New Delhi: India is in talks with Oman to buy spare parts for its fleet of Jaguar deep penetration strike aircraft. India is the only country that continues to fly them.
Sources in the defence establishment said that Oman has about 20-24 Jaguar aircraft that have been phased out, but are still in the country’s inventory.
India operates six squadrons of Jaguars, three of which have crashed this year killing three pilots.
Already running on cannibalised spares and plagued by engine issues, the Jaguar continues to plug critical gaps in the Indian Air Force’s stretched squadron strength.
Sources said the IAF is looking at buying spare parts from other countries when the original equipment manufacturers have stopped making them.
Sources added the issue figured during the 13th Joint Military Cooperation Committee held by the two countries on 24 November in the national capital.
The meeting was chaired by Defence Secretary Shri Rajesh Kumar Singh and Oman’s Secretary General in the Ministry of Defence, Dr Mohammed Bin Naseer Bin Ali Al Zaabi.
Sources said that the IAF is interested in buying spares from Omani inventory to use the two dozen-odd aircraft as “Christmas trees”. Christmas tree is a term used for cannibalising.
Sources explained that no final decision has been taken yet and the IAF is looking only at spares and not bringing the entire aircraft to India.
“There is no point in bringing in 20-24 aircraft for the Christmas tree. Not all parts are needed. Some parts will be needed and the effort will be to bring only those. All of this is under discussion,” a source explained.
Also read: 3 crashes this year, 3 pilots lost. IAF’s Jaguars, long retired everywhere else, back in spotlight
The birth of the Jaguar
As reported earlier, the Jaguar was born out of a collaboration between France and the UK in the 1960s, arguably the first fighter programme co-developed by two nations according to Dassault Aviation.
Designed to fulfill a common need for an advanced trainer and light strike aircraft, the programme was executed by SEPECAT, a joint venture between Breguet Aviation of France and the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC).
India opted for the Jaguar in the late 1970s amid a sweeping modernisation of its combat aviation fleet.
Under a ToT (transfer of technology) agreement, the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) began licenced assembly of the Jaguar at its Bengaluru facility. Between the early 1980s and 2008, HAL produced over 100 Jaguars, including naval (IM) variants equipped with French and Israeli radars.
In total, India is reported to have inducted over 160 Jaguars across all variants.
India is now the only country still operating the Jaguar, long since retired by its original users, France in 2005 and the UK in 2007, and secondary operators like Oman, Nigeria and Ecuador.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
Also read: In wake of Jamnagar crash, a look at chequered legacy of IAF’s SEPECAT Jaguar