161. A mature and modern force

Aircraft Systems Testing Establishment (ASTE) the Tactics & Air Combat Development Establishment, (TACDE), the 'College of Air Combat' and other specialist establiments continued to mature. Work on the ADGES was resumed in 1974-75 and plans for the qualitative upgrading of the entire Air Force were continually refined. The IAF handed over its Super Constellations to the Navy in 1975. The early seventies saw force levels being consolidated, and training in new weapons-systems and evolution of new tactics being honed.

By the mid '70s, the IAF was clearly in need of urgent re-equipment decisions and various requirements, better known by their acronyms DPSA, TASA, METAC and HETAC, were pursued and decisions were forthcoming at last. The period, the IAF was to benefit from a crest in the eighties, the period 1978-88 witnessing a major modernisation programme which replaced most of the earlier generation and obsolete equipment with spanking new aircraft types and weapon systems.

No less than twenty new aircraft types and sub-types entered the IAF's service over these years, including various strike fighters, third-generation supersonic interceptors, tri-sonic reconnaissance aircraft, strategic heavy lift transports, medium tactical transports, light transport aircraft, heavy lift and medium-assault helicopters, basic trainers, surface-to-air missiles and an array of sophisticated weaponry propelling the IAF, or Bharatiya Vayu Sena, into one of the world's better equipped air arms.

First off the mark was selection of the Jaguar strike fighter, to meet the IAF's urgent Deep Penetration Strike Aircraft (DPSA) requirement, to replace the Canberra and Hunter still soldiering on in this exacting role. After many years of evaluation and negotiation, the Anglo-French fighter was contracted for, an interim batch of ex-RAF Jaguars being accepted to re-equip No. 14 Squadron. IAF pilots and technicians received conversion training with the RAF and British Aerospace in Lossiemouth, Coltishall and Warton before ferrying the first Jaguars to India in July 1979.