MMRCA trials to begin in Bangalore next week

New Delhi, July 31 (PTI) India's quest to buy 126
medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) will shift gear when
the flight trials of the six global contenders will begin in
southern city of Bangalore next week with US major Boeing's
warplane F/A-18 being the first contender.

"F/A-18 will be the first contender to arrive in India
for the trails that will begin in Bangalore next week," top
IAF officers said here Friday.

The US' Lockheed Martin F-16s, French D'Assault's
Rafale, Swiss SAAB's Gripen, European consortium EADS'
Eurofighter Typhoon and Russian MiG-35, the other five
competitors for the USD 10-billion deal, will follow F/A-18,
not necessarily in that order, for the first phase of the
flight trials in India, they said.

After Bangalore, all contending aircraft will move to
Leh for high altitude trials and to Jaisalmer for summer
trials. "We are optimistic that the trails on Indian soil and
conditions of all the six aircraft competing for the deal will
be completed before April end next year," the officers added.

The IAF would field a team of two test pilots each,
who would carry out the flight trials in the three locations
that the Air Force has chosen, they said.

"As per the trial schedule, the first phase involved
training of Indian pilots on these competing aircraft in the
country of origin. The second phase is the flight trials on
Indian soil and airspace. The third phase would be test of
specialist weapons that the manufacturers would provide on the
aircraft in the country of their choice," they said.

A two-pilot team would test each of the aircraft, as
there is a likelihood of overlap of the flight trial schedule
of the six aircraft, the IAF officers said.

"The idea is to complete the trials as soon as
possible and hence we got four pilots trained on these
competing aircraft," they said.

India had floated the tenders for the MMRCA in August
2007 and the exhaustive technical evaluation of the six global
manufacturer' bids were completed early this year.

The 126 MMRCAs will replace the aging MiG-21 fleet of
the IAF and help in curbing the recent trend of depleting IAF
squadron strength.

IAF's number of squadrons had gone down to an alarming
31.5 squadrons in 2006 following which the then IAF chief S P
Tyagi had written to the government pointing out that there
was an urgent need to procure fighters aircraft to maintain
the force levels.

After the induction of British major BAE System's
'Hawk' Advanced Jet Trainers (AJTs) in 2008, the fleet
strength of the IAF has increased to about 33.5 squadrons
compared to the sanctioned squadron strength of 39.5
squadrons.

Defence Minister A K Antony had recently told
Parliament that the IAF squadron strength would continue to
increase till 2015 when the MMRCA induction is likely to
start, but face a down fall for a couple of years, before
going north wards again to reach a maximum of 42.5 squadrons
by 2022. PTI NCB
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