Of all the air forces that participated in the exercise Red flag in 2008, the IFA had the distinction of being the only air force to have 95 per cent serviceability of all its platforms
AN INDIAN Air Force (IAF) contingent, along with several combat aircraft, departed for Eielson Air Force Base Alaska in USA on April 3, 2016. The professed aim was to demonstrate an ability to project air power in transcontinental deployment of a taskforce. The contingent comprised combat planes Su-30 MKI and Jaguars, supported by IL- 78 tankers and the latest C-17 strategic airlift aircraft. They have gone to participate in the 2016 edition of the most sought-after global exercise — The Red Flag — for which all combat-worthy aviators yearn for.
The IAF was visiting the US soil for this exercise after eight years; the last trans-continental sojourn had taken place in the summer of 2008. Air Force Vicechief Air Marshal VP Naik had clarified the national objective when he had arrived to witness the maneuvers in 2008, in the American aerospace.
He had said: “By participating in this exercise, we want to check whether we are capable of projecting power over that kind of distance, if not more. Secondly, we want to test our logistic and administrative abilities to support such a large number of people so far away from home, without much difficulty. In addition, the IAF also wanted to check whether its personnel are capable of operating in varied environments without much loss of effectiveness.”
Air Marshal Naik had indicated that as far as operations and capability of IAF aircraft were concerned, there were no problems. But with India becoming a global player, it was important to test, “How good are we in large force engagements against different types of aircraft other than those we own in India.”
According to Naik, it is every fighter pilot's dream to participate in the Red Flag, “It helps you fly in a different environment, fly large force engagements which can be debriefed, picturised in a much better manner here than anywhere else and helps you fly in an environment of different kind of aircraft than what you are used to. I was talking to our transport pilots and very rarely do they get a chance to fly in such a dense environment, so these have been some of the major gains of this Red Flag exercise,” he had said.
However, he did point out that it was a costly exercise and he did not think the IAF will take part in another Red Flag for another four to five years. That futuristic assessment had held true and Naik did not witness a repeat of this feat in his service lifetime again, although he went on to Command the IAF as its Chief and superannuated.
Many observers have termed the Indian participation in a US-conceived platform as a attitudinal shift in Indian foreign policy stance. Some paradoxes could not be explained, however. In all the years when India remained the largest recipient of military wherewithal and materials from the erstwhile USSR, and then its new avatar Russia, it never participated in any combat aviation exercise with the suppliers. The SU-30 MKI and previous combat platforms, namely many variants of MIGs and Sukhois, used to form the most predominant arsenal of our military machine and continue to remain so. In a strange treatment of these platforms, the IAF chose to evolve its own tactics and its own set of maneuvers without any reference to the originators and conceivers of the potent platforms.
An erstwhile Chief of the IAF, a personal friend of many years and who I do not propose to name, had provided answers that helped in unraveling the mystery. Astoundingly, he was deeply convinced with IAF’s notion that irrespective of the designers’ and the manufacturers’ visions and schemes, the operators must work towards operational profiles and tactics, compatible with Indian needs. According to him, the maxim applied across the board, including for British platforms such as Canberras, Hunters and Jaguars, French platforms such as Mirage 2000, and, for that matter, even in the handling of our transport and helicopter fleets. Having acquired the machines with an intense determination of their potential and abilities we knew our methodologies. We would nevertheless listen but do precisely what we thought was the best. In any case, the phenomenon of multinational exercises is a post-cold war practice and the IAF ought to make the best of it. We must learn.
An inkling of the Indian planning successes had come to our notice back in 2004, a good 12 years ago. Major Mark A Snowden, the 3rd Wing’s Chief of air-to-air tactics and a participant in Cope India 2004, admitted that the US Air Force underestimated the Indians. “The outcome of the (2004) exercise boils down to (the fact that) they ran tactics that were more advanced than we expected,” he told an aviation weekly. “They had done some training with the French that we knew about, but we did not expect them to be a very well-trained air force. That was silly.”
One USAF controller working aboard an AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) plane told reporters at Kalaikunda Air Base that he was impressed by the speed at which Indian pilots responded to target assignments given to them by AWACS. The AWACS, while operated by Americans, was acting as a neutral party, feeding target assignments to both Indian and American pilots during the exercise. In most cases, the Indians responded to target assignments faster than the American pilots did -- “a surprising fact, given that this was the first time Indian pilots had used the American AWACS capability”.
Of all the air forces that participated in the exercise Red Flag in 2008, the IAF had the distinction of being the only air force to have about 95 per cent serviceability of all its platforms, be it the eight Su-30 multi role, air superiority, strike fighters, two IL- 78 air-to-air refuellers or the lone IL-76 heavy lift transport aircraft.