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Air Chief Marshal N A K Browne told India
Strategic in an interview that the aircraft
had performed well in the current earthquake relief
operations in north-eastern India and that the
IAF would utilize the multi role capability of
the aircraft as required.
The C 130Js can land and take off from unpaved,
grassy fields the size of a football ground and
can be a big support in both peace and war to
drop or pick up equipment, soldiers and those
hit by calamities.
IAF had signed a deal for six C 130J aircraft
for about USD 1.1 billion with the US military
systems giant Lockheed Martin on January 31, 2008,
and five of these aircraft have been delivered
within 2011 as contacted, before their scheduled
delivery time. Appropriate infrastructure has
also been established and the required number
of pilots trained either on or before time.
Air Chief Marshal Browne said that the sixth
and last of the aircraft was due in India in the
first half of November, and that the Government
had already approved the acquisition of another
batch of six more aircraft. The first of the six
aircraft was delivered early 2011.
Discussions with the US Government and the company
for the new batch were on, and he expected the
order to be signed by January 2012, or in about
three months from now. “We are very satisfied
with the aircraft performance,” he observed.
The new batch of these medium-lift transporters
will be based at the old airbase of Charbatia
in Orissa to operate in eastern India, as well
as the island territories of Andaman and Nicobar
Islands in the Bay of Bengal. IAF has a major
air base in Car Nicobar there.
It may be noted that the Government asked the
IAF to provide relief to the earthquake victims
immediately after the disaster, and IAF pressed
the new C 130Js into operation for the first time.
Within the first couple of days, IAF airlifted
lifted 188.75 tons of equipment, 735 personnel,
including 20.48 tons of food, 6 tons of medicines,
8.5 tons of fuel and about 51.81 tons of relief
material. Thirty six casualties were also evacuated.
All the C 130J Super Hercules aircraft are being
acquired under a direct government-to-government
agreement, under what is known as the Foreign
Military Sales (FMS) programme of the US Government.
The acquisition is “turnkey,” including
on-time delivery, training, setting up of the
support infrastructure, spares and spare engines.
Most of the work has been completed at IAF’s
Hindon airbase near the Indian capital.
The Indian C 130Js are powered by Rolls-Royce
AE 2100 engines with Dowty six-bladed propellors
for power and and low level precision flying.
The engines will be serviced periodically at Hindon
by IAF engineers.
The aircraft are connected to IAF's AFNET and
Indian satellites, and can also be refuelled mid-air
by IAF's IL 78 aircraft for long missions. There
are some features specific to the Indian environment
and terrain. There is also a self protection suite
which includes an Infrared Detection Set and a
chaff dispenser.
The Air Chief said that “a full motion simulator
is also being installed as part of the company’s
offsets obligations and would be ready for utilization
by 2012.”
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