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NEW DELHI-An Indian Air Force fighter jet crashed Tuesday, a day after the country’s military paraded its might in front of the nation and U.S. President Barack Obama during Republic Day celebrations. An air force official said the pilot of the single-engine, single-seater MiG-27 aircraft of Russian origin ejected safely before the plane crashed in Barmer, in the northwestern state of Rajasthan, which borders Pakistan. “The plane was on a routine mission,” the official said, without elaborating. The crash highlights the aging equipment of the Indian armed forces. The South Asian country has been seeking to modernize its mainly Soviet-era...

It looks as though Indian combat aircraft are going to continue flying for many years to come with Israeli designator pods. A Rafael official confirmed to Air&Cosmos during the Defexpo Show that the company’s Litening G4 had been selected last year following an IAF call for tenders for 164 pods to equip its entire fleet of fighter-bombers. Deliveries under this huge order (the largest ever recorded outside the US, according to Rafael) are expected to get under way by the end of this year. When completed, they will bring the total number of Litening pods in IAF service to approximately...

Look Ma! We fished out a MiG pilot NARESH JANA Kanaidangar, Sept. 24: To brothers Subhas and Ashok Pandit, it had at first looked like a man at the end of a giant balloon, slowly dropping off the morning sky. The two middle-aged farmers had earlier heard the roar of a jet aircraft as they breakfasted on puffed rice at their home by the Keleghai river in this East Midnapore hamlet, about 150km from Calcutta. It took a moment for them to realise what had happened. “Some women who were washing utensils at a nearby pond cried out that a...

Four months after an Indian MiG-27 fighter bomber crashed, and all Indian MiG-27s were grounded, the aircraft have been cleared to fly again. The long delay was caused by fears that all the Russian made engines in these aircraft might have a common problem. This is not a new problem. The MiG-27, and Cold War era Russian warplanes in general, do not age well. India only has about a hundred MiG-27s still operational, and all of them were grounded for over a year (2005-6) when serious problems were discovered with the MiG-27s Russian designed engines. Things have since gotten better,...

Over a month after they were grounded, a major chunk of Indian Air Force's MiG-27 fighter aircraft fleet was still not flying as only the trainer version of the aircraft have been cleared for operations, Air Chief Marshal P V Naik said here. "As far as MiG-27s are concerned, the trainer version is still flying as it has a different engine. As far as other engines are concerned, we are going into more details as whether any more checks are required or it is ready to fly," he told reporters here. The IAF had grounded its entire MiG-27 aircraft fleet...

The IAF has grounded its entire MiG-27 aircraft fleet for checks following last week's air crash near Hashimara in which an ace fighter pilot was killed. It also ordered examination of the aircraft following preliminary report of the court of inquiry suggesting that the mishap could have taken place due to failure of "low pressure turbine blades", a problem tackled only at the overhaul or fourth line servicing stage. "The MiG-27 aircraft are not flying till the checks ordered on the fleet are completed," a senior IAF officer said here on Monday. The IAF flies around 160 MiG-27 swing wing...

yet another crash in IAF, a MiG-27 fighter went down near Siliguri in West Bengal on Tuesday afternoon, killing the pilot, a squadron leader. The MiG-27 is a `swing wing' aircraft and the over 100 of them in IAF combat fleet were hardly flown in 2005-2006 after it was found that their R-29 engines were causing a large number of accidents. With the MiG-27 fleet undergoing an upgrade since then, IAF actually plans to operate these fighters well into the next decade, even though they are ageing, because they constitute an important element of its strike fleet. The number of...

MiG 27 Fighter Bomber Will Have New Engines General director of the Salyut Moscow Machine Building Production Plant Yury Eliseev has announced at the Farnborough Airshow in Great Britain that a new engine will be used in modernized MiG 27 fighter bombers, the main aircraft of the Indian Air Force. The new engine, the AL-31F, will be 200 kg. lighter than the R-29B-300 used previously, and have one metric ton more propulsion (12,300 kg./sec.) than its predecessor. It will also use 15 percent less fuel. The Indian Air Force has 150 Mi G27 Bahadur models and will modernize 60 of...