The Indian Air
Force lost another of its Russian made Su-30MKI jet fighters on February
20th. This is the fourth loss since 2009. Two years ago the commander
of the Indian Air Force took an hour-long flight in one of India's
Su-30MKI to reassure Indian pilots that the Su-30MKI was safe. Two had
crashed in 2009 due to mechanical failures and there were widely
publicized reliability problems with the engines and many of the other
Russian designed and built components of the aircraft.
Indian pilots are understandably nervous about the safety of
the many Russian warplanes they fly. The MiG fighters are the most
dangerous but the more recent Su-30 models were believed to be a lot
safer. Recent problems indicate this may not be the case, thus the 2011
flight by the head of the air force.
The MiGs are still crashing, with a MiG-27 going down on
February 12th. India has lost so many MiG-21 fighters that it is trying
to retire this type of aircraft as quickly as possible. Over the last
half century, India has bought 976 MiG-21s and over half are gone,
mostly because of accidents. While India was something of an extreme
case in this area (other users don't fly their MiG-21s as much), it's
been typical of MiG aircraft. All this is part of the decline of the
once feared, and admired, MiG reputation. Starting in World War II (the
MiG-1 entered service in 1940), through the Korean War (the MiG-15 jet
fighter) and the Cold War (the MiG-17/19/21/23/27/29), MiGs comprised
the bulk of the jet fighters in communist, and Indian, air forces. But
after the Cold War ended in 1991 the flaws of the MiG aircraft (poor
quality control and reliability, difficult to fly) caught up with users,
in a big way. In the last few years, most of the bad news about
military aircraft reliability, accidents, and crashes has involved MiG
products. For example all Indian MiG-27s have been grounded several
times in the last few years because of suspected mechanical problems.
These fears are not new. The MiG-27 and Cold War era Russian warplanes
in general, do not age well.
Last year India went public with yet another complaint about
the Russian made Su-30 fighters. That was about an unspecified "design
flaw" in the electronic flight control system for the aircraft. This bit
of information was made public because India found that more discreet
communications about these matters results in little or no action from
the Russians. For example, India has been pressuring Russia for several
years to do something about component failures in the Russian designed
AL-31 engines that power the Indian Su-30MKI jet fighters. There have
been several AL-31 failures because of this in both Indian and Russian
Su-30s. The latest accidents indicate that the problems remain.
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