India likely to order 106 more Pilatus aircraft to train pilots,

NEW DELHI: India is likely to go in for 106 more Swiss Pilatus PC-7 basic trainer aircraft (BTA), the bulk of which will be produced domestically, to help train rookie IAF pilots in a project worth around Rs 7,000 crore.

 This comes after defence PSU Hindustan Aeronautics' attempt to develop its own BTA called HTT-40 failed to pass muster with the defence ministry. First, it would have been much more expensive than the Pilatus BTA already being inducted by IAF. Second, it would have not met the timelines specified long ago.

So, the defence acquisitions council (DAC) is slated to consider the case for 106 additional Pilatus at the meeting to be chaired by Manohar Parrikar on Saturday, say sources.

One option is to buy 38 Pilatus off-the-shelf, with the rest 68 being produced by the 5 Base Repair Depot (BRD) of IAF at Sulur. Other options could include importing only 10 BTA, with 96 being made in India.

It was in September 2009 that the DAC had approved the urgent purchase of 75 BTA from the global market, while 106 BTA were to be made in India to meet the overall requirement for 181 such planes. Finally, after a global competition, India inked the Rs 2,896 crore deal for 75 Pilatus BTA in May 2012. IAF has inducted 53 of them till now.

IAF had then also strongly objected to HAL's push for its still-to-developed HTT-40 on the ground that two types of BTA would be both "illogical" and "exorbitant" in terms of duplication in spares, maintenance, infrastructure and the like.

It's a no-brainer that fighter pilots have to be properly trained to handle highly-demanding supersonic jets that necessarily have to undertake inherently dangerous combat maneuvres. Similar is true for helicopter and aircraft pilots.

"Human error (aircrew)" has been the reason for over 39% of the around 1,100 crashes recorded by IAF since 1970. The other equally big killer is "technical defects" caused by ageing machines and shoddy maintenance.

It took India 20 years to ink the first contract for 66 twin-seat Hawk advanced jet trainers (AJTs) in March 2004 — now used to train pilots in the intricacies of combat flying — despite losing hundreds of fighters and pilots in crashes. Another 57 Hawks were then ordered in July 2010, taking the total project cost to around Rs 16,000 crore,

The induction of Pilatus, in turn, was urgent since IAF training schedules for raw cadets had gone haywire after the entire fleet of the 114 old piston-engine HPT-32 aircraft, which long served as the BTA, was grounded in August 2009 after a crash killed the pilot.

The intermediate training for fighter pilots between the Pilatus and Hawk stages, however, still remains a big problem. HAL is yet to deliver on its Sitara intermediate jet trainer (IJT) despite a delay of 15 years.