Test trials for IAF’s Rs42,000 crore deal begin mid-August. F-18 Super Hornet first to enter the challenge, followed by five others.
The grand finale in the fight to win the largest-ever single order placed by the Indian Air force (IAF) for 126 medium-weight multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) will begin in Bangalore on Friday, when a team of Boeing officials will land in the city to finalise the details of the test trials.
The test trials, to be conducted by the IAF’s Aircraft Systems and Training Establishment (ASTE), on six contenders eyeing the Rs42,000 crore deal, will run for over a year, beginning mid-August with Boeing’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.
Sources, privy to the year-long test trials to be held one after the other on all six contenders, told DNA that a DC-10 aircraft is scheduled to land in city on August 12 at the HAL airport carrying the maintenance and spares equipment for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. The test trials on F/A-18E/F Super Hornet would begin about August15-17.
“Once the equipment is set up, the all-clear would be given for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighter to fly in for the test trials,” said the source.
The test trial schedules are being worked out by a joint working group comprising officials of the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), ASTE, and the competing companies.
Besides Boeing’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, the other five contenders are Dassault’s Rafale, Eurofighter’s Typhoon, Lockheed Martin’s F-16, Russian Aircraft Corporation’s (RAC) MiG-35 and Swedish Saab Gripen’s JAS-39.
The flight trials in Bangalore would take off from the city’s HAL airport where military test flights are being conducted, including that of India’s light combat aircraft (LCA), Tejas.
Sources said, the F/A-18E/F, after taking off from the HAL airport, would head 50 nautical miles south-east of Bangalore where flight trials would be conducted.
After the Bangalore trials, the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet would head to Jaisalmer in Rajasthan for desert trials, and then to a location in Ladakh for high altitude tests. “The idea is to check the fighter aircraft in all weather patterns,” explained the source.
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