Military    Fighters
Boeing F-15EX is a leading contender for the MRFA programme
Urgency of 114 Multi-Role Fighter Aircraft The Government needs to appreciate the urgency of acquiring the 114 combat platforms that the IAF needs and move the plan forward without further delay
Photograph: Boeing
By Air Marshal B.K. Pandey (Retd) If there is one serious and agonising problem that the Indian Air Force (IAF) has been battling with over the last two decades, is its inability to maintain the strength of the fleet of combat aircraft at the currently authorised level of 42 squadrons. The impediments to its efforts encountered so far, have proved to be insurmountable. With the sanctioned strength of 18 aircraft per squadron, the total strength of the combat fleet of the IAF would be in the region of 756 aircraft. In the days of the bi-polar world,
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the majority of combat aircraft the IAF consisted of MiG and Sukhoi fighters procured initially from the Soviet Union and later from Russia. Combat platforms inducted from Western sources were the British Vampires, the Jaguar from the Anglo-French firm SEPECAT, the Ouragan (renamed in India as Toofani) and the Mystere, both from Dassault Aviation of France. Compared to the procurements from the Soviet Union and Russia, numbers procured from Western sources were significantly lower.
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