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India, US ten-day air exercises concludes at Bhopal

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

New Delhi, Feb 26, IRNA -- Signaling a new level of military 
cooperation between India and US, Indian Air Force`s frontline air 
crafts and pilots Wednesday matched skills with US Air Force over the 
skies of Bhopal in central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, local 
media reported here on Thursday. 
Honors were evenly shared at the air force joint exercise, dubbed 
`Cope India-04`, officials said. 
Rounding off a ten day hectic first ever joint fighter exercises 
with the USAF F-15 Eagles, Air Marshal Ajit Bhavnani of Indian Air 
Force and American officials indicated that in the coming months the 
scope of such fighter exercises would be expanded to include the US 
force`s mainstay F-16 fighter Falcons as well as the just rolled out 
F-22. 
"The two countries are also likely to project the subject of 
sharing experiences in the high altitude precision bombing to be 
included in the next series of combat exercises," US officials said. 
The comment is significant as US is yet to share this technology 
and its lethal use in Afghanistan and Iraq with many countries. 
The inclusion of sharing experiences in the high altitude bombing 
would come up at the joint Air Force steering committee meeting to be 
held in New Delhi in April. 
Pitted against the F-15C fielding one of the most advanced long 
range air-to-air Sidewinder missiles, the IAF pilots maneuvering their
SU-30k, Mirage 2000, MiG-29, MiG 27 and the upgraded MiG-21 Bison put 
up an impressive show, US pilots said. 
Bhavnani said, "A wide range of Indian pilots got to share the 
experience of the world`s most advanced nation`s Beyond Visual Range 
Capabilities and we were not found lacking." 
US officials said, for the first time India would be taking part 
in the seven nations fighter war games in Alaska in July this year. 
Five nations will be taking part along with India and Japan. 
Senior IAF officials said, the aim of the 10-day exercises, which 
began on Monday (Feb 16) was to learn about each other`s operational 
concepts through closer interaction, to familiarize ground crew with 
each other`s maintenance practices and to identify area of commonality
in terms of operations, maintenance and administration for future 
joint exercises. 
2160/AH/210 
End