India Ordering, Modernizing SU-30MKIs
India’s SU-30MKI fighter-bombers are the pride of its fleet.
Below them, India’s local Tejas LCA lightweight fighter program aims to
fill its low-end fighter needs, and the $10+ billion M-MRCA competition is negotiating to buy France’s Rafale as an intermediate tier.
India isn’t neglecting its high end SU-30s, though. Initial SU-30MK and MKI aircraft have all been upgraded to the full SU-30MKI Phase 3 standard, and the upgraded “Super 30″ standard aims to keep Sukhoi’s planes on top.
Meanwhile, production continues, and India is becoming a regional resource for SU-27/30 Flanker family support.
India originally received standard SU-30MKs, while its government and industry worked with the Russians to develop the more advanced SU-30MKI, complete with innovations like thrust-vectoring engines and canard foreplanes.
The Su-30MKI ended up using electronic systems from a variety of countries: a Russian NIIP N-011 radar and long-range IRST sensor, French navigation and heads-up display systems from Thales, Israeli electronic warfare systems and LITENING advanced targeting pods, and Indian computers and ancillary avionics systems.
SU-30MK aircraft and crews performed very well at an American Red Flag exercise in 2008, and the RAF’s evident respect for the SU-30 MKIs in the 2007 Indra Dhanush exercise is equally instructive. The Russians were intrigued enough to turn a version with different electronics into their new export standard (SU-30MKA/MKM), and even the Russian VVF has begin buying “SU-30SM” fighters.
So far, India has ordered 272 SU-30s in 4 stages:
# 50 SU-30MK and MKIs ordered directly from Russia in 1996. The SU-30MKs were reportedly modernized to a basic SU-30MKI standard.
# Another 40 SU-30MKIs, ordered direct in 2007. These machines have reportedly been upgraded to the “Phase 3″ standard.
# A license-build deal with India’s HAL that aims to produce up to 140 more SU-30MKI Phase 3 planes from 2013-2017
# An improved set of 42 HAL-built SU-30MKI “Super 30s”. A preliminary order was reportedly signed in 2011, but the final deal waited until December 2012.
The Super 30 represents the next evolution for the SU-30MKI. Upgrades are reported to include a new radar (probably AESA, and likely Phazotron’s Zhuk-AE), improved onboard computers, upgraded electronic warfare systems, and the ability to fire the air-launched version of the Indo-Russian BrahMos supersonic cruise missile.
India may eventually upgrade its earlier models to this standard. For now, they represent the tail end of HAL’s assembly schedule, as the assembly of standard SU-30MKIs continues. The big challenge for HAL is to keep that expansion going, by meeting India’s production targets.
The IAF is reportedly scheduled to raise its 8th SU-30 squadron at Sirsa by December 2012, which is close to the Pakistani border. This is part of a larger balancing of India’s force structure. Initial SU-30 MKI squadron deployments had been focused near the Chinese border, but the new deployment will even things out.
Based on 3rd party sources, IAF SU-30MKI squadrons currently comprise:
2 Wing’s 20 Sqn. “Lightnings” & 30 Sqn. “Rhinos”, at Lohegaon AFS in Pune (W)
11 Wing’s 2 Sqn. “Winged Arrows”, based at Tezpur AFS (NE, near Tibet)
15 Wing’s 8 Sqn. “Eight Pursuits” & 24 Sqn. “Hawks”, at Bareilly AFS (NC, near W Nepal)
14 Wing’s 102 Sqn. “Trisonics”, at Guwahati AFS (NE, near Tibet)
34 Wing’s 31 Sqn. “Lions”, at Halwara AFS in Punjab (NW)
45 Wing’s 21 Sqn. “Ankush”, based at Sirsa AFS in Haryana (NW, pending, MiG-21 conversion)
