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Indian Naval pilots to train in US military academy

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

New Delhi, July 16, IRNA
India-US-Pilots
India is going ahead with plans to ink a defense agreement with the United States to train Indian naval fighter pilots, specially for carrier landings and takeoffs, top naval sources told Press Trust of India.

With India all set to induct its new super carrier INS Vikramaditya (Admiral Gorshkov) toward the end of 2007, the navy is feeling the pinch in training fighter pilots as the number of slots at the Indian Air Force's MiG training units located at Tezpur are inadequate.

"To overcome these deficiencies and to prepare naval aviators to fly MiG29K, which will be acquired to operate from the Russian carrier," naval officials said that under the new agreement it was proposed to train pilots at the US naval training institutions.

"An agreement is likely to be signed in another 10 to 15 days and naval fighter pilots would start commencing training by September," naval officials said.

They said naval pilots after grading on piston-engined HPT-32 basic trainers will proceed to US Navy's air station at Corpus Christie in Texas.

The institution trains pilots and navigators for the US Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and even the US Air Force.

The NDA government before bowing out from office had signed a seven a seven-billion-dollar deal to acquire 60 British Aerospace Hawk 100y trainers -- 25 outright and 35 to be assembled in HAL -- but curiously this did not include any provision for buying the naval variants of the trainers.

Naval officials said like IAF it was not possible to send naval pilots to train in United Kingdom on the Hawks as there already were large batches of IAF pilots training there.

However, even the British naval pilots are being trained at Meridan and at US naval air station at Kingsville in Texas as the naval variants of the Hawks, called the Goshawks are jointly manufactured by American aviation major Boeing and BAe.

The US air station, according to sources, trains around 200 pilots a year, which besides the US Navy, Marine Corp, Coast Guard, includes foreign pilots from Italy and Spanish navies.

After graduating these pilots move on to fly high performance aircraft like Boeings F/A-18 Hornets, which US is offering to India.

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