All accidents are caused by pilot error, technical flaws and maintenance lapses.
Due to the absence of Advanced Trainer Jets, for a young pilot to make the transition from flying a Kiran to a MiG is a big leap. Since we have no intermediary aircraft, what happens is, it becomes difficult for the structural staff to impart operational training and competence to the young pilots. Fighter flying is not just about flying from A to B but learning to operate the aeroplane as a weapon of war and using it to its optimum ability. The training suffers because it is akin to trying to drive a Ferrari on a racing track after learning driving on a Maruti 800. Earlier, we had the Hunters, so from the Kiran to the Hunters was the transition. After the collapse of the erstwhile Soviet Union there was a shortage of spares so we bought a lot of spares of doubtful quality from the erstwhile satellite countries. The Russians were extremely particular about spares and there was extensive documentation with every aircraft. Moreover, a young pilot flying a high-demand aircraft can not handle an emergency.
Technically, modern aircraft have two engines whereas these aircraft have only one engine. The MiG-29 is a younger, more modern aircraft. During my tenure too we had lost few aircraft due to rear fuselage overheating. When we contacted HAL, we were told that it was due to poor maintenance or faults on the part of IAF technicians. It was only when we saw machines that had been ferried straight from the HAL factory with burn marks, before any of our technicians had even touched them, could we convince the HAL. There was very little gap between the engine and the rear fuselage. As far as assembling of parts and indigenous manufacture goes, there is a lack of stringent quality control and adequate supervision.
Why this laxity in procuring AJTs and upgradation of the existing aircraft and replacement by the LCA?
About 20 years ago, the Air Force was equipped with trans-sonic Hunters, Mysteres and Gnats. Intermediary aircraft is needed not only for flight safety but also for building up of the operational capability of the pilot. There were squadrons where young pilots would be given flying experience much before they flew fighter planes. One reason that they could not be phased out by the LCA is because we do not possess the experience, industry and manufacturing as well as design capability to manufacture LCA. The Ministry of Defence is a non-professional body and the Ministry of Finance handles defence finance, as a consequence, bureaucratic red tapism affects all decisions. If we had the money to buy Su-30, why not AJTs? Had we bought the AJTs 10 years back, it would have cost us one-fifth of what it would now. Perhaps, if an odd Air Chief had resigned on the issue to drive home the point, it would have registered and placed the responsibility squarely on the government. How can those who have been trained for revenue administration understand vital policy matters pertaining to defence? Quotations are sought, files keep going up and down and adding up but no significant decisions are ever taken. All these things have been allowed to slide for far too long. I agree that some of the defence officers too make money but all the deals are signed by the bureaucrats.
I hope the above quotes sheds more light on the entire episode and who was responsible for the same.
. Look smartypants if you can't provide evidence for what you are saying then either don't make such claims or try these tricks somewhere else.
