Click to play videoBangalore: If anyone had any doubt about the atmospherics at the Bangalore airshow being decidedly military, he should now shed it.
The big announcement on Wednesday was that India will expand its fleet of Sukhoi-30 fighter aircraft.
“Forty Sukhois have been cleared,” said Air Chief Marshal SP Tyagi.
This will push up the number of Sukhois in the Indian Air Force to 230 an indication that the Sukhoi-30 is now well on its way to replacing the MiG-21 as the mainstay of the IAF's fighter operations.
The additional numbers will also bolster its sharply declining fleet levels, which now stand at a low of 30 fighter squadrons.
While Russia may have drawn first blood by bagging an Indian order for 40 additional Sukhois, but the real buzz is about the impending sale of an American legend, the Hercules, to the Indian Air Force.
If it happens, it will be the first American military aircraft to be flown by the Indian Air Force since the Packett in the 1960s, and a huge symbol of the end of a denial.
“We're looking at six Hercules for special role, not as cargo carriers,” said Tyagi.
The IAF wants the Hercules to bolster its capability to drop airborne commandos into enemy territory. That's not all. Air Chief Tyagi's shopping list, which includes six more mid-air refuellers and hundreds of helicopters, is making the world of military aviation fly high and hot.
The wooing of India is on a turbo charge.
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