HAL Ajeet

During the 1950s, the government of India had come to an agreement with the United Kingdom to procure a large number of Folland Gnat fighters, a light combat-capable jet-propelled aircraft, for the Indian Air Force (IAF). In addition to the acquisition of British-built Gnats, the type was also manufactured under a licensing arrangement in India by aviation company Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). During its production run, in excess of 200 aircraft were constructed by HAL for the IAF; as much as 85 per cent of the airframe and 60 per cent of the engine were domestically produced.[2] During 1958, the first Gnat fighter was accepted by the IAF into squadron service.[3]

During its service life with the IAF, the Gnat proved to be relatively successful when deployed for active combat missions. The type was used in both the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 and the follow-up Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 against neighbouring Pakistan. Operationally, it was used to conduct both low-level air superiority missions and to perform short range ground attack runs. Due to its effectiveness against Pakistani fighters, such the North American F-86 Sabre, the type was given the moniker of Sabre Slayer.[4] The Gnat was ultimately operated by the IAF for several decades up until its retirement during the 1980s.

According to aviation author Pushpindar Chopra, the design of the Gnat had both positive and negative attributes; while being inexpensive to construct and to operate, several of the onboard systems had been allegedly prone to low levels of reliability, particularly the control system of the aircraft, while some aspects had proved to be difficult to maintain.[5] The reliability issues had been a known contributing factor to several accidents which had resulted in the total loss of individual Gnats and the deaths of several pilots.[2]

Accordingly, while the Gnat had been determined to be effective as a combat aircraft, it was also viewed that there was room for improvement on the design of its subsystems. During 1972, the IAF therefore issued a formal requirement, calling for the development and production of an improved model of the Gnat. Although the original revision of the requirement had called for the type to be produced to function as an interceptor, it was subsequently modified to incorporate a secondary ground-attack role for the new model as well.[6] According to a report by the Public Accounts Committee of the Indian Parliament, the IAF officials tasks with overseeing the programme lacked realistic concepts of what was involved in the development process nor firm ideas on what the aircraft was required for.[7]

In response to the issuing of the original requirement, HAL set about designing their revision of the Gnat. Their work was greatly aided by an earlier decision to, upon the liquidation of Folland Aircraft during the 1960s, India had acquired many former assets of the company; the residual rights for the type had been transferred to the IAF while other items, such as the jigs and test apparatus, moved to HAL.[2] Early on, the fledgling aircraft design received the name "Ajeet", Sanskrit for "Invincible" or "Unconquered". As the design developed, differences between the Ajeet and the original model of the Gnat that had served as its starting point became considerable. During the development process, deliberate efforts were made to rectify the encountered shortcomings and troubles discovered within the design of the earlier Gnat.[8]

In support of the development programme, HAL decided to modify the final pair of Gnats on the production line to serve as prototypes for the Ajeet. On 6 March 1975, the first of these prototypes conducted its maiden flight while the second prototype following on 5 November that year. The flight testing phase of the programme reportedly validated the success of the re-designed aircraft, leading to a production order being placed for the Ajeet. On 30 September 1976, the first production aircraft performed its maiden flight.[1] Despite this, as late as 1979, additional development tasks and changing requirements were being added onto the programme; these were attributed by defense analyst Amit Gupta as having caused the Ajeet's associated costs to substantially rise as well as having led to setbacks in the programme's manufacturing effort.[7]

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, HAL undertook work on a project intending to produce a training-oriented variant of the Ajeet. During 1982, this programme had progressed to the point where the initial flight of a prototype for evaluation purposes occurred. This sole aircraft was soon lost in a crash later that same year. The following year, a second prototype performed its maiden flight and was closely followed by a third.

However, information on the Ajeet trainer programme was received with a lack of interest on the part of the Indian government. IAF Air Commodore Jasjit Singh observed that there was little need for a trainer version of the Ajeet as the original Gnat had already been developed into a training aircraft and therefore could have been acquired already if the IAF had the desire to do so.[9] The twin factors of the anticipated imminent phaseout of the Ajeet fighter and pessimism over the project's value from officials heavily contributed to the trainer initiative being curtailed without any further examples being produced. The two surviving aircraft were dispatched to briefly serve with the IAF's No.2 Squadron, where they were used until the phaseout of the Ajeet was completed during 1991.