New Delhi: Indian Air Force is all set to acquire 126 new fighter aircraft and 40 additional Sukhoi-30 this year to augment its fleet, Chief of Air Staff S P Tyagi was quoted by news agency PTI as saying on Monday.
Negotiations for the purchase of fighter aircraft were on and the best bidder would get the contract, he said during his visit to Southern Air Command headquarters.
Many had earlier questioned the need for so many expensive fighter aircraft, but the Air Chief Marshal had then said that "peace and stability is not possible without a certain amount of military muscle".
"In terms of Air Force acquisition, it is not that we will have to pay billions of dollars on Day One. This is something that is spread out over many many years. A 126 fighter jets will take a decade or more to produce. I would like to believe that we have worked out what we need and what is necessary," he had told CNN-IBN in an interview.
The Air Force would get three AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) aircraft by the end of the year. AWACS was a multi-national product of Uzbekistan, Russia and Israel.
"By the middle of this year, IAF would directly purchase 24 out of the 66 `Hawks' (Advanced Jet Trainers) required by the Force from United Kingdom. The remaining Hawks would be produced at HAL. Eighty new helicopters from Russia would also be acquired this year," Tyagi was quoted by PTI as saying.
The Air Chief Marshall had recently written an agonising letter to the Defence Minister saying that India was losing air-superiority to Pakistan. He said that whatever he had brought to the notice of the Government had been noted and that appropriate action would be taken.
He said that the new purchases were a result of the combined analysis of the Air Force and the Government of the issues that he had made in his letter.
(With inputs from PTI)
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