The feat was achieved days after the Indian Air Force successfully did a dry run of mid-air refuelling using the Russian-built IL-78 MKI tanker.
Alexey Fedorov, chief of the Sukhoi-making Russian company, Irkut, said at the recently concluded biennial airshow -- MAKS-2011 -- in Zhukovsky near Moscow, that the Sukhoi upgradation has two components, for which technical negotiations are on. One includes the modernisation of the aircraft to fit the BrahMos missile's air version on it, and the other is to upgrade the existing five Sukhoi-30MKI squadrons of the IAF.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh left Moscow for home on Saturday after concluding a three-day visit during which he attended the 12th annual Indo-Russian summit and witnessed the inking of five agreements, including one for technical assistance in joint production of 42 more frontline Sukhoi-MKI 30 jets. Dr Singh, who held talks with President Dmitry Medvedev, cleared the uncertainty over the Kudankulam nuclear power project on Friday.
After taking off in the frontline Sukhoi-30 MKI, President Pratibha Patil on Monday once again donned military fatigues to ride a T-90 main battle tank, becoming the first head of the State to do so.
The prowess of IAF's frontline fighter aircraft Su-30MKI is set to get a boost with plans to equip them with missiles having a strike range of around 300 kilometres.
US-India defence cooperation must not adversely affect the India-Russia interface, which has its own strategic meaning and content, asserts Vice Admiral Premvir Das (retd).
A Sukhoi-30 MKI fighter aircraft of the IAF on Tuesday crashed soon after taking off from Lohegaon airbase near Pune but both the pilots managed to bail out safely.
A Sukhoi-30 MKI fighter aircraft of the Indian Air Force on Tuesday crashed near a village in an open stretch of land while on a routine mission but the two pilots flying it ejected safely.
Raha said the force has the power to punish its enemy, but a decision on using it in an offensive role will have to be taken by the government.
A MiG-29 fighter aircraft crashed into a mountain during a night flying exercise near Lahaul- Spiti in Himachal Pradesh and the fate of the pilot is not known.
Ajai Shukla spends a day with Tejas test pilots to find out what drives them.
The makes of these fighter planes were MiGs, Su-30 MKI and Jaguar. Six pilots were killed in these crashes. This includes 2 MiG-21 aircrafts that crashed during take off.
The thanks-giving activities will start with laying of wreaths at the police memorial in Delhi and in several other cities on Sunday morning to honour the police personnel deployed in enforcement of the nationwide lockdown, officials said. It will be followed by fly-pasts by fighter and transport aircraft of the Indian Air Force, covering a sizeable number of cities and towns across the country between 10 am and 11 am, officials said.
The decision to disengage the forces, locked in a bitter standoff for the last six weeks in eastern Ladakh, was taken at a nearly 11-hour-long meeting between senior Indian and Chinese commanders in Moldo on the Chinese side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) on Monday.
Air Marshal N A K Browne, an ace MiG-21 and Sukhoi-30 MKI fighter pilot, will be the next chief of Indian Air Force.
On the shopping list: Light tanks, anti-tank guided missiles, UAVs, assault rifles, fighter aircraft.
Indian Air Force's frontline Su-30 MKI fighter jets and Eurofighter Typhoons of the Royal Air Force on Wednesday began 17 days of war games codenamed Ex-Indradhanush at the Kalaikunda airbase in West Bengal.
Showcasing its precision strike capabilities during day and night, Indian Air Force on Sunday carried out a massive fire power blitzkrieg using its frontline aircraft such as SU-30 MKI, Mirage-2000, MIG 27 and MIG 29, at the Pokhran ranges in Rajasthan.
The IAF has planned several activities at the air base to commemorate the 20 years of the war and the symbolic recreation of the Tiger Hill attack was one of them.
American armaments dominated the defence services's show of weaponry.
'Despite frequent high-level interactions there has been little traction on substantive issues between India and France,' says Mohan Guruswamy.
India-China relations have always attracted Parliament's attention and there have always been useful and productive and constructive discussions how to engage with China, notes Rup Narayan Das.
President Pratibha Devisingh Patil created history on Wednesday by becoming the first serving female head of state to fly in an Indian Air Force Sukhoi-30 MKI fighter aircraft from the Lohegaon Air Force Base in Pune.
One of the most sought after exhibitions in Asia, as many as 549 companies are participating this year with 53 fighter aircraft on display.
'It is not clear how the NDA government -- including Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, backed by senior IAF officials -- claimed that the 36 Rafale contract with Dassault in 2016 cost the IAF 20% less than Dassault's 126 Rafale offer,' notes Ajai Shukla in the first of a three-part series.
New airbases, troops, infrastructure, development initiatives are all part of a longer strategy
Air Marshal N A K Browne, a veteran fighter pilot, took over the charge of Western Air Command, the sword arm of the Indian Air Force on Monday.
It was for the first time that the missile, capable of travelling at speeds of up to Mach 3.0, or three times the speed of sound, was tested with indigenously developed 'seeker' technology.
But private Indian defence firms prefer to do business with the West. Indian CEOs say they encounter difficulties in obtaining full and timely payment from Russian partners.
'We should have seen these signals and reacted earlier.' 'We miss out on a certain strategic advantage by arriving late on the scene.'
The Sukhois took on Royal Air Force Torandoes and Typhoons in intricate simulated beyond visual range combat over the skies here to ring down the curtains on the second bilateral Indo-UK air exercise.
"Whether it was F-16 or JF-17 which shot down 2 Indian aircraft is immaterial," Pak military spokesman said.
Today's development follows an unsuccessful test on April 9, when the missile had failed to hit the target.
Though ythe IAF has for the past few years been participating in bilateral exercises with foreign air forces, this will be the first exclusive IAF exercise in seven years.\n
Six Su-30MKIs and two Il-78 MKI mid-air refuelling aircraft will participate in the wargame.
While the IAF will field the Su-30s, the RAF will use its Tornado, Hawk and Typhoon combat jets, VC-10 tankers and AWACS in the exercise.
The deal is for the swapping of 18 Sukhoi fighter jets in service with the IAF for the latest version of air superiority multi-role warbirds tailored to meet Indian requirements
In the light of India's increasingly 'darkening' threat environment and the convergence of strategic interests between China and Pakistan, the IAF's declining combat capabilities are a cause for concern, says Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (retd).
The navy has begun deploying the ship-launched version of BrahMos in its warships in a phased manner.
MiG-27 ML had proved its worth in various operations, including in Kargil and earned rich accolades in numerous international exercises held in India.
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