HAL, Israel Aerospace tie up to turn civil aircraft into mid-air refuellers

Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL) announced on Wednesday the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) to convert civil passenger aircraft to “multi mission tanker transport” (MMTT) aircraft in India.

For the past decade-and-a-half, the Indian Air Force (IAF) has been trying to buy six MMTT aircraft to supplement its eight obsolescent Russian Illyushin-78 refuellers. So dire is the IAF’s shortfall of refuellers that, to fly in its new Rafale fighters from France, it had to ask Paris for Airbus refullers to top up the Rafales’ fuel tanks over the Mediterranean Sea.

In two abortive procurement attempts in the past 15 years, the IAF has floated tenders to Ilyushin and Airbus. If a tender is floated afresh, there will be a third vendor in the fray – The Boeing Company, which has develo­ped the KC-46 Pegasus tanker aircraft for the US Air Force.

The reason for the IAF’s withdrawal of both tenders was a conflict between “procurement cost” and “life cycle cost”. Russia’s IL-78 tanker is cheaper; but the Spanish Airbus 330-200 tanker worked out cheaper in terms of life cycle costs – considering not just the acquisition cost, but also the cost of operation, maintenance and spares over a 30-year service life.

With leasing of defence equipment now permitted under the Defence Acquisition Procedure of 2020, the IAF could also lease, rather than buy refuellers.

The last option now available – converting civil airliners to refuelling tankers – mirrors the IAF’s “Phalcon model” – in which it approaches Israel to convert a Russian IL-76 into a Phalcon radar-fitted AWACS.

Tankers are valuable force multipliers for air forces such as India’s, which operate figh­ters for long-distance miss­ions. Mid-air refuelling almost doubles the operating range of fighters. Refuelling them mid-mission saves a trip back to ba­se, and a landing and take-off.

Under the new MoU, “HAL will convert pre-owned civil passenger aircraft into air refuelling aircraft with cargo and transport capabilities. The move, will provide India’s defence ecosystem with new capabilities and cost effective solutions in the market,” said the IAF.

“The MoU will facilitate HAL and IAI’s decades’ long expertise in developing, manufacturing and producing leading defence platforms. The scope of the MoU also covers ‘passenger to freighter aircraft’ conversion, along with MMTT conversions.