The Indian Air Force is seeking urgent remedial action from Hindustan Aeronautics Limited on technical problems in the single-engine, piston aircraft used for initial pilot training, HPT-32.
Though technical problems in the HAL-manufactured HPT-32 have occurred almost since its induction in 1984, the IAF’s concern now stems from engine cuts suffered by two HPT-32s at the Bidar Air Force Station recently.
The Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier could be handed over to the Indian Navy in 2012 if Delhi provides sufficient funding for the project, the director of a Russian shipyard said on Thursday.
"Construction of the ship will be completed in 2010 and tests will start in 2011, while in 2012 it will be transferred to the Indian Navy," Sevmash chief Nikolai Kalistratov said, stressing that it would only be handed over if Delhi provided sufficient funding to complete the construction.
Another shipyard executive said the market dictated that India should pay a further $2 billion.
India's first indigenous dedicated attack gunship, the Light Combat Helicopter (LCH), is finally slated to take to the skies in March next year after a few false starts over the last couple of years.
"After the first prototype's maiden flight in March 2009, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) says LCH should be ready for the initial operational clearance (IOC) by December 2010,'' a senior defence ministry official told TOI.
With the final operational clearance (FOC) a year or so after that, the newly revised timeframes hold that the 5.5-tonne LCH should be ready for induction into IAF by 2012-2013.
Two days after the Indian Navy repulsed pirate attacks on a Saudi and an Indian merchant vessel in the Gulf of Aden, India has proposed a UN peace-keeping force under "a unified command'' to prevent the ever-mounting pirate attacks off Somalia.
The Indian delegation at the ongoing 101st council meeting of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) in London recommended that the body should move the UN for establishing such a peace-keeping force.
The possibility of Indian naval personnel's presence on board the accident-hit Russian K-152 Nerpa nuclear attack submarine has not been ruled out by the Russian experts amid reports that the vessel was to be transferred to India after current sea trials.
At the time of mishap, in which 20 people including 17 civilian technicians, were killed and 21 injured on Saturday night due to abrupt release of deadly Freon gas, there were 208 people on board the Nerpa (Akula-II) sub to be leased to India for 10 years, while its regular crew is under 80.
The helicopter carrying Indian commandos swooped in low over the distressed Saudi Arabian chemical tanker, firing its machine guns and sending three speedboats filled with pirates fleeing for the lawless Somali coast. Twenty minutes later they rescued a nearby Indian ship, navy officials said, foiling another hijack attempt by a different band of pirates in east African waters of the Indian Ocean.
Tuesday's rescues, by forces based on an Indian warship patrolling some 2,900 kilometers (1,800 miles) from their home port, mark a significant step for the South Asian giant, which is determined to translate its growing economic strength into global military and political clout.
India’s Electronic and Radar Development Establishment (LRDE), a Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) lab, is in the process of developing medium power and 150 km low level multi-function, portable radars which will work more efficiently in mountainous terrains than the existing radars, said Director S Varadarajan on Tuesday.
Synthetic aperture radars which generate photo quality images are being developed by LRDE which will be ready for testing in about two years time, he said.
Russia today said the delivery of Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier to the Indian Navy would be delayed till 2012 as the vessel could be refitted only sometime in 2010.
It also said that since last year New Delhi has not made any payments although the extra work to the tune of USD 1.7 billion has been done by the shipyard.
The 44.5-thousand tonner Kiev class aircraft carrier was to be initially commissioned as INS Vikramaditya in August this year under the USD 1.5 billion deal signed in
An Indian warship on Tuesday prevented two merchant vessels from being hijacked by heavily armed pirates in the Gulf of Aden and escorted both ships to safety, the navy said.
Pirates on power-boats attacked Saudi Arabia-registered merchant vessel "MV Timaha," and half an hour later a second group tried to board a 38,000-tonne bulk carrier owned by India's Great Eastern Shipping Co, the navy said.
"Both the ships had crossed the Suez Canal and were a short distance away from Aden when the Saudi vessel was attacked by these boats, each carrying up to five pirates each," a top naval official told AFP.
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