The IAF’s squadron strength is less than three-fourths of its sanctioned strength and its stated doctrine mandates it to carry out its own strategic tasks,...
The Indian Air Force (IAF) inducted the HS 748 Avro in the 1960s. This twin-engine turboprop aircraft was initially designed by British aircraft Original Equipment...
Emerging technologies, with splendid assistance from Artificial Intelligence (AI), are driving remarkable Research and Development (R&D) in the area of unmanned systems for use on...
In the beginning of March this year, Russia launched its biggest aerial attack in its ongoing war with Ukraine. The attack comprised a variegated weapon...
In May last year, a report titled Global Air Power Rankings (2022) published by World Directory of Modern Military Aircraft (WDMMA) placed the Indian Air...
The nature of warfare and consequently, the conduct of air warfare, are undergoing significant and rapid transformation as a result of the munificence of emerging...
Unarmed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) began as desirable supplements to military inventories, but these have grown rapidly in technological sophistication to become essential complements of the...
One of the first steps that Prime Minister Narendra Modi initiated after coming to power was self-reliance. A few months after his government came to...
Military drones are disrupting warfare in the three domains of air, land and sea. Their exploits in the Ukraine war continue to excite interest even...
Classification of fighter aircraft into ‘generations’ dates back to the 1990s and there are several diverse classification criteria applied by air historians, the National Aeronautics...
Self-reliance has been a prominent agenda for Prime Minister Narendra Modi since his ascent to the Prime Minister’s chair in 2014. Later that year, he...
The term avionics was first used in late 1940s as a portmanteau conjoining ‘aviation’ and ‘electronics’ but since then, both aviation and electronics have undergone...
Offensive rotary wing capability of the Indian Air Force (IAF) goes back to the 1960s when Chetak (Allouette III) helicopters were used with French AS...
In the framework of international law, ‘sovereignty’ signifies the full right and power of a State to govern itself and its territory without any external...
The diligent researcher could trace back trade and cultural relations between present day India and Israel to the contacts between the Indus Valley Civilisation and...
The face-saving reprisal by Pakistan Air Force (PAF) in response to the Indian Air Force (IAF) aerial strike on February 26, 2019, against a Jaish-e-Mohammad...
While lagging behind fixed-wing combat aircraft that are stretching out to their sixth generation, military helicopters have yet cornered substantial attention and funding to have...
There is near unanimity in public perception of the Indian public sector involvement in aerospace and defence, be it the bloodsucking Defence Research & Development...
India is now the world’s fifth highest defence spender, but statistics can be disingenuously deceptive. In terms of percentage of GDP, it is the lowest...
The term ‘battlefield helicopter’ continues to live on and conjure up visions of sleek, fierce looking rotary-wing craft shrieking their way over friendly forces on...
The White Paper on China’s Military Strategy 2015 states, “In line with the strategic requirement of building air-space capabilities and conducting offensive and defensive operations,...
The IAF began with US helicopters in the fifties and expanded gradually to include license-built French and Soviet helicopters. The circle is coming round once...
Inarguably, the most ambitious programme to design future battlefield helicopters is the US FVL. However, the Dutch Air Chief, Lt. Gen. Alexander Schnitger reportedly questioned...
In the absence of any indigenously produced combat aircraft discounting the non-operational Tejas, India’s current aircraft are Russian (MiG-21, MiG-27, MiG-29, Su-30MKI), French (Mirage-2000) and...
On November 30, 2016, an Indian Army Cheetah helicopter crashed at Sukhna in West Bengal, killing three officers and injuring a soldier. Whether the Court...
The Indian public sector aerospace industry, protected by successive governments, does not have much to show as results for all the money spent in the...
Technological advances have brought impressive improvements in rotorcraft technology albeit without eliminating the intrinsic limitations. The classic helicopter design has been mutated into newer types...
The term ‘drone’ has hummed itself into aviation lexicon and is universally used to describe flying objects not carrying a human pilot; some other terms...
During the past decade, India’s defence preparedness has steadily and inexorably deteriorated despite constant clamour by the defence forces for modernisation and upgradation to meet...
Reaching the leading edge in technological regimes is an objective purposefully being pursued by China and the velocity of development in some technologies has been...
The ‘inscrutable’ sobriquet for the Chinese is not so much because of their unsmiling faces but on account of their unpredictable actions. Military action against...