By adopting a long-term and well thought-out roadmap aimed at both expanding and
upgrading their respective fleets of rotary-winged aircraft, the country’s three
armed services are now in the process of inducting almost 400 new-generation
helicopters configured for armed utility, armed aeroscout, attack, heavy-lift
utility, and anti-ship strike/anti-submarine warfare operations. The on-going
acquisition processes, to be completed by 2018, will result in the large-scale
service induction of both platforms of indigenous origin, as well as imported
models originating from Europe, Russia and the US. As a consequence of all this,
the domestic market for supplying sub-systems and components in areas of
airframe, engines, avionics, accessories and cockpit instrumentation is all set
to record a phenomenal increase, thanks to the emergence of at least four
home-grown aircraft R&D projects: the light combat helicopter (LCH), light
utility helicopter (LUH), and the 11-tonne Indian multi-role helicopter (IMRH).
More than one million types of line-items are expected to go on board these
rotary-winged aircraft over the next 20 years, making it an extremely
target-rich environment for foreign vendors. The advantage, though, clearly lies
with those original equipment manufacturers (OEM) that have had
aerospace-related industrial partnerships with their Indian counterparts from
both the public sector and private sector over the past 40 decades.
With India now seemingly going on a belated overdrive for developing the
military infrastructure along India’s 4,057km disputed frontier with China, the
next five years will likely witness a virtual doubling of the Indian Air Force’s
(IAF) tactical and strategic airlift capabilities (in support of the Indian
Army’s (IA) ground-based formations deployed along the Line of Actual Control,
or LAC), notably in the area of rotary-winged aviation. This follows the IAF’s
decision two years ago to operationalise a string of World War II-era advanced
landing grounds (ALG) and heli-bases all along the LAC, beginning with the one
at Daulat Beg Oldi in the sub-sector north (SSN) area of Ladakh (on 31 May,
2008), and followed by Fukche on 24 September, 2008, and Nyoma, south of Chushul
on 18 September, 2009. Other ALGs now in the process of being re-activated and
upgraded in Arunachal Pradesh include Tuting (Upper Siang district), Mechuka
(West Siang), Vijaynagar (Changlang) and Passigat (East Siang district). Going
hand-in-hand with this is the construction of some 50 new helipads in Arunachal
Pradesh, Sikkim and Uttarkhand. As part of the IAF’s re-jigged aerial logistics
operational plans, its upgraded An-32Bs and the projected 12 Lockheed
Martin-supplied C-130J-30 Stretched Hercules will henceforth be committed to
providing all-year round air maintenance for forward-deployed Indian Army
formations all along the LAC, while its expanded fleet of medium-lift
helicopters and to-be-acquired heavylift helicopters will be free to provide
tactical air transportation of troops, provide perishable supplies for troops
deployed along the LAC (via dropping zones), as well as deal with time-urgent
MEDEVAC sortie requirements. Each and every one of these ALGs, air bases and
helipads will be equipped with new-generation remote-controlled night landing
aids, portable lighting systems and man-portable SATCOM-based communications
systems, with the bulk of such hardware being acquired by the IAF, and the rest
by the Indian Army.
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