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| India-Pakistan |
| Indian Air Force inducts IL-78 mid-air refuellers |
| 2003-03-04 |
| The Indian Air Force Monday got a shot in the arm with the first of the six IL-78 mid-air refuellers joining the force making India only the sixth air force in the world to have such force multipliers. The first IL-78 landed at Agra airbase in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh on Monday from Uzbekistan capital Tashkent to make newly raised Squadron-78 nicknamed 'battle-cry' operational giving the IAF capability to strike targets as far as 7,000 kms with two mid-air refuels. This is going to make the Paks very unhappy. Now Indian aircraft have the range to attack Pakistan from any direction. The Chinese won't be happy either. An Indian Air Force (IAF) spokesman said Monday that the second refueller would join the force in April and all the six Giant IL-78, each capable of carrying 36 ton of aviation fuel to a distance of 3,000 kms, would be inducted by the year end. "The mid-air refuellers have already become operational as our air crew and maintenance personnel have been already undergoing training in Uzbekistan," the spokesman Squadron Leader Rajesh Dhingra said. They've been working up in Uzbekistan before taking delivery, very smart. No lag time now while they trained to use them. He said IAF's recently acquired SU-30MKI were already fitted with mid-air refueller adapters and the French Mirage 2000 and Jaguars were being modified to make them compatible with the air-to-air refueling. The Mirage 2000 is nuke capable. The Air Tankers can boost the SU-30MKI combat range of 3,000 kms three times. The IAF has already had its first experience at mid-air refueling during the recent first-ever fighter exercises with French Air Force in which the French tankers KC135 refueled IAF's Mirage 2000 fighters. The Indian Air Force just became a much bigger headache. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #3 Headaches for the poor naked Indian multitudes. It was small aircraft which did relatively little damage after crashing; now these Indian Airforce buffoons have large bodied aircraft to crash on their slum dwellers, extracting the maximum of causalities in the process. These Indian loud-mouths have 210 peacetime crashes in the last nine years. Some airforce record for Guinness, I presume! |
| Posted by: NightSurfer 2003-03-05 17:09:47 |
| #2 Why did it have to be the froggies????? |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-03-04 16:07:39 |
| #1 Well Saudi, are you willing to ante up some more chips for Pakistan so they can meet the bet? |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2003-03-04 14:43:42 |