by Rajat Pandit

India will next week induct its first modern heavy-lift helicopter, the iconic American Chinook chopper capable of transporting howitzers and troops to forward and high-altitude areas with China and Pakistan, after a wait of over three decades.

The first four of the 15 CH-47F Chinooks, ordered from Boeing in the Rs 8,048 crore deal inked in September 2015, will be commissioned into IAF’s 126 Helicopter Unit at Chandigarh on Monday. The unit, ironically nick-named “Featherweights”, currently has only two operational Mi-26 choppers inducted from Russia in the late-1980s.

“The Mi-26s, which airlifted artillery guns to the Kargil heights during the 1999 conflict as well as bulldozers during the Uttarakhand floods in 2013, are slated to go for Russia for an upgrade and overhaul to prolong their operational life,” said an official.

The Mi-26s are even bigger than the Chinooks, with a maximum payload capacity of 20 tons and a seating capacity for 82 combat-ready soldiers as compared to 11 tons and 45 troops of the latter. Similarly, while Mi-26s have an under-slung load capacity for howitzers and other equipment of 20 tons, the Chinooks can carry only 10 tons.

But the defence ministry-IAF combine favoured the US chopper over the Russian one, which led to some criticism from the CAG, because the former had a lower operating cost and a relatively compact size to fly through narrow valleys and land at small helipads.

With all the 15 Chinooks to be delivered by March 2020, their second unit will come up at Dinjan (Assam) to cater for the eastern front. Equipped with powerful contra-rotating tandem rotors, the Chinooks will be used to lift M-777 ultra-light howitzers – 145 are being inducted under the over Rs 5,000 crore deal inked with the US in November 2016 – to “threatened areas”.

IAF will also induct 22 of the equally famous American AH-64E Apache attack helicopters at its Pathankot and Jorhat airbases in the July 2019-March 2020 timeframe under another Rs 13,952 crore deal inked in September 2015.

The Apache, armed with Stinger air-to-air missiles, Hellfire Longbow air-to-ground missiles, guns and rockets, had also upstaged the Mi-28 Havoc, leaving Russia highly miffed at India’s preference for US weapon systems.

The $2 billion acquisition of 24 naval multi-role MH-60 ‘Romeo’ helicopters from the US, which has already notched up military sales worth over $17 billion to India since 2007, is also in the final stages now.

But Russia has strongly reasserted its position as India’s biggest arms supplier. Just since last October, India has inked the $5.43 billion contract for S-400 Triumf missile systems and the $3 billion deal for the lease of a nuclear-powered Akula-1 class submarine with Russia. Moreover, a joint venture with Russia was also inked in February to manufacture around 7.50 lakh AK-203 Kalashnikov assault rifles in India, in a project which would eventually be worth around $2 billion.