My Experiences

Wars are won by logistics and India has a dire shortage of logistical aircraft/helicopters. At present, India's best logistical aircraft is C-17. But we have only 11 and rest are in need of replacement being at the end of life stage. On top of it, Boeing has stopped manufacturing more C-17s. This brings us to the conclusion, what next to satisfy India Army, Navy and Air Force logistical needs for air transport. C-17 capacity is 77 tons, while there is no other aircraft of similar capacity available today, There is A-400M with half the payload capacity but can carry diverse missions. e.g. Strategic/tactical lift due to its requirement of shorter runway length (1 km vs 2+ km). This can significantly enhance the fighting power of the military by providing them fast and reliable transport to and from battlefield. Present rotational time of 2+ years of battalions should be significantly reduced to 1+ years to reduce stress on soldiers.  And their operational requirements can be met...

In the previous article , the strength of Indian Army has been discussed. Let us analyze the Indian Air Force strength in this article in 2020: 1. Fighter aircraft: A fighter aircraft covers around 2,400 km in 2 hours of flight time. With a patrol mission involving 3 aircraft covering our total boundary, the required number for 24 hours of protection is 333. By providing redundancy of 40% availability due to maintenance,  this number rises to 832. We have about 575 fighter aircraft involving Rafale, Mirage 2000, MiG 29, Sukhoi-30 MKI, Jaguar, MiG 21 and LCA Tejas Mk 1. So, the ratio between required vs available is : 832 vs 576 i.e. 1. So we have slightly less fighters and need to increase the number of our fighter pilots, as our enemy fighter strength increases. Also most of the fleet needs to be upgraded within the next 10-15 years. So, there is a need to involve private players to help HAL scale up production of LCA Tejas and other fighter jets like MWF, Tejas Mk 2 and S.P.O.R.T...