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Surprised this hasn't made more headlines here. Imagine the usual conservative papers would spit the dummy especially given how close it is to Remembrance Day.

Surely not though - they might be broke but they'd not go this far, even Labour knows this'll kneecap their defence credentials and be a red rag to the Tories en masse, not just their right wing.

You've pretty much summed it up here. 14 years of brutal austerity and mismanagement by successive Tory govt's is now bearing fruit.

Interesting shout. Doesn't impinge on India's strategic autonomy to host training sessions at all really. Going to be a hard sell for the old toffs in Blighty though, not that it wouldn't be enormously entertaining to see them spit feathers at how the tables have turned. I'd be keen for that reason alone.

Frankly speaking, beyond the bluster, I think even those old timers on the right will admit that Britain's role in any military scenario is going to change with it's changing national fortunes. In fact it Has changed. The fact that their two carriers are essentially extra USMC ARGs rather than RN CBGs is telling. Sure, there was the usual hue and cry initially but look at how the protests died down as they accepted their new reality.

Let's be honest, Britain's military, beyond the ring fenced nuclear deterrent and Tier One Spec Ops capability, is all designed to essentially be a helpful addition to a coalition force. The UK doesn't have the capability to mount unilateral military action. I highly doubt they could do a Falklands redux were that silly scenario to play itself out again today. It's just a case of how willing the public are to accept this reality.

In any case, I've said it before and I'll say it again. India should coolly and rationally capitalise on any low hanging fruit that the managed decline of UK military-industrial capability presents. It's how they would've wanted it were the tables turned.

On a vastly different note
I have noticed in the past two or three months a far greater volume of not just critical but almost excoriating rebukes of AUKUS. Seems the defence community there has really soured on the deal now that the fiscal and timeline realities have settled.

I have googled around a bit but could not find any other references to this alleged plan.

By the way, to the best of my knowledge, as it is and has been since worldwar 2, UK airforce pilots will spend a considerable amount of their training in the USA. The same is true for just about all NATO countries. All their military pilots will spend at least a year in the USA on various training.

So where does the new plan differ from what is the current practice?

https://raf.mod.uk/news/articles/fly...ning-in-texas/

Jeroen

Air Force's Mig-29 crashes near Agra

A Mig-29 operated by the Indian Air Force crashed near Agra earlier today. The pilot safely ejected and is, hence, safe. The crashed aircraft is of the UPG standard (i.e., upgraded).

Crashes of the Mig-29 and Mirage 2000s are particularly concerning since these are frontline airframes but India only has a couple of dozen of each.

Searched around, the story seems to originate with the Dailymail & express. I'm not well versed with British media but I understand these can be misleading or sensationalist, like a tabloid.

As per the claim in these articles, I believe the difference with the current practice is the fact that virtually all training will happen in the US with RAF only providing the conversion training for non-common aircrafts such as the Eurofigher.

Thanks.
I’m not sure what kind of training is done in the USA already. And let’s face it, in the military training never stops. Every flight, not a combat mission, is a training mission. With training goals attached and reviews afterwards.

Far from an expert on these matters, but I assume there is a practical reason behind it. These days, numerically at least, UK and other NATO airforces are tiny. A tiny country such as the Netherlands had more than 250 F16s. That was during several decades. And we had a bunch of F5s operational during the first decade of F16 deployments. The Dutch airforce had hundreds of operational fighter planes at any one time.

We have ordered only 50 F35 to date. Only 40 have been delivered and only a few weeks ago we officially retired the F16! That is all, we have 40 fighters!

With such small numbers of these highly sophisticated planes I can well imagine it is simply not possible to keep a local full training regime. Not just the cost, but I imagine you need to have a certain critical mass to be able to do so.

The Royal Airforce is of course considerable larger. But even the RAF in terms of numbers of planes has gone through the exact same transition. Possibly even more so, relatively speaking.

It will be interesting to see howmthis develops.

Jeroen

And to think that this is the same RAF that almost single-handedly staved off the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain in 1940 , with its Hurricanes and Spitfires pitted against the numerically superior 'Mitts, Junkers, Dorniers and Heinkels.

I think you touch upon a key factor here Jeroen. When I first read the post from V.Narayan, my immediate thought was 'oh, so they're just going to take the RAF+RN joint training with the USMC on the F-35B one step further?'.

With F-35 fleet numbers amongst NATO member forces being so limited compared to US military fleet numbers, and more importantly the very commonality of the JSF programme, it's not altogether surprising that the platform would allow for bean counters to economise through joint activity where possible. Which again brings back the ghosts of the old top brass in various JSF partner forces who warned how the project would limit the autonomy of their side.

If you're of the tinfoil haberdashery persuasion, you could argue that the ultimate tool of Pax Americana was the JSF that locked in so many of their liberal western partners to the yoke of a combined airpower platform. I digress though.

On another note have folks been following all these reveals out of the airshow in Zhuhai, China??

We've had umpteen video clips of a rather scruffy looking Su-57 that's visiting (numerous visible bolts and screws, panel gaps a la 1990s domestic cars, painted over screws, etc). Admittedly said raggedy Felon is one of the older prototypes.

Have a gander. I will say, regardless of its efficacy, the Russians still make striking looking jets. The Felon is pretty in a way none of the F-22, F-35 or J-20 are.

There's also been what appears to be the reveal and rollout of the second Chinese 5th gen platform, what curiously appears to have the service moniker of J-35. Cue the numerous memes of it being a slimmed down F-35 (I mean the resemblance is hardly a shock given the provenance of said platform).
For context the J-35 is the smaller twin engine platform developed with a view to primarily becoming a key part of the PLANAFs air wing but also for the non-navalised variant to be potentially offered on export. No prizes for guessing who might be first to queue up to get it if this is the case.

Good thing you brought up the J-35, looks the part. So, my assumption is that the J-35 is basically the Air Force version of the J-31 which is the naval version that came earlier?

The concerning part is not just the fact that the Chinese are going induct their second (or third?) type of stealth fighter, I mean they already operate something like 300 J20s. What's even more worrying is the fact that we can be pretty much sure that the J-35 is destined for service with the Pakistanis (as we'd discussed earlier). This comes at a time when India's own numbers are severely depleted. Recent reports seem to indicate that India will go for a tender for the MRFA thanks to the hungama from the Rafale deal which means, best case scenario, a contract will be signed 5 years down the line with the jets following 5 years later, which more or less syncs with the timeline for Tejas MK2 & AMCA which brings up the question of the need to get foreign aircraft in the first place when the whole point was to get it earlier. By this time, the Mirages, Mig-29s and Jags would probably all have to be retired which means we'd be left with 270 odd Sukhois, 36 Rafales and 100-200 Tejas Mk1As before new jets start tricking in (that is if we can finish the new indigenous jets on time or even finish MRFA which is 2 decades old already by then) i.e we'd have fewer jets than the Chinese have fifth generation aircrafts, this is apart from a much bigger fleet of 4++ gen J10s and flankers that the Chinese have. This is again apart from the Pakistanis who'd have JF-17s, J-10s & J-35s at that point. The current fighter strength of the Indian air force is the least since 1965! Unless we plan to try to figure out a form of air denial like the Ukrainians did (partially successfully), this is a problem. I'd say the Navy is more war-ready despite getting lower resources and facing the same issues like slow procurement (eg. submarines).

We talk about Europe, but India has also grown decadent due with its peace dividend, because our policymakers figured that a serious war is unlikely thanks to the nukes. In the past 10 years, India has consistently been spending <2% of its GDP on its defense when the Chinese have splurged to catch-up with the Americans.

The Europeans have had a rude awakening thanks to Putin uncle's actions and the dagger of an even more hostile Trump presidency hanging over their head. Remains to be seen how long we can continue riding the nuclear peace dividend.

Aye, that's the image I've been seeing doing the rounds the last 2 days on Twitter. My take is this is the PLAAF version too, if they truly mimicked the JSF nomenclature down to the subscript, because I've seen it labelled the J-35A.

Oh definitely. Forget the Chinese, heads will roll and an almighty stink will be kicked up if and when the PAF gets their hands on the J-35. Forget our minimal IAF fleet numbers, the pipeline for the IAF to have anything approaching a 5th gen platform just isn't exactly there in the short-medium term (as things stand, and of course working with the 5th gen categorisation assumption). Who knows if that scenario of the PLAAF fielding the J-35 in bigger numbers but more importantly the same having PAF roundels acts as the trigger to finally kick the defence apparatus out of their endless prevarication (for god's sake what is this Ouroboros that the MMRCA has become in its latest iteration?!).
To some degree, India's planners can breathe a bit easy in the knowledge that the bulk of the PLAAFs top end assets such as the J-20 are all arrayed and geared towards coming up against the USAF in the Pacific theatre. Were a chunk of that to be forward based on the Indian sectors, watch the colour drain out the faces of those same Indian planners as their timelines become drastically shortened.

Interesting assertion - I can see where you're coming from. I've always viewed the Russians with a similar lens in the sense their nuclear capacity (which is no laughing matter - notice how no NATO talking heads downplay this) becomes the silver plated part of their defence structure at the cost of spending in other domains (I'm talking prior to the Ukraine invasion naturally). Perhaps that happened with India too to a degree. You know I've never thought about India's defence spend as a proportion of GDP. Granted that NATO 2% metric isn't a universally applicable one either.

A crucial factor in our strategic arms purchase, particularly military combat aviation, has been India's non-alignment on the front end and over-reliance on Soviet/Russia at the back-end. This ambiguity has resulted in a few missed opportunities.

We have to think of:
1) Complete self-reliance on weapons delivery (i.e. missile systems) or importing the same
2) Complete self reliance on avionics/radar or importing the same
3) Complete self reliance on powerplant or importing the same.

Right now we are, as usual, neither here nor there.

Saw this recent video of how India and Brazil could help each other with HAL Tejas fighter for Brazil in turn India gets Embraer C-390 Medium transport plane (replacement for IL76 and augment C130J). Seems too good to be true :cool:, but whats the catch?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F1KXEmuazk

Went into a textbook flat spin: https://idrw.org/video-emerges-of-ia...ejects-safely/

Interesting proposal but a few speed bumps:
-HAL can't produce Tejas airframes quick enough for domestic customers, why on earth would anyone consider them for an external contract?
-the C390 is too small to be a like for like replacement for the IL76, but comparable to the C130 family though. However, why complicate the logistics chain when the Hercules family is basically the Toyota Innova of medium lift platforms? Just get more of them. It'll appease the incoming Trump administration and it's one of those rare American platforms where the bluster is justified given it simply works very well at what it does.
-I also feel the Millennium is in this weird space. Given India is going to license build C295s that'll underpin the low end of its fixed wing airlift capability, the medium is covered by the Hercules and the heavy airlift by the remaining Candid fleet and Globemasters, hard to see where in a logical world you'd shoehorn the Embraer in.
So obviously watch that happen in the coming months/years.

Either way, you can never have too much air lift capability so it won't be the end of the world were it to pass.

I was waiting for the 'big event' today to conclude before commenting on this. With the big T back in office, the likely-hood of the F35 being offered increases sharply. Keep in mind that the F35s were already offered to the Emiratis under the previous T administration and they are in the same level as us in terms of the category of allies - Major Defense Partner - a category made solely for India in which the UAE was slotted into as well. Would be silly not to get hold of it if such an offer arises, even if it's for a small fleet of 2-3 squadrons.

Don't think the S400 is a problem, the IDF F35s regularly fly around territories monitored by Russian S400s. It was made out as a problem for Turkey for political reasons and let's be honest, they weren't exactly the best 'allies'.

HAL is actively finding export markets though and it is a quite an attractive product considering it's relatively high-tech for its size and prize with the only alternative being the unreliable JF-17s or used F16s. Offcourse, the Koreans have corned this market for now.

Was about to say this, the only alternative to the Il-76 is perhaps the A400M but I don't think we'd end up spending on that. Likely will be the C130J given they already have an understanding with the Tatas for local assembly. Apart from the obvious perk that we already operate these, even politically speaking, BRICs solidarity is not really a thing, the Americans are much more politically closer to India than the Brazilians are right now, how much ever many of us dislike it. We'd still be losing capability since the Il-76 is a heavy lifter but some of it can be offset by buying competent tanker refuellers most of which can also carry decent loads.

Or maybe, just maybe, try and get the Russians to build the new Il-76M here? Perhaps a mix of Indian and Israeli avionics could give it a new lease of life.

You really think Trump being back increased the likelihood of new entrants to the F-35 user base beyond NATO? I still find it a bridge too far perhaps. I know there were increasing rumblings from the Emiratis that they could get a deal done but most of that was from their end, pretty sure it was quietly shuttered once it made it to the Hill or the Pentagon. And that's the Emiratis, forget it being India.

I think there's a larger calculus though. With Trump back, CENTCOM is gonna once more become the most important domain of the US mil., commiserations to the planners at INDOPACOM and EUCOM. In that sense perhaps the hawks in the incoming administration will entertain the idea but wait, you hit the ultimate wall. You provide another ME power the F-35, and Israel loses it's ironclad qualitative edge that's promised by US lawmakers. I don't think you'll find anyone of GoP persuasion running afoul of that cardinal rule. Plus would Bibi even bless that move? Anyway, all of that is a bigger soup and I'm not paid enough to even entertain thinking about it.

I see where you're going with this but to allude to comments I made earlier, India would very much be tying our yoke in with the Americans by getting that platform given it's greatest asset is the way it intermingles and interacts with your entire network (air defence, ground forces, etc, etc). And I'm one of the more open minded here when it comes to giving the Yanks and their gear the time of day but here I am being reticent about the thought. Imagine how disagreeable the notion would be to the institutionalised members of India's defence apparatus?

But let's play a thought experiment.
The Chinese have had the J-20 for a while yet (and while beyond maybe one or two brief rotations in Tibet), it's not been considered enough of an existential threat to force the hand of the procurement bosses to finally greenlight some kind of purchase to ensure parity. (If they seriously have a LO strategic bomber then this calculus might change).
However say the PAF suddenly had a reasonably LO, 5th gen platform in the vein of the J-35. Then you might see it trigger a response for a move in kind by India (is that not how other purchases happened in the past on the subcontinent?).
Why would it be worth the USAs while to provide their most prized asset to ensure parity in a long running subcontinental blood feud essentially (Pakistan is a bit of an afterthought going by how the Trump 45 administration behaved)? It's not going to be bought in that context with an eye to combat the PLAAF, and the whole US pivot towards India has been driven largely out of a mutually beneficial utility in terms of containing the PRCs rise.

Granted the above hypothetical is a narrow reading of that scenario but hopefully you get where I'm going with it.

You said it here yourself. The only platform (bar the Y-20) that fits the Candid mould is the Atlas and that's too pricey for the IAF to bite. Plus it's a big Airbus military platform. We all know how well those fare in Indian procurement tenders. Some Airbus executive must've caused a hex against their firm in years past that'll take arcane magic to lift (I refer of course to the A330MRTT).

There's an idea eh? Lord knows the Russian Armed Forces could use modernised and fresh airlifters. Not sure it'll be a good look for India given we know where they'll immediately be pressed into service. Will undoubtedly sour relations with most of Europe to say the least. Think overall it's just simpler to place an order for more Hercules - given Trump is back, and his penchant for transactional diplomacy, it'll keep his ire directed away from India for a while. Plus it's a safe sell, granted it doesn't alleviate the heavy airlift gap.

You've provided the solution once more. A lot of that airlift could be handled by something like the A330MRTT, two-birds-one-stone and all that. But for reasons unfathomable the defence mandarins won't bite.

Well said, I do fully concur with your assessment. I was musing to myself just how outland-ish my comments were as I typed them. But things have been changing faster than we can fathom, who'd have thought that an incident like Galwan would take place forever changing India's calculus on its national security? These events are wild cards and it takes only one more such event or something worse to change the position of India's security apparatus. We are slowly moving into an era where 5th generation fighters are getting normalised as the Koreans, Turks and the Chinese develop their own. The J35 is very much an aircraft that is meant to be on sale not just for Pakistan but just about any other country who are ready to pay and are agreeable with china. When that's the case, it would hurt the American interests immensely if they continue to patronize their browner allies, providing them inferior tech. Remember that unlike India, the Emiratis and Saudis can very much purchase these kind of equipment from China, they have the money and they have the relations. If that were to happen, it would very much change the calculus of the Americans, would they rather have their Middle Eastern allies, many of whom they fought with, operate Chinese J35s or would they decide to part with a technology that's increasingly being developed independently by other nations and the aircraft itself being used by dozens of nations, so not exactly exclusive tech?

Just to bring a correlation in terms of fourth-generation fighter tech, we are moving from the 70s when only the West and the Soviets who'd newly developed these new generation of aircraft were operating then to the 80s when the F16s and Mirage 2000s were trickling into the Indians and Pakistanis of the world.

Moreover, the Americans have rapidly changed their stance when it comes to sharing sensitive tech, would you have believed me 10 years ago that the Americans would share their SSN tech with Australia or even muse about selling them the B21 - probably the most potent bomber in history? We'd have been laughed out of the room then if we said America would be sharing its most advanced stealth bomber, even to a five eyes ally. Would you have believed me 15 years ago that India would be getting American drones with the kind of classified equipment that makes the deal cost as much as 3 Arleigh Burke-class Destroyers? If their tier 1 allies can start getting technology that was earlier strictly restricted to the US military, it's probably not impossible to assume that their tier 2 & 3 allies would get the technology that was reserved for their tier 1 allies.