Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) Typhoons at Warton, UK, shortly to be delivered. Also, the final assembly facilities at Caselle (Italy), Manching (Germany) and Warton (England).
First four photos and last photo Copyright Ray Troll (BAE Systems) / Fifth photo Copyright Geoffrey Lee Planefocus Ltd
Great Shots! Now expect several dozen experienced Pakistan Air Force ‘non-combatant’ flight instructors to descend at Watron to begin operational conversion, and stay deployed in Saudi Arabia for the next 36 months as part of the Typhoon Induction Team. Four senior PAF pilots are already deployed with the RSAF’s Typhoon Project Team to chart out the Typhoon’s operational induction process.
Beautiful pics! Do upload more if you can…
exactly, prasunji….I tried telling about the existence of PAF pilots and technicians in Persian airforces,to a few people on a certain forum a few yrs ago…but I was scoffed at!…I can even provide those people, with the names and ranks of PAF men in UAE airforce,but still they would call me as paranoid.
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btw,can anyone tell me ,which tranche do these aircraft belong?
I can distinguish lots of changes in the main plane structures,when compared to the ones I used to see in 2004.
Prasun that is no secret. PAF pilots and engineers have been deputed to RSAF in the past and this trend will continue.
Hey Shiv where’s d P8i in IAF livery?
To Bobs: I presume you mean Arab air forces, and not ‘Persian’ (aka Iranan). The PAF pilots were also flying Syrian MiG-21PFs in 1967 and official PAF historical records claim that it was those PAF pilots flying a routine early morning training sortie on June 5, 1967 that shot down four Israeli A-4 Skyhawks on Day 1 of the Six-Day War. In the UAE, there’s a unique form of military-diplomacy practised. While the PAF is contracted for providing flight instructors for the UAE Air Force (it was for this reason that the US refused to share the source codes with the UAEAF for the F-16E/F Block 60 Desert Falcons), for training the UAE Navy in various disciplines (navigation, gunnery, TASW, etc), the UAE relies solely on the Indian Navy. By the way, I hope you came across reports that in the early 1980s the IAF despatched a few Su-7BM-qualified flight instructors to Iraq to teach the Iraqi Air Force to fly long-range sorties using the Su-7BMs. Regarding the RSAF Typhoons they’re most probably Tranch 2 models being diverted from RAF orders. The IRST is clearly visible. Those EF-2000s brought to Aero India 2009 by the Luftwaffe were Tranche 1 models and they didn’t have the on-board IRST.
The difference in infrastructure is both staggering and downright pathetic.
These western factories look such nice and comfortable places to work in. Everything is cataloged and neatly arranged. Brilliant high CRI lighting. Workers wear fresh uniforms and are groomed nicely. As a worker, you would genuinely feel excited to get up every morning and work in that place.
Compare this to typical PSU slum that is a DRDO or HAL factory. Poor and inadequate lighting. Ugly paint. Rust. Pigeons and their shit in strategic places. Dust and grease marks everywhere. And employees who roam around chewing ??? ?????, shirts untucked, their chappals dragging and polishing the unpainted concrete floor.
A DRDO or HAL factory looks like the “rape set” from a C-grade movie. No quality worker –and certainly no female worker– would willingly work in such slums.
Before we learn to make aircraft, we must learn to respect the people who build aircrafts and give them a comfortable and sanitary enviornement. The factories have to be state-of-the-art too. You can’t cut corners. We must learn to build proper factories and assembly lines.
Truly, it is very simple: If people do not have pride in their workplace, they will not have pride in their work.
I can’t blame our defence forces for being biased towards western suppliers. Once anyone has seen see the “condition” of HAL or DRDO factories, why would they want to buy their products?
Be honest, would anyone here buy a Toyota Camry or Honda City if it was assembled in a ‘PSU grade’ slum?
Exactly.
Absolutely agree with the comment regarding the state of DRDO and HAL assembly lines …. problem with Indians in general is they shit were they eat. That shows in every aspect ….new swanky airports, but a chaos when you enter, etc … the list is endless. Nothing is going to happen if people do not take responsibility of things, instead of waiting for a savior to fix it.
oops! plz read IN livery in the prev comment
To Prasun:
yeah I meant Arabs…here,we commonly refer to the arab countries as either 'persian' or 'gulf countries' ! Also what I found was that the paki forces were well versed with most of the machineries of their arab friends like UAE f-16 & Mirage 2000, saudi apaches & abrams and also their Area & Battlefield Dominance Systems..so expect this 'holy' co-operation to continue in the case of Typhoon and Rafales…and also another thing is that their men are deputed for long term foreign postings in these nations; similar to the way we send our men on UN missions.
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what I meant by changes was that the main plane looks as if it has undergone major structural changes in addition to the structural modifications made at its root .
Arab countries & other countries placing their orders quickly/ perfectly, but india is dead slow in processing from past 2001 we have decided to go MMRCA , but up to know india has not placed the orders , it takes another 2 yrs to approve ( process) this order.
Right now IAF is facing heavy depletion in fighter sqn's , but nobody seems to take care in it , at least interim purpose we need to place 50 nos jets either Mig-35 / F-16IN / Gripen , which we will not select for mmrca deal.
or may go for seconds in french mirage 2000-5 .
The difference in infrastructure is both staggering and downright pathetic.
These western factories look such nice and comfortable places to work in. Everything is cataloged and neatly arranged. Brilliant high CRI lighting. Workers wear fresh uniforms and are groomed nicely. As a worker, you would genuinely feel excited to get up every morning and work in that place.
Compare this to typical PSU slum that is a DRDO or HAL factory. Poor and inadequate lighting. Ugly paint. Rust. Pigeons and their shit in strategic places. Dust and grease marks everywhere. And employees who roam around chewing ??? ?????, shirts untucked, their chappals dragging and polishing the unpainted concrete floor.
A DRDO or HAL factory looks like the "rape set" from a C-grade movie. No quality worker –and certainly no female worker– would willingly work in such slums.
Before we learn to make aircraft, we must learn to respect the people who build aircrafts and give them a comfortable and sanitary enviornement. The factories have to be state-of-the-art too. You can't cut corners. We must learn to build proper factories and assembly lines.
Truly, it is very simple: If people do not have pride in their workplace, they will not have pride in their work.
I can't blame our defence forces for being biased towards western suppliers. Once anyone has seen see the "condition" of HAL or DRDO factories, why would they want to buy their products?
Be honest, would anyone here buy a Toyota Camry or Honda City if it was assembled in a 'PSU grade' slum?
Exactly.
Unless HAL and DRDO learns to clean up their acts, their workplaces and their uniforms, then the Indian corporations can get up to the rest of the world in terms of quality.
BTW, are you sure a typical HAL or DRDO aircraft assembly plant or laboratory is squalid as a backyard garage?
i am seeing a lot of attack on PSU work culture. May be true i have not seen them, but the question is whether the operators IAF or for other operators having such good work culture expecting only a western quality as the undercut?. Why, see any airports in India and compare it with JFK or Heathrow etc.
when we speak about quality we should have that quality. some one was saying about toyota camry but has any one seen a camry owner parking his/her car under sun near garbage. the person owning such cars will value it almost like their kids. do we do that to our machines? i dont know.
i am not arguing that we should keep in the garbage work culture, yes it is not good and MUST change and we should push the change not write them off.