Air Force Chief Urges Focus on Indigenous Defense Manufacturing

Concerning arguments for nurturing local sources of defence production, A P Singh Airways Chief Marshal said the Indian Air Force would prefer “go home” over paying to do it, even if the system does not perform as well. 

Speaking on the “Bharat 2047: Atmanirbhar In War” theme at the Chanakya Dialogues conclave being held here, the Air Force chief of staff also underscored the need for annual production of 35-40 military aircrafts domestically, while emphasizing that the goal is achievable without too much effort. 

He has reported that homegrown products and systems tend to outperform everything else marketed products. 

“I am convinced that if a homegrown system gives me a lot less than what I'm used to marketing systems, in this example if it is 90 percent or 85 percent of what I'm used to, I will go for homegrown over free systems. This is the only option available in the current dire systems.” 

“Such a system cannot hope to just happen overnight. So we have every intention in diving into and above any piece of R&D that needs to be thoroughly tackled in support of the.”

Indian Air Force

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According to him, India has to create the capacity to sustain fleets in excess of 35-40 fighter aircraft per annum to match the voids left by retiring fleets.

“So those capabilities, I understand, cannot materialize overnight. But we need to start pushing ourselves towards that. Now like the LC Mk1A production, HAL has said next year onward and we will have 24 aircraft being produced per annum for the fleet… in addition to some Sukhois or other armament like we are expecting from HAL, numbers like 30 per year are very possible,” he stated. 

“If some private sector takes up manufacturing under the make in India scheme, say we can add another 12-18 aircraft per year based on their estimates. So we are reaching that figure. That indeed is possible,” he stated. 

He equally underscored the need for indigenous military hardware to withstand prolonged warfare. 

“Equally, we must be ready to withstand long drawn out wars which require us to have the ideation of what we need and the production that will be necessary for the arsenal during war,” he said, IAF chief said.

“Regarding a scenario of prolonged combat, he stated that India will have to depend on whatever is available, along with trusting in the industry to adequately ramp up and produce the essential weapons.” 

When commenting on technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, he noted that the IAF is progressing very rapidly in automation.

He stated, “I think we all comprehend what is unfolding in the world with the technologies that have been discussed - AI, quantum computing, and automation is what is happening. So we are trying to look in a positive direction, we have already started moving ahead and very quickly so in terms of automation." 

“Systems which monitor and analyze are automated to a great extent. Predictive analytics has also been automated. So a large amount of automation has been implemented, which is saving us time and enabling us to achieve efficient problem solving.” He added.