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Due to the current crisis in the Air Force Academy resulting from the lack of a basic trainer aircraft, state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has sent out requests for information (RFI) on at least five aircraft that could replace the currently grounded HPT-32 trainer. The RFI has been sent to Raytheon for T-6 Texan, Finnmeccanica for M-311, Pilatus for the PC-21, Grob for the G-120 TP and Embraer for their ‘Tucano’ trainers.
The HPT-32s trainer aircraft were grounded after two senior flying instructors were killed when the trainer they were flying crashed in Andhra Pradesh on July 31. There were fundamental problems with the HPT-32 “in integrating its engine with its airframe” and the crash investigation revealed that the aircraft engine simply died in mid-air and all efforts by the experienced pilots to revive it had failed.
As of now, the new batch of cadets for the Indian Air Force (IAF) that begins preparing this month will be forced to skip its first lessons in flying because the HPT-32 basic trainer aircraft in the Air Force Academy have been grounded. Due to the lack of trainer aircraft, the training schedule has been disrupted and the IAF has warned the Indian Defence Ministry that the situation is grave and the number of replacement trainer aircraft needed are about one hundred. Currently, there are more than 100 HPT-32 with the IAF but they have all been kept back in the hangars.
Air Chief Marshal Pradeep Vasant Naik has said that the lack of HPT-32 trainers for the first phase of pilot training will only put pressure on Kiran Mark II sub-sonic jet aircraft used for the second phase of training. The current crisis will inevitably lead to forced changes in the training schedule, thereby putting an additional demand on the Kiran Mark II aircraft which are also limited, because now both stage-I and stage-II trainees will be sharing them.
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