No F-35 offer from US on the table so far, says IAF chief

NEW DELHI India has not looked at the F-35 option, and no offer has been made by the US so far, the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal AP Singh said on Saturday, pointing out that buying a fighter plane was not the same as “buying a washing machine or refrigerator”.

“We have not looked at it [F-35]. We are not going to buy a washing machine or a refrigerator for home that we can just say let’s buy this or that as it looks good...We must analyse an aircraft fully, see what the requirements are and what comes along with it. We have not given it a thought. No offer has been made till now,” Singh said, speaking at the India Today conclave.

In February, US President Donald Trump said America was paving the way to provide India the F-35 stealth fighters. The statement came during PM Narendra Modi’s visit to the US. It came at a time when India is firmly pushing ahead with an ambitious plan to develop an indigenous fifth-generation stealth fighter, or the advanced medium combat aircraft (AMCA), Russia has offered to jointly produce its Su-57 stealth fighter in the country, and the Indian Air Force is scouting for 114 multi-role fighter aircraft.

Singh said the IAF will analyse the recommendations of a top government committee on capability enhancement of the IAF to chart out a road map.

Defence secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh presented the report of the empowered committee to defence minister Rajnath Singh on March 3, days after the IAF chief admitted that the air force was “very badly off in numbers”, adding that it must induct 40 fighter jets every year to stay combat ready.

The report has recommended a raft of short and long-term measures to boost the capabilities of the IAF, which is grappling with a shortage of fighter squadrons, and pointed out that it was critical to enhance self-reliance in the aerospace sector through increased participation of the private sector to fill critical gaps.

“We need to accelerate the process [of indigenisation]. Our processes are a little slow. And we need to be ready for failures. In research and development, if you are not ready for failures, you will never succeed in time. If you try something and you are not succeeding, change your track quickly,” the air chief said.

In February, the IAF chief questioned the ability of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited to meet the air force’s critical requirements in the backdrop of a lingering delay in the supply of the new light combat aircraft (LCA-Mk-1A), saying he had “no confidence” in the plane maker. The remarks, made during an interaction with HAL officials, were recorded by someone.

“This is ridiculous... Somebody is sneaking into what you are talking about privately. It is wrong. I was talking to my colleagues from HAL... We have trained together. My intention was to get to their conscience --- you are sitting here, and you must push yourself to reach there. The way it came out was not right...It was a friendly chat with test crew and engineers who I have worked with,” the IAF chief said on Saturday.