No more Hawks,IAF to have new trainers

Sources said the decision to look for a new trainer was taken as the IAF was not too keen on procuring additional Hawks after facing problems of spare parts and delays in arrival of critical components for the assembly line in India.

The fresh tender has been sent to six contenders — Italy’s Alenia Aermacchi for the M-346,the Korean T 50,the Chez L 159,the Russian YAK 130,BAE’s new Hawk and the MiG AT trainer.

BAE systems,the original manufacture that came under flak for problems in the Hawk fleet,said it would participate in the fresh tender. “We can confirm we are in receipt of the RFP for additional Advanced Jet Trainers. We firmly believe the Hawk,which is already in-service training the next generation of IAF pilots,is the ideal platform to meet the current and future AJT requirements of the Indian Government,” a company spokesperson said.

Aviation experts are surprised at the move as the IAF generally prefers to have only one type of advanced trainer in its inventory to keep down costs and servicing issues. The decision to go in for an additional type of trainer is also expected to result in a time overrun.

The decision by the IAF to go in for a new trainer is also likely to affect the Navy’s plan to acquire 17 trainers. While the Navy was planning to order them as part of a follow-on order from BAE,it may now go in for the new trainer that will be shortlisted by the IAF.

It may be recalled that the Hawk fleet,which arrived in February last year,faced technical problems and had to be grounded for a while due to lack of spares.

A Hawk trainer crashed while taking off from the Bidar airbase in April,causing another grounding of the entire fleet.