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The purpose of this article is twofold. First, it considers how the Indian Air Force (IAF) has evolved through the 1990s and where it is headed in the first decade or so of the 21 st century. Second, it offers some recommendations on how the IAF might deal with specific challenges in the future.
The 1990s started on a very inauspicious note for the Indian Armed Forces in general and the IAF in particular. Economic difficulties along with the collapse of the Soviet Union severely affected expansion and modernisation plans, and various key programmes were pushed back by at least half a decade. Major problems with the availability of spares and support from the ex-USSR affected operations severely during 1991-1994, and serviceability rates declined from an average 70-72% in the previous decade to as low as 55-60% for some types, including most notably the MiG-29 and An-32 fleets. By the same token, pilots averaged a mere 120 flight hours/year in 1992/93 compared to 180-200 in 1988/89, and total annual flying hours declined from 256,200 in 1991/92 to 239,000 in 1993/94. A recovery began only in 1994/95; in 1997/98, the IAF crossed the 300,000 hours mark, and average pilot flight hours are now back to the standard 180-200 figure.
These tense times offered the IAF several lessons, namely the need to establish local overhaul facilities and the conservation, where possible, of equipment and spares through the widespread use of simulators. These lessons seem to have been learnt well and have benefited the force immensely. Sensationalism in the media notwithstanding, the 1990s have been the safest decade in the IAF's history even as flying hours soared post-1994. Indeed, 1997/98 saw the IAF's lowest ever accident rate. Moreover, between 1991 and 1998, IAF attrition (1.07 per 10,000 hours) remained well below that of its principal adversary, the Pakistan Air Force (1.37 per 10,000 hours).
India's economic revival since the mid-1990s together with changed geopolitical circumstances has allowed the IAF to take up its long overdue upgrade and reorganisation programmes with vigor.
Stepping Into The New
Two events in the early 1990s laid the groundwork for the transformation of the IAF. The Allied air campaign over Iraq was closely studied and its lessons incorporated, as far as possible,...