Rafale Jets in India LIVE News updates: The aircraft will be inducted at Air Force Station Ambala on Wednesday, subject to weather, IAF had said on July 20. The final induction ceremony will take place in the second half of August.
Rafale in India LIVE updates: More than four years after it inked the deal to acquire Rafale jets, India will receive the first batch on Wednesday at the IAF Air Force Station in Ambala. The fighter jets entered Indian airspace at about 1:30 pm and were greeted by Indian Navy’s warship INS Kolkata, deployed in the Arabian Sea. The five fighter aircraft, being flown by Indian Air Force (IAF) pilots, will arrive here after covering a distance of 7,000 km with air-to-air refuelling and a single stop in the United Arab Emirates. The aircraft will be officially inducted into the IAF in the second half of August.
A security blanket has been thrown around the air force station by the police, on the request of the IAF to prevent any photography and videography of the arrival of the aircraft. Further, Section 144 has also been imposed in four villages close to the Ambala airbase.
India had bought 36 twin-engine fighter planes from Dassault Rafale for an estimated Rs 58,000 crore, through an inter-governmental agreement signed in 2016. The Number 17 Golden Arrows squadron of the Indian Air Force has been resurrected in preparation for the induction. The Golden Arrows were raised in 1951 and have been involved in a number of significant operations through their history, including the Kargil War. But after the Air Force started to phase out the Mig-21, which were operated by the Golden Arrows, the squadron was disbanded in 2016.
More than four years after it inked the deal to acquire Rafale jets, India will receive the first batch on Wednesday at the IAF Air Force Station in Ambala. The fighter jets entered Indian airspace at about 1:30 pm and were greeted by Indian Navy’s warship INS Kolkata, deployed in the Arabian Sea.
Rafale contingent establishes contact with Indian Navy warship INS Kolkata deployed in Western Arabian Sea.
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The state-of-the-art 4.5 Generation Rafale jet can reach almost double the speed of sound, with a top speed of 1.8 Mach. With its multi-role capabilities, including electronic warfare, air defence, ground support and in-depth strikes, the Rafale lends air superiority to the Indian Air Force.
The aircraft will be inducted at Air Force Station Ambala on Wednesday, subject to weather, IAF had said on July 20. The final induction ceremony will take place in the second half of August.
The IAF aircrew and ground crew have undergone comprehensive training on the aircraft, including its highly advanced weapons systems, which are fully operational now. Post arrival, efforts will focus on operationalisation of the aircraft at the earliest, IAF had stated.
The immediate focus when they reach will be to ensure that the pilots and ground crew put their heads down and become integrated with the overall IAF operations at the earliest. Further, it is important that the ferry-in of fighters as well as move of support crew is completed safely and swiftly.
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Of the ten delivered to the Air Force, five are in France for training. Pilots and support personnel of the Indian Air Force have been given complete training about the aircraft and the weapon systems by Dassault in France.
According to the Indian Embassy in France, IAF batches will continue to be trained in France for the next nine months.
The delivery of all the 36 jets is scheduled by the end of 2021.
No, the jets India has bought are a mix of single-seater and two-seater planes. The jets on their way to India are also a mix of both.
Interestingly, the twin-seater air planes have the current Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria’s initials, “RB”, as he played a significant role in negotiating the deal.
The single-seater aircraft have the initials of the last chief of Air Force, retired Air Chief Marshal Birender Singh Dhanoa.
On their way to India from France, five Rafale jets were re-fulled mid-air from a French tanker at a height of 30,000 feet. The jets took off from the Merignac airbase in French port city of Bordeaux on Monday, and will be arriving in India on Wednesday afternoon after covering a distance of nearly 7,000 km.
The five fighter aircraft, being flown by Indian Air Force (IAF) pilots, will arrive here after covering a distance of 7,000 km with air-to-air refuelling and a single stop in the United Arab Emirates. The aircraft will be officially inducted into the IAF in the second half of August.
India’s Rafale fighter jets: Here’s everything from speed to weapon capabilities
The five Rafale fighter jets that land in Ambala on Wednesday morning will resurrect the Number 17 Golden Arrows squadron of the Indian Air Force. It will take the IAF’s squadron strength to 31. When all the 36 Rafale jets are delivered by 2022, it will take it to 32 squadrons, still well below the 42 squadrons of the sanctioned strength.
The state-of-the-art 4.5 Generation Rafale jet can reach almost double the speed of sound, with a top speed of 1.8 Mach. With its multi-role capabilities, including electronic warfare, air defence, ground support and in-depth strikes, the Rafale lends air superiority to the Indian Air Force.
A day before the much-awaited arrival of five Rafale fighter aircraft from France to Ambala, a security blanket has been thrown around the Air Force Station Ambala by the police, on the request of Indian Air Force (IAF) to prevent any photography and videography of the arrival of the aircraft Wednesday. Further, Section 144 has been imposed in four villages close to the Ambala airbase.
DSP (Traffic), Ambala, Munish Sehgal told reporters that gathering of people on rooftops and photography during landing has been strictly prohibited. The five Rafale aircraft had taken off from Merignac airbase in France Monday en route to Ambala, a distance of around 7,000 km. The aircraft landed in Al Dhafra air base in UAE near Abu Dhabi the same day and are to continue their journey to Ambala Wednesday.
As the print and electronic media journalists made their way to Ambala Tuesday in preparation for the arrival of the aircraft, the latest to join the fleet of aircraft in IAF, they encountered police check posts set up hastily on approach roads to the Air Force Station. Police officials said that they had received requests from IAF authorities to stop people from coming close to the station and also to ensure that no drones were flown at the time of arrival of the Rafales.
The first fighter jet was handed over to the Indian Air Force in October 2019, in France, in a ceremony attended by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and French Minister for Armed Forces Florence Parly. Ten aircraft have been delivered on schedule, as per a statement by the Indian Embassy in France on Monday. Of these ten, five have left for India, while the other five will remain in France for training missions.
As the first five Rafale fighter aircraft are on their way to India, marking a new milestone in India-France defence cooperation, New Delhi has been in touch with all major arms suppliers — Russia, the US, France and Israel — at the political and diplomatic level amid the border standoff with China.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Sunday spoke with Israel’s Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi as the latest conversation.
Earlier, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had spoken with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Gantz, and both had “expressed satisfaction at the progress of strategic cooperation between the two countries and discussed possibilities of further strengthening the defence engagements”.
