BY : VINAY SHETTY FOR IDRW.ORG NEWS SERVICE



Few months ago senior air force delegation from island nation have quietly asked government of India to supply Lankan air force two to four ground attack fighters Mig-27 to strengthen their on going offensive against Tamil rebels LTTE, while Indian air force is in no position to lease or give any of its fighters from the current fleet as Indian air force is already facing shortage of planes due to fleet modernization and on going retirement of the Mig-21 fleet and delays in induction of the lca in Indian air force ,while Indian government as provided Indra II radars for the sri Lankan armed forces and offshore patrol vessel ,while Sri Lankan air force is also finding shortage of planes as it has lost some Mig-27 due to technical reasons which it had brought from Ukraine in 2000,while island nation air force does operate Israeli made Kfir and Chinese F-7 ,but sri Lankan air force are highly impressed by the ground attack capability that Mig-27 as provided in hunting down LTTE ground based targets ,while china as offered new F-7 to Sri lankan air force ,but F-7 had a horrendous accuracy in most ground attack missions and poor supply of spares made F-7 fleet not-airworthy majority of the time ,while first inducted in 1991 other then few F-7BS which were inducted SLAF never inducted more of this jets ,and now this are primarily used Training roles before pilot convert to Kfir or Mig-27 ,while China as offered new FT-7PGwhich is a dramatically improved aircraft with low-level handling qualities. The aircraft has a slightly better engine in the WP-7B(BM) compared to the WP-7B. These physical changes coupled with a quantum leap in improvement in the capabilities of the avionics/offensive + defensive systems, over the F-7BS, makes the FT-7PG a superior low-altitude performer. While Pakistan as in past as provided offensive weapons such has Air to ground missiles and rocket launcher also has offered its JF-17 to the SLAF ,while Pakistan and china are in the race to provide fighter aircrafts to SLAF ,can India ignore is a question now ??