Hello All,
Long time lurker on the Mil forum - what fantastic stories about the RAF aircraft and the culture. Also followed folks like Courtney Mil to his brilliant blog (A big thank you Sir!)
So, why am I posting for the first time in so many years. As an Indian, to provide some perspective on why the story is being reported the way it is, but also to provide another POV about the topic itself, more in tune and tenor with a "professional" way to look at things.
So, a few points:
1. The IAF is a modern, professional force, but has a long way to go in terms of media management. Take a look at its official website, to see how out of sync it is with certain aspects of modernity. The "outrageous" claims are more a function of clumsy media interaction than any design.
2. As many have pointed out, there is a pattern to such "chest thumping", and pandering to a "domestic audience". Why doesn't the IAF learn and Indians "grow up"? These are cultural issues and take much longer time to resolve. Observers of English football and its media coverage might see a parallel
3. Back to specifics, WVR is an IAF specialty simply because our main threat was mostly WVR until a few years ago. We practice it rather a lot. Add the Su-30s party tricks - the TVC (Courtney's observations on the drawbacks are bang on), and the HMDS cued off-boresight Archer. Then add the extra pair of eyeballs in the back to NOT lose sight and therefore fight. Plus we had some of our TACDE grads (Fighter Weapons School equivalent) flying. 12-0 kill ratios be damned but the IAF probably got more than a few clean kills.
BVR though is a steep learning curve, we got AWACs just a few years back, and currently too few platforms to train and bridge the huge gap with RAF and USAF in a short time. Notice the reportage "paper over" those results accordingly
4. Whats really positive and gets lost in the shrillness, is that the IAF which was super sensitive about radar usage and "joint" working in previous exercises has been much more open on all these parameters in the current edition. The number of exercises with US and allies is only going up.
"Indradhanush" is Hindi for rainbow - many Indians would love to get all colors of perspective on how the IAF and RAF fared, not just the brown and white one.
