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CHAPTER 1

Genesis and Early Growth of the Indian Aircraft Industry

Introduction

Aircraft industries showcase the high technology capability of countries. Since its advent in the early 20th century, aviation has been a very high technology area of operation. Utilisation of aircraft in warfare has changed the manner in which wars are fought. Over a period of time, military aviation has evolved to become the decisive instrument of the military power of a nation.

Apart from military operations, aviation has become a major factor in delivering efficiencies to modern economies through increasing the effective utilisation of factors of production and other resources. Modern aviation equipment, being of cutting edge design and incorporating very advanced technology, is quite expensive. Therefore, most advanced nations that have the wherewithal, have invested in building robust domestic aviation industries. Apart from the cost of importing equipment, nations have found that despite the high cost, the imported aviation equipment often comes with political, economic, and strategic strings attached. Therefore, all nations that aspire towards great power status, require putting in place an effective domestic aircraft industry. The world trade in aviation equipment is worth over several tens of billions of dollars annually. This gives further incentive to nations to commence the export of aviation equipment, apart from the geopolitical advantages that this confers upon the exporting states.

Birth of Modern Aviation

European efforts of research into the science of fluid dynamics by Otto Lilienthal, Sir George Cayley and Bernoulli amongst others, led to the development of the science behind aviation. This science led to less scholarly but more technically and mechanically minded men to attempt to apply the then new theory to practice towards development of mankind's first heavier than air flying machines capable of carrying human beings aloft this side of mythology. These efforts finally bore fruit with the Wright Brothers' flight of 12 seconds' duration over 120 ft on December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk in the Flyer 1, ushering in the modern aviation age.

World War I in Europe forced the European countries to seize the lead in military aviation from the US. Many major advances were made by European military aviation due to the pressures of war. In contrast, in 1913, the US Army Air Corps (USAAC) had just 6 active pilots and there were less than 170 in the entire US. However, not forced to divert resources towards war on the scale that the Europeans were, US private entrepreneur companies (emphasis added), led by Glen Hammond Curtis and James Smith McDonnell and Donald Wills Douglas [unrelated Scottish immigrant Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) graduates], to name a few, established the US industry on its own feet, leading to several landmark achievements. One such achievement was the first trans-Atlantic flight by the US Navy flying boat – NC4 – and the first trans-global flight by the Douglas world cruisers. Just as the invention of gunpowder led to the development of the armaments and firearms industry, the invention of flying machines led to the development of the aircraft industry, and as technology progressed further, to the aerospace industry.

Importance of Aerospace Power

From its humble beginnings in the early years of the 20th century, aviation technology has grown by leaps and bounds, and in modern warfare, has come to occupy a central position in the armed forces of all major powers. Even the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of the People's Republic of China (PRC), that for years followed the People's War concept, based predominantly on massed land forces, with air power in a defensive and supporting role, has, in view of the obvious primacy of aviation in modern military operations, placed the PLA Air Force (PLAAF) at pole position in its modernisation efforts. The PRC has also – in view of the acknowledged importance of air power to its Comprehensive National Power (CNP) – invested heavily in its aircraft industry in both the military and civil sectors. Air power has some unique characteristics that have contributed to its coming to occupy a predominant position in a country's military capabilities. Some important and unique characteristics of air power that make it so important to a country's overall national power are as follows:

• Very Rapid Response: Aircraft typically travel at speeds of several hundred kilometres per hour (kmph) as compared to, at best, a few tens of kmph for land and maritime vehicles, giving an air force the ability for rapid application of force, including insertion of troops and supporting material.

• Ability to Circumvent Surface-Based Obstacles: This capability comes from the very nature of aerial vehicles that are built to travel through the medium of the air and, hence, over and above surface obstacles. The air bridge from India to China over the Himalayas (a formidable natural obstacle) maintained by the US Air Force (USAF) during World War II to supply the Nationalist Chinese forces fighting the Imperial Japanese; and the Berlin Airlift – to supply and maintain the Western forces and population in West Berlin at the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War – are examples.

• Long Reach: This capability obtains by virtue of the long operational radius of action of suitably designed aircraft. Operational radii can be extended further through the use of air-to-air refuelling. The deployment of the Indian Air Force (IAF) Jaguar and Su-30 fighters to the continental US for exercises, demonstrates the long reach of modern fighters. Bombers and transport aircraft – the latter very similar to commercial airliners with which they share some technology – have consistently demonstrated their global range – with useful payload – since the early years of air transport operations. This long range and large payload carrying capability has been increasing apace with advancements in aviation technology. The extreme example of this increase in large load carriage capability is the Soviet era An-124 "Ruslan" large transport aircraft which can carry up to 150 tonnes of payload over ranges of 8,000 km and is exceeded only by the Soviet An-225 "Mriya" which can carry a payload of a mind boggling 250 tonnes over ranges of about 4,000 km.

• Precision Strike Capability: The precision strike capability of air power has been available since the early years of aviation. In earlier, less technologically advanced years, precision strike capability dwelt in the skills of individual pilots. This capability has progressively moved to be incorporated in the machine itself. In earlier times, the pilot's skill overcame then existing limitations of technology to achieve the required precision – as demonstrated in the case of air-to-air kills during World Wars I and II – and by precision attacks by specially trained units in World War II. [The precision strike capability of the Royal Air Force's (RAF's) 617 Squadron – the "Dam Busters" – that specialised in precision attacks to destroy targets of great value (dams of importance to the Nazis), and the specialised target locating and marking of targets by "pathfinder" units for attack by following bombers, are some examples.] Till the late 1960s, pilots were still using rudimentary "ring and bead" sights, with some basic gyroscopes embedded in the design for enabling easier target tracking. More advanced sighting systems became available only in the later decades of the 20th century. Precision ground attack with rudimentary sighting systems was also made possible with pilot skill overcoming the limitations of the then existing technology in sighting and guidance systems. Precision ground attack capability based purely on pilot skills was vividly demonstrated by No. 28 Squadron (Sqn), IAF, when it executed precision attacks in Dacca during the 1971 Indo-Pakistan War. A 28 Sqn MiG-21FL aircraft executed a precision attack on the governor's residence in Dacca using the MiG-21FL's fixed aiming graticule – which did not even incorporate a gyroscope for stability of target tracking – to fire 57 mm unguided rockets accurately. This attack also highlighted the truism that weapons are just weapons and they can achieve tactical or strategic results based on the skill of their timely application in time and space. As a consequence of this precision attack by the IAF, all the Pakistani forces in the erstwhile East Pakistan surrendered to India. Today, through evolutionary – though at times revolutionary – technology development and incorporation into modern weapon systems, precision attack capability has become more commonly available. Development and widespread availability of specialist weapons such as Laser Guided Bombs (LGBs), and Precision Guided Munitions (PGMs) like the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) – that use technical means of guidance like the Global Positioning System (GPS) – make precision attack much easier to replicate on a large scale. Operator training levels, while still important, are less so than was the case earlier. Skills in assimilating new technology and techniques may today be more important than mental Dead Reckoning (DR) computing of weapon aim point "lay-offs" in the prevailing conditions to achieve the desired precision results.

• Graded Response Capability: Graded response capability derives from the ease of applying carefully graded force through carefully calibrated application of the desired – or "just right" – amount of force. In the air power context, this graded application of force can be achieved through the choice of a number of aircraft in an attacking force and their weapons load, apart from the type of weapons selected (say, a scale varying from two aircraft each carrying one 250 kg LGB, as against six aircraft each carrying six 1,000 kg conventional iron bombs). It is relatively easy to scale up or down the applied force through the choice of throw weight and the choice of specific target systems to be attacked. Graded response capability, thus, depends upon the target selected for attack as well as the amount, calibre and precision of force applied against the selected target, the latter determined by the amount of damage desired to be caused to the target of choice. The widespread availability of PGMs has made it possible to use fewer aircraft armed with fewer, lower calibre weapons to achieve the same effect as was achieved by much larger numbers of aircraft carrying heavier and more weapons. For instance, while in earlier times, several squadrons of bombers carrying about two to three tonnes of free fall unguided iron bombs may have been tasked to make an oil refinery cease operation, today even a single aircraft carrying one PGM could render an oil refinery inoperable through very precise delivery of the PGM at a critical point in the target such as the cracking unit.

• Inherent Strategic Effect: The inherent strategic effect of air power – in contrast to the limited strategic effect of the surface forces – is evident from the fact that for an army to have strategic effect, it usually needs to defeat the opposing army in detail in the field and then threaten the enemy's heartland. A naval force would require totally interdicting the enemy's lines of maritime communication or totally blockading his sea ports (if the enemy is dependent upon maritime trade). In the case of air power, the inherent strategic effect of even tactical assets is most clearly brought out once again by the 57mm rocket attack by an IAF MiG-21FL on the governor's house in Dacca in December 1971. The obviously 'tactical' MiG-21 aircraft – through timely and precise application of carefully graded firepower – used, in conventional terms, a tactical weapon – the 57mm hollow charge anti-armour rocket – to achieve an undisputedly strategic effect: the unconditional surrender of over 90,000 combat worthy and 'undefeated in the field' enemy combatants. This brings out quite clearly that weapons are just weapons and are not tactical or strategic, but the effects of their application are. The terms tactical and strategic apply to the effects and not to the weapons themselves.

These unique characteristics of air power are unchallenged in the history of warfare, and from an examination of these, it flows that a nation that correctly utilises air power has the potential to achieve a decisive advantage for military or political purposes. The Indian success in dislodging well dug-in Pakistani troops during the 1999 Kargil War defied the till then held conventional wisdom that in the mountains an advantage of 9 to 1 in favour of the attacker – with well acclimatised troops – would be required (though still with horrendous losses to the attacker) to dislodge well dug-in enemy troops. In the Kargil War, the Indian Army did not enjoy a 9:1 advantage, nor was there time to induct well acclimatised troops for recapturing the posts in the Kargil, Dras and Batalik hills from the enemy. While the Indian Army's losses were heavy, they were less than they would have been if the IAF had not sustained a day and night aerial bombardment campaign against enemy troop positions and their logistics infrastructure. The US operations in the two Gulf Wars (1991 and 2003), in contrast to the innovative approach shown by the IAF in Kargil, brought out the unstoppable technology dominance that air power can bring to a modern battlefield.

This latter aspect is brought out most starkly by two watershed military operations in the past three decades. The first of these is the US-led coalition forces' war against Iraq in the Gulf War of 1991. In this war, the dedicated and sustained air campaign against Iraq by the coalition forces ("Operation Desert Storm") – which commenced on January 17, 1991, and lasted 42 days – resulted in a minimal requirement for a land war. The Allied land offensive, "Operation Desert Sabre", was able to wrap up its activities in just four days, commencing February 24, 1991. President Bush declared a ceasefire on February 28, 1991, ending the Gulf War. The coalition land forces were able to easily enter Iraq and penetrate till the capital and beyond, facing almost no opposition due to the near total destruction of the Iraqi armed forces by the preceding air campaign. The second military operation was the Kosovo War, where the US-led coalition forces – during Operation Allied Force, between March and June 1999 – were able to achieve their war objectives against Serbian forces through the use of an air campaign alone. These two examples bring out the overarching importance of air power in modern warfare. The results and study of these relatively recent air campaigns led the Chinese political leadership and PLA to prioritise modernisation of their air force – PLAAF – over the modernisation of not only the naval forces but also the land forces.

Disaster relief is a major area of the secondary responsibility of the armed forces in general and the air force in particular. Disasters or natural calamities such as floods, earthquakes, avalanches or fires require swift response, which is most effectively provided through military aviation. Needless to state, natural calamities occur with uncanny regularity. Speedy transportation of rescue and recovery teams, medical aid, food supplies, relief material and evacuation of casualties are some of the activities for which military aviation is considered eminently suitable. However, it would neither be possible nor necessary to quantify the contribution of the IAF towards this national effort, as such contribution cannot be provided so effectively and speedily by any other agency, nor can it be translated into monetary equivalence to be added to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The response to the cyclone on the Gujarat coast in June 1998, the earthquake in Gujarat on January 26, 2001, the tsunami of December 25, 2004, in the Indian Ocean, the earthquake in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) on October 8, 2005, and, more recently, the devastating floods in Uttarakhand (2013), are vivid examples of contribution by the IAF in aid to civil authority during testing times for the nation.

The economy also requires civil aviation for its efficient functioning. Civil aviation provides vital rapid logistics services for personnel and material to be moved to areas where these are required for efficient activities of a modern economy to take place continuously. Today, it is difficult to imagine functioning without access to countrywide next-day delivery courier or postal services, and the ability to fly people to any part of the country, or the world as required, on very short notice.

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Excerpted from "Indian Aircraft Industry"
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Copyright © 2018 Center for Air Power Studies, New Delhi.
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