For those who have been shedding copious tears about the apparent misfortune to befall the Indian Air Force because of their frontline heavy fighter aircraft Sukhoi-30 developing problems, causing two crashes, can rest easy now. There were rumours that the ‘fly by wire’ system was proving to be faulty. If that was really the case, the alarm bells would have started ringing not just in India or Russia, but even in China, which uses a variant of the aircraft too. But, that has not been the case.
Air Vice Marshal [retd] Kapil Kak, a reputed defence and strategic affairs analyst, said on Wednesday last, 'The “fly by wire” feature is absolutely sound and perfect. The problem was so laughably small that it is not even worth discussing.' But, he refused vehemently to be drawn into a discussion what the problem was.
The air force too, officially, was quite vague in telling what the glitch they faced with the aircraft was and how they corrected it.
It is learnt that in a two-seater Su-30, there is a switch which can get activated by any physical movement by a trainee pilot or a co-pilot, thereby destabilising the aircraft in mid-flight. So when this was discovered after two boards of inquiry instituted after the crashes, the solution became easy. Now a plastic cover has been put on the switch, thus making it inaccessible to accidental touches. This is obviously 'laughable', as Kak exclaimed, for a pioneering aircraft, considered one of the best in the world.
Now, the aircraft are going through Rs 11,000 crore upgradation programme at the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. The air chief, Air Chief Marshal N A K Browne, has recently said that Su-30 has to go through a 'constant performance enhancement' for it to stay at the top of the pile in the next 50 years of its service.
The upgrade is scheduled to overhaul the avionics, radars and various other key elements of the aircraft.