The biennial air show and aviation expo, Aero India 2025, is scheduled between February 10 –14 at Yelahanka Air Force Station, Bengaluru, which has hosted it since 1996.
Aero India 2025 is Asia’s largest air show. It showcases aerobatic flying displays, workshops and commercial opportunities for industry professionals and the public. It attracts participants from around the globe. The show serves as a platform for product showcases and paves the way for business exchanges and forging strategic partnerships.
The event is being organized by the Defence Ministry of India, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the Indian Air Force, the Department of Space, and the Union Civil Aviation Ministry. With its tagline, ‘Runway to a Billion Opportunities’, the show is aimed at bolstering business in the international aviation sector. It also provides a platform to showcase India’s aeronautical advancements.
Aero India may be essentially a defense trade show, but it also displays India’s capabilities and needs as an aerospace power. The core characteristics of aerospace power are reach, flexibility, mobility, responsiveness, offensive lethality and trans-domain operational capability.
And when one talks of India’s aerospace capabilities, the best indicator is the health of its Air Force.
It is the Indian Air Force that prosecutes all the air and surface operations, which, in turn, are reflected in their structure, technology, organisation, training and infrastructure. Hence it is natural to wonder whether the current needs of the Indian Air Force, its gradual evolution from being a tactical force to a strategic force, from being defense-oriented to the one aiming at air domination, from having the capability of meeting a single threat at one time to fight a two-front war simultaneously against China and Pakistan, from protecting territorial assets to guarding India’s space assets, can be met by the “Make in India” products.
All told, given the deteriorating geopolitical environment that India finds itself in, it is a matter of serious concern that the IAF is having only 30-31 fighter squadrons, though its authorized strength is 42 squadrons.
In fact, India needs not only more fighting air platforms but also many more things at a time when air operations have now permanently shifted from being homogeneous in nature to being heterogeneous. Traditionally, air forces principally comprised crewed aircraft and their training and support structures. This model has now expanded, as Peter Layton , Visiting Fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute , rightly describes, from the initial development of boost-glide, cruise and ballistic missiles to the modern introduction of many different types of uncrewed air vehicles. Such air vehicles are increasingly undertaking a diverse array of functions, including surveillance, strike, electronic support, and logistics.
Secondly, heterogeneous air power can be employed by states and non-states, big and small. Adversaries have adopted grey zone tactics by employing cyber, information and economic means as instruments of statecraft. These challenges constitute a widened spectrum of conflict, from relative peace marked by sub conventional attacks, escalating to low intensity conflicts and finally total war. There is thus now a compelling need of the modern air forces to become more agile in terms of organisation, doctrine, workforce mind-sets and skills, and technology.
Thirdly, the rise of heterogeneous aerospace power opens many opportunities for innovation. While innovations in uncrewed systems are inherently simpler to achieve and generally much cheaper and affordable than for crewed air vehicles, these also get obsolete. As the Ukraine- war has shown, newly developed drones have been made obsolete within a few weeks as kinetic and electronic counters are equally rapidly devised. The elements comprising heterogeneous air power may experience considerable churn. It is unlikely to be the “set and forget” form of air power that homogeneous air power with its long-life equipment is.
Finally, and here Layton also makes a lot of sense, air forces as organisations will need to change as crewed aircraft start to share centre stage with glide bombs, cruise and ballistic missiles, surface-to-air missiles and countless types of drones.
The air domain has become a much more crowded place where many more need to be involved. Aerospace power is now highly dependent and influenced by technology, requiring good, well-educated, skilled, and competent human capital to absorb technology. It also requires an innovative, competitive, adaptable industry that can scale up production if the situation demands it.
In sum, aerospace power is a rapidly evolving and dynamic instrument of military power and statecraft. It is inherently reliant on technology and there is a requirement to maintain a balance between obsolescence and ever evolving niche technology. A dynamic geopolitical environment and increasing global challenges necessitate flexible capacity and capability enhancement processes to enable the Indian Air Force to maintain a competitive edge over its adversaries.
However, as noted Indian - American defence-analyst Professor Amit Gupta has explained elsewhere, the problem for the IAF is that it is trapped by two constraints that limit its ability to acquire advanced aircraft in a timely manner.
The first problem is the government’s lengthy, arduous, and complicated acquisition process which can take over a decade to procure an aircraft as was the case with the Rafale purchase. In that period costs inflate and the Air Force goes without modern aircraft to deter the Pakistani and Chinese air forces which are both rapidly acquiring aircraft. Pakistan reportedly is seeking to buy the J-35 fighter from China which is a qualitative leap over what it currently has in its inventory and, unlike the Indian government, the Pakistanis will not take over a decade to hammer out a deal with the Chinese.
China, similarly, is speedily moving away from its legacy force of MiG-21s to newer force of 588 J-10, 225 J-11, 280 J-16, over 200 fifth-generation J-20, and nearly 100 Su-27/30/35 variants. Moreover, its new fifth generation fighter, the J-35, has been unveiled as have the J-36 and J-50. While India’s procurement process moves at a glacial pace, it is now already five years that the MRFA competition has been in place, China is creating a futuristic air force.
The second problem for India is that HAL has always disappointed when it comes to delivering aircraft for the IAF. No Tejas deliveries were made in 2024 because of supply chain issues with the engine manufacturer and now it is claimed the first aircraft will be delivered in March 2025. But the IAF was promised up to 16 aircraft a year and that seems unlikely to happen in 2025.
HAL’s Rustom/Tapas drone project has been plagued by delays and performance issues and at one stage it was put on the backburner. The Indian Navy has now said that it will buy some Tapas but the final clearance to acquire these craft will only happen when the drone is shown to satisfactorily meet the requirements of the Navy. In the meantime, HAL is pressing ahead with a stealth drone named Ghatak—which is again an unproven technology.
What India needs, therefore, are international partnerships that will allow it to rapidly modernize the IAF with advanced weaponry as well as systems that are cheap and effective.
In my considered view, Professor Gupta is spot on in saying that India needs an international partnership that will allow it to rapidly modernise the IAF with advanced weaponry as well as systems that are cheap but effective. After all, techno-collaboration is becoming the international norm. Sweden’s Gripen has an American engine and avionics. France’s Future Combat Air System, basically a sixth-generation fighter, is linked to a partnership with Germany and Spain, a partnership which may still grow to include others. Japan, Britain and Italy are working together to build a sixth generation fighter jet as part of the Global Combat Air Programme.
There is obviously a lesson for India to learn. But before selecting partners, however, it is necessary to point out what Indian expectations are crucial to making a partnership work. For Prof. Gupta, first and foremost point that is to be kept in mind is that India needs arms production partners who are reliable and will not cut off technology transfers or production access if New Delhi is seen as violating the interests of great powers. Here, history suggests that the U.S. cannot be that reliable partner. When India went for nuclear tests in 1998, American sanctions kicked in and Washington withdrew its assistance for the Light Combat Aircraft (Tejas) program. Consequently, the LCA program was seriously delayed.
Secondly, any collaboration should allow India to use weapons systems in any manner it sees fit and to arm a system with the ordnance of its choice which could include strategic weaponry. This has been a problem between the United States and India but not between New Delhi and Moscow or New Delhi and Paris. Both France and Russia have no problems with India using the weapons they sell to deliver strategic armaments but Moscow does follow the letter of non-proliferation law and insist that the Indian Navy does not arm the nuclear submarines it leases from Russia with strategic weapons. At the same time, however, Russia did transfer technology to allow India to build the reactor for the nuclear-powered Arihant.
It would be against American law, however, to allow US produced weaponry to deliver nuclear weapons although successive administrations in Washington have turned a blind eye to Israel wiring its American supplied aircraft for nuclear delivery.
Thirdly, the collaborating nation should be willing to provide a 100% transfer of technology as Russia did with the Brahmos , allowing in the future the DRDO the basis for developing more advanced missiles.
Another point of Prof. Gupta that needs attention is that when Prime Minister Modi is a big votary of South-South cooperation,it is worth exploring partnership with Brazil in the aerospace sector. At the Low to Medium end of the spectrum, Brazil and Embraer make for an excellent partner. Brazil is part of the Brazil India South Africa (BISA) political grouping and over the years has developed a good relationship with India. Brazilians recognize the advantages of an economic relationship with New Delhi and when President Lula was the chief guest at the Republic Day celebrations last year, he brought along three hundred Brazilian businessmen to expand trade ties with India. When Brazilian interest is coupled with the country’s aeronautical capabilities it can lead to a mutually advantageous relationship with India.
The Brazilians have discussed the possibility of buying Tejas if India were to buy the medium range C-390 transport. This could be a mutually beneficial deal since the Tejas can be sold as an attack aircraft and trainer to replace Brazil’s aging AMX attack aircraft fleet while the C-390 could be licensed in India after an initial purchase.
Alternatively, India can work with Embraer to develop a drone that is used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, as well as for light strike duties. It is relevant to point out here that the Turkish Bayraktar drone which saw success in Azerbaijan and Russia, is made of off-the-shelf components and costs $5 million. The Iranian Shahed, also made with off-the-shelf components, is a $20,000 drone. Brazil needs such drones to patrol the Amazon as well as its very lengthy coastline so it could lead to an Indo-Brazilian drone being manufactured in significant numbers and being readily exported. Iran cannot sell drones to most nations because of sanctions on Tehran and Turkey’s drones would not be acceptable to India given Ankara’s posture on India-Pakistan issues.
In sum, with a highly cumbersome procurement process and on the one hand and poor production-centres on the other, India should go for international partnerships in general and Brazil in particular that will allow it to rapidly modernise the IAF with advanced weaponry as well as systems that are cheap and effective.
By Prakash Nanda
(prakash.nanda@hotmail.com)
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