Thread by @singhshwetabh71

The story of Il 38

The story of turf war and a new plane began with the 1971 war. Even though the seeds were laid approx. a decade earlier (~1965). INS Khukri incident was the catalyst. When our T14 Frigate was sunk by the PN sub. Navy naturally wanted to procure MRASW aircrafts

Now before 71, we did have Maritime Recon planes, the L1049 Super Constellations, but they were with the Air Force.

The Govt gave an in-principle approval in May 1973, to procure 4 shore based MRASW planes. The planes that available then were Hawker Siddeley Nimrod, Breguet Br.1150 Atlantic, Beriev Be-12 and Ilyushin Il 38. Be 12 (also ew) was rejected cuz it didn’t satisfy the requirements.

Atlantic and Nimrod required forex. In 1973 Arab- Israeli war happened, that raised oil prices, and hence no forex.

So Il38 was decided but Il 38’s production had technically ended in 1972. And Soviets even though the help, didn’t want to give them from their inventory. In 1974, they hinted they might be able to spare 3 for us. And an agreement was signed in 1975 for 3 Il 38s.

Now the fight began between IN and IAF, who will operate them? (It was a decade old fight actually) IAF traditionally had operated planes like L1049, but IN now wanted this to be their domain. IAF thought Navy lacked any experience and logistics to maintain such large planes.

MoD asked services’ chiefs to solve the problem amongst themselves within 2 months and said MoD will be ok with whatever solution they came up with. But the turf war continued. MoD finally stepped in and asked whether they would agree to solution if MoD came up with it. They did.

MoD after deliberations decided, control should go to Navy, and maintenance could be left to IAF if needed. IAF wasn’t happy with it. Navy was. After the decision, IAF played a gamble.

IAF offered to transfer 5 L1049s to the Navy immediately (from No6 to INAS 312). But under the condition that if Navy couldn’t maintain and operate such large multi-engined planes, then “Navy should shut up forever” and let IAF keep MR role.

When the proposal came to NHQ, CNS said it was a ‘booby trap’. Navy’s initial internal view was that they would be unsuccessful, they didn’t have the “pilots, maintenance engineers, or the extra tools, or the bodies to maintain them”. But they took up the challenge.

Turns out IAF wasn’t as innocent. The maintenance of ‘Super Connies’ was actually being done by Air India at Bombay. When the DCNS went there, he saw spares worth 15 yrs there. They told DCNS, sure we will maintain the Connies for you too, we have been doing it for IAF too

To get the pilots, Navy decided to ground a Seahawk sqdn, as the carrier was going for a long refit anyways. And they reduced the strength of pilots on training duties at Goa.

Navy within next months was able to maintain and fly them, firstly with the help of IAF and then on their own. And Apparently Navy was able to get more hours out of them than IAF ever did.

Il 38 were retained with the Navy and arrived in Goa in Oct 77. In 1979, we requested Soviets for 5 more Il 38. They said cmon man. Cuz the production was closed obv. So they asked what type of replacement would we like. We indicated a requirement for longer range.

That would result in the Tu 142 deal, and a story for another time.

End