Mirage 2000 Crashes Surprising And Alarming, page 1

Originally posted by Kakugo
This has very little to do with the Mirage 2000: in fact it is a very brilliant machine, the only true alternative to the F16 on the market (excluding the Russian products). Other users of the Dassault-designed airplane (France, Greece, Taiwan, etc) didn't report any problem at all: in fact the Mirage 2000 is seen as reliable as the F16 by both the Greeks and the Taiwanese (both of which also fly F16s). The real problem lies in the enormous faults inside the Indian Air Force: the last five years were a complete nightmare, with a huge number of vehicles lost during training or routine activity. This prompted an inquiry which found a number of faults:
1)Very poor pilot training. This has always been a problem since India left the Commonwealth and lost access to the various joint training programs. Moreover the strict neutrality policy of the Indian government negated the benefits of having experienced foreign pilots training the local air forces. Moreover, India lacks an up-to-date trainer: this is being redressed by buying a huge number of BAE Hawk trainers on a crash program (the aircraft are being built in the UK and shipped directly to India, no license having been issued).
2)Poor maintenance. India aircraft fleet has been described as a "maintenance nightmare". There are Russian MIG21s, SU27s, MIG29s, French Mirage 2000s, British Jaguars, Canberras and Harriers , etc. No other air force in the world has so many radically different models in service. Imagine how easy it is to train technicians and supply enough spare parts for every model.
3)Local manufacturing processes. Most of the aircrafts employed have been assembled locally from foreign components, or built entirely in India. The inquiry put some blame on "quality control standards" and "poor workmanship". In short, most of these planes are litterally starting to fall apart due to inferior workmanship.
4)Low morale. The Indian Air Force has not a very glorious reputation; moreover most of the personnel feels abandoned by the goverment and forced to fly on dangerous machinery. This is being redressed by inviting squadrons from all over the world to be "beaten up" by the locals: the last ones to have such a privilege were members of a USAF units flying F15s. This is a questionable procedure but, at least, puts some heart into the local pilots.

All the made above are valid opinions i agree, but I disagree with most. I wonder how long the Indians have had the Mirage 2000, and has it been for more time than the taiwanese etc. French experts themselves are in India investigating the reason for the crashes. Its been reported that the french themsleves are having problems with the versions of mirage that the Indians have. The Mirage 2005 is built for that very reason.
The aircraft is definitely acting up.

As far as I know India is still in the common wealth. Pilots regularly go to the UK to train. Infat it is a shoclarship of sorts for the cream of the batch. The staff college here in India likewise has RAF pilots doing courses.

The morale in the IAF , well I can only speak for what I see. The pilots are very confident, and professional. The Cope India exercise was not i repeat NOT "staged" to lift morale. Unfortunately some americans here on the forum just cant deal with that kind of publicity. Also exercises conducted with the South african and Singapore airforce enede in the IAFs favor. Singapore came to India as they are keen to train on inddian soil. They do not have space to do so in Singapore. the exercises with south africa were in south africa.
So nobody's bringing AFs home to get beat by the 'locals'.
IMHO the IAF is one of the mostly highly trained AFs in the world, and the best in Asia.

Having said this, there is a problem with the quality of maintenance being carried out by technicians is spurious. HAL has ben blamed for major botch-ups whihc have not resulted in accidents due to double checking.

Also the inavailibility of trainer jets whihc allow the smooth transition from transonic aircraft to supersonic ones have been the reasons for MiG-21 crashes invloving pilot error. Hence the puchase of the AJTs w/o licensing,HAL is under review for its manufacture and maintenance abilities.Also the need for these AJTs to fill the sub-supersonic gap is somewhat urgent.

In terms of morale, the IAF squadron members are a family, and obviously the loss of a fellow pilot or in 1 case a Sqdrn. Ldr. has been a severe blow for morale amongst the fighter pilot community.Its like losing a family member.
I can safely vouch for the confidence of the pilots in their machines though , Ive spoken to many on several occasions. If at all morale is low,it is as a result of thsese recent accidents, and is not a cause for the same.

Also IMHO India is finally having to deal with the lack of techies staying back in the country and working in the concerned institutions. The "brain drain" towards the western countries is resulting in a less competent engineering workforce at home.
(>25% of NASA is of Indian origin) etc. etc.
This is a subject that needs to be addressed by the government. WE need to convince the brights ones into staying at home and working in tech industry back here. That will definitely IMHO eliminate the "maintenance and manufacturing incompetency" factor playing into the fighter crashes.

And for future reference, Kakugo was the quoted section below pure speculation/deductive logic on your part along with all your other points or have you researched some reports stating this ...?

Originally posted by Kakugo
4)Low morale. The Indian Air Force has not a very glorious reputation; moreover most of the personnel feels abandoned by the goverment and forced to fly on dangerous machinery. This is being redressed by inviting squadrons from all over the world to be "beaten up" by the locals: the last ones to have such a privilege were members of a USAF units flying F15s. This is a questionable procedure but, at least, puts some heart into the local pilots.