KALAIKUNDA, NOV 17: As the Cope India 2005 Indo-US air force
exercises wound down today after two weeks of feverish action in
the eastern skies, the US Air Force were left with a stark,
double-edged realization.
One that it is no longer the unchallenged leader in the skies,
and twofor all future joint operations in South Asia, the IAF
would, without doubt, be its natural partner.
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Vice Commander of the US Pacific Air Forces Lt Gen Dave Deptula
said: I have never seen a better executed exercise in my 29 years
with the USAF. This will go a long way towards establishing peace
and stability in the region. Every single objective of this
exercise has been met. It was not the US against India. It was an
exercise on how to operate together.
Admittedly, the two forces still have much to learn from each
other, especially in procedures and operational routines. Both
sides said that given an immediate security threat, the two forces
now had the capability to fly together in response. We will now
be prepared if called upon in the future for a contingency, unnamed
and unknown. We will be in a position to respond. We can get onto
the task of resolving crisis situations together without wasting
time, Lt Gen Deptula said. Today, the two sides flew a rare high
value airborne asset (HVAA) attack simulation over Kalaikunda,
which principally illustrated the cohesive nature of this round of
war games. In the mission, the USAFs E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft was
escorted by American F-16s and Indian Su-30s in a scenario where
the AWACS was attacked by a hybrid mix of American F-16s, Indian
Mirage-2000s and Su-30s. In the words of one of Mirage pilots,
this, more than any of the other maneuvers in the last weeks,
epitomized what Cope India was about. Air Marshal Fali Major,
Eastern Commander, said: This exercise simulated a hot war
scenario in a conventional setting. It was not about
terror.
During the last Cope India exercise in February 2004, American F-15
pilots had admitted finding it bizarre that their Indian
counterparts had routed them in many maneuvers. This time round,
the buzzword was a studied jointness, though pilots told this
newspaper off the record that the IAF had maintained its
one-up.
Source http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=82154