IAF inducts indigenously built Hawk AJT

Bangalore. In a step with major implications for pilot training, the Indian Air Force IAF)recently got its first indigenously built Hawk Mk-132 Advanced Jet Trainer (AJT), manufactured at the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL).

Powered by a single Rolls-Royce Adour Mk 871 turbofan engine, the aircraft is the first of 42 Hawk aircraft being built under licence by HAL in India, and is the 15th Hawk AJT handed over to the IAF. The engine is a newer version of the Adour Mk 811 that HAL already builds for the IAF Jaguar strike aircraft. HAL is building 49 of these engines, but later, the same engine will also be fitted on the six Hercules C 130Js that IAF is acquiring from the US arms major, Lockheed Martin. Each of these special role aircraft will be fitted with four engines, so the IAF requirement could be around 30 additional engines for them including spares.

The aircraft was handed over by HAL Chairman and Managing Director Ashok Baweja to Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal F H Major after a ceremonial 10-minute flight by HAL’s test pilot Baldev Singh.

The Hawk was chosen because besides being a trainer, it also has some – albeit limited – capability in air to air and air to ground attack role, primarily towards training pilots in weapon delivery. Designed by the UK-based defence major BAE Systems, the Hawk is a transonic tandem-seat aircraft to impart basic and advanced training in flying as well as in weapon delivery.

IAF is short of pilots, and it takes five years to train a pilot to his optimum beginning with ab initio training. IAF did not have any advanced trainer till the arrival of the Hawks last year, and ever since, regular batches of pilots are getting trained on it at IAF’s Flying Training Establishment (FTE) at Bidar, the designated home of the Hawks in Karnataka.

The facility is a futuristic academy with new equipment and a 9000 feet runway, much different than it was just a few years ago. IAF will train 40 pilots at any given time here.

It may be recalled that IAF had suffered several crashes around 1980 due to the lack of an advanced jet trainer, and even Mrs Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister, was concerned. In 1984, IAF formally mooted a proposal for the AJTs but the aircraft began arriving only from November 2007, thanks to the procedural delays and a political block on acquisitions from 1990.

IAF pilots had to transition from basic trainers to the supersonic and highly demanding Mig 21 without the interim AJT, and therein lay the risk.

Martin Fausset, Managing Director of Rolls-Royce Defence Aerospace, said on the occasion: “The handover of the first Adour-powered Hawk AJT produced by HAL at Bangalore marks the beginning of the latest chapter of our 52-year partnership.

“The addition of this new fleet of Adour engines brings twin advantages to the Indian Air Force. Pilots will benefit as the engine’s performance and handling make it ideally suited to training, while operating the Adour in the Hawk and the Jaguar will bring commonality benefits and savings.”

The Rolls-Royce partnership with HAL began with the licensed production of engines in 1956 and has now progressed to component manufacturing for the Trent civil engine programme, establishing the company as a strategically important supplier to Rolls-Royce.

The Adour engine is however made by Rolls Royce in equal partnership with the French Turbomeca.

Besides the engine, HAL is using some other Indian components also for the indigenous programme while BAE continues to supply several components in SKD and CKD kits. BAE Systems is supplying fuselage, kits for equipping them, wings, accessories and materials for 20 defined assemblies. HAL’s avionics divisions at Hyderabad and Korwa will provide the integrated navigation and attack system.

BAE has already delivered 14 of the 24 jets that it is to supply in a flyaway condition, and 42 are to be made by HAL in accordance with an initial plan. However, Air Chief Marshal Major had told India Strategic some time back that IAF’s original requirement was for 122 AJTs and there would be more orders, but with HAL and in accordance with emerging requirements and acquisition of newer medium and air dominance fighters.

The Indian Navy has also opted for the Hawk, instead of its US naval variant Goshawk, and is going in for 17 of them to observe commonality with IAF in maintenance.

India is already the 3rd biggest buyer of Hawks after the British RAF and South African Air Force. “The Hawk induction into our training course at Bidar will enable our pilots make the transition from sub-sonic to supersonic aircraft for operational and combat purposes,”

Air Chief Marshal Major said adding that the IAF was looking forward to “uninterrupted supply of the aircraft to step- up our training programme and also maintain them.”

Thanks to the Hawk’s modern avionics and glass cockpit, a pilot could smoothly move on to any jet aircraft, the air chief said.

“The Hawk meets our long-standing desire to fill the gap in training our pilots for present and future needs. It will go a long way in improving the quality of our pilots and prepare them well,” Major said. “In the operation of the modern state-of-the-art fighter induction, we expect the Hawk to smoothen the process of transition from a trainer aircraft to frontline fighter by providing the pilots with progressive increase in performance and execution of complex acts,”

The IAF is the 19th air force in the world to use Hawks as its trainer aircraft. The Indian version is part of Rs 8000 crore ($1.85 billion) contract the government had signed with BAE in March 2004.

The cost of additional acquisitions has not been disclosed, but the IAF and Navy orders are with HAL, and not BAE. Nonetheless, HAL will pay BAE Systems for the components and Transfer of Technology (ToT).

As an AJT, the HAL-built Hawk comes with an integrated navigation or attack system comprising many sub-systems inter-connected through digital multiplex data bus. It provides the flight, navigation and weapon aiming information displayed on the head-up-display and the head-down multi-functional display.