Folks here should be commended for discussing the recent loss of LCA airframe and corresponding death of pilot Wing Cdr. Namansh Syal in a measured and mature manner. Let us try to maintain these standards going forward rather than e.g. reacting to every unhinged take emerging from India's tabloid apparatus.
This really should be the biggest story in this thread were it not for the Tejas crash.
Indian is using a leased in-flight-refueling aircraft:
The air refueling saga has been going around and around for
without resolution. The requirement is discerned, bids solicited, and the figures that come back are invariably too large for what are regarded as mere support aircraft lacking strong institutional backing, and the project is kicked into the weeds for a few years before returning to step one. For all that the IAF has struggled with recapitalising its fighter inventory, there is at least a strong rhetorical focus and corresponding agitation for doing so -- as seen by the constant references in public discourse to squadron numbers. The upper echelons of the IAF are all ex-fighter jocks and think accordingly. That the final sortie of MiG-21 in IAF service was undertaken by the current Air Chief Marshal A.P. Singh illustrates this background and thinking. One can acknowledge the importance of aerial refueling capability intellectually, but when it comes to making the hard choices about where and where not to allocate limited procurement budgets, such things regularly fall by the wayside.
