Training wings

Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd HAL deserves all the praise that can be showered on them for the outstanding performance in designing the Interm...

Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd HAL deserves all the praise that can be showered on them for the outstanding performance in designing the Intermediate Jet Trainer IJT, designated HJT-36, in less than two years and flying it to the stage of a demonstration before VIPs. The chief of air staff has given the aircraft a thumping endorsement by stating that 8220;I believe, professionally and technically, in the IJT we have a winner8221;, while announcing that the Indian Air Force has already placed orders for a dozen aircraft. The aircraft is expected to complete its test and evaluation schedule to enter service by 2005-06. Defence Minister George Fernandes has asked HAL to reduce the time taken to produce the 211 aircraft needed by the Indian Air Force to less than a decade.

HAL has been designing flying trainers for the air force since the late forties. The first jet trainer, the HJT-16 named 8220;Kiran8221;, entered service in late 1960s, and is scheduled for replacement by the HJT-36 in the coming decade. There is a lesson far deeper than what might appear on the surface in the formal inaugural flight of the indigenous HJT-36. It demonstrates our ability to have designed a medium performance jet trainer and have it flying in less than two years. At the other end of the spectrum, the indigenous state-of-the-art high-performance fighter, the LCA the Light Combat Aircraft is already flying.

A question, therefore, becomes almost inevitable: if we can indigenously design successful jet trainers on either side of the performance specifications of an AJT, why don8217;t we have our own designed AJT? Even in collaboration with another country? This question will keep haunting those who have a stake in the future of the IAF and the lives of the brave pilots. The Indian Air Force has been waiting for the elusive AJT for more than two decades now. What has been even more inexplicable has been the decades it has taken to get down to buying one. Meanwhile, the absence of a suitable training aircraft at this stage 8212; to train pilots in flying fighter aircraft 8212; remains a key weakness in the training pattern.