Sri Lanka News Updates with Discussions

Two woman pilots of the national carrier have made history recently by being the first all female cockpit crew to fly a Lankan aircraft on an international flight and the SriLankan has yet to even announce it.

According to SriLankan Pilots Guild s President Capt Sujith Jayasekera, an Air Force veteran, the historic flight was flown in November last year from Colombo to Trichy in India by Capt. Anusha Siriratne and First Officer Madini Chandradasa. This was the first time such a feat had been achieved in the more than 50-year international aviation history of Sri Lanka.

Capt. Jayasekera said the historic flight was not noticed by anyone in the airline till the Guild s Roster Monitoring Committee spotted it during a routine review this month.

The duo has repeated the feat on January 1 this year by flying once again an Airbus A-320 to Karachi, Pakistan. According to Pilots Guild sources even though Capt. Anusha is a flying veteran of some 15 years, some of the mostly conservative passengers on the Karachi flight had looked scared as they were being flown by an entirely female crew.

With the greatest difficulty we managed to get through to Capt. Anusha yesterday, but she refused to make any comment about their achievements on grounds they were not authorised to speak.

It is, however, learnt that Indian and Bangladesh female pilots have flown all female flying crew international flights ahead of our women flyers.

Indian Navy Inducts it's First Batch Of Brand Spanking new MIG 29K Fighters

Global armament giants are heading to an annual defense fair in India, which plans to spend tens of billions of dollars to equip its million-plus military with new hardware.

About 650 defense companies from 35 countries will take part in the sixth edition of DefExpo-India, which starts today (15/02/10), Indian Defense Production Secretary R.K. Singh told reporters.

The US and Israel topped the list of participants in the four-day event in New Delhi, while 41 other countries were sending delegations to hold discussions with Indian defense officials, Singh said.

We look forward to facilitating these discussions, said Singh in the run-up to the arms bazaar, the largest to be held in India.

Singh said although India s new defense policy, to be unveiled soon, will seek to encourage greater local production of military hardware, arms imports will continue.

India buys 70 percent of its weaponry mainly from former Cold War ally Russia, Israel, France and Britain. The US is vying for contracts but still only has a limited share of the Indian defense market.

The record number of participants at the DefExpo follows an announcement by Defense Minister A.K. Antony last year that India would spend US$50 billion on acquisitions and modernization of its technology-hungry military by 2015.

India will also invest US$10 billion separately on homeland security by 2016 to try and protect itself against attacks such as the 2008 massacre of 166 people in Mumbai by gunmen from Pakistan, the government said in August.

India is now the most happening place, said Loic Piedevache, country head of European weapons consortium MBDA, which signed a pact with India in 2005 to manufacture anti-tank missiles for the Indian and French markets.

India is among the world s top 10 military spenders with an annual defense budget last year of 1,420 billion rupees (US$31.55 billion).

US firms Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Britain s BAE Systems, France s Dassault and Israeli firms see the prospects of India dishing out massive contracts as it races to revamp its military.

After a huge weapons kick-back scandal in 1987, which brought down a government, arms spending was virtually put on hold for many years.

Lately, however, the government has allocated increasingly larger sums to defense spending in a bid to rapidly modernize the world s fourth-largest military. India, which plans to test a nuclear-capable missile with a range of over 5,000km within the year, is also striving to strengthen its fledgling electronics warfare systems.

Global defense solution provider ITT Corp, which is pitching for contracts from the Indian military, said it could meet India s emerging needs.

We are positioning ITT to be in a better position than ever to support our customers emerging technology needs, company chairman Steve Loranger said.

Besides tanks, warships and artillery, India is in the market for nearly 400 combat helicopters worth hundreds of millions of dollars, which has drawn Italian consortium Finmeccanica and European EADS group to DefExpo.

India is a partner of strategic importance with a large and sustainable defense market growth rate and volume that offers significant opportunities, Finmeccanica said.

On the indian defence exhibition thingy, that golf buggy looks funny. Is it practical at all? two terrorists can lift it and topple it me thinks. lol

http://www.dailynews.lk/2010/02/22/main_Features.asp

The IAF is planning to hold a joint war game with the Chinese Air Force in 2012, even as it prepares to showcase its capabilities to fight a war during 'day, dusk and night' on February 28 in Rajasthan.

The planning for the joint exercise with China's Peoples Liberation Army (Air Force) had already commenced and the exercise will be held keeping with its policy of joining an international war game biennially, IAF Chief Air Chief Marshal P.V.Naik told.

'As far as China is concerned, around 2012 we hope we will also be able to do an exercise with China as the Army, which has already taken a lead in this. Planning has already commenced, but political acceptance, suitable dates etc take some time to come,' Naik said to a question on a possible joint exercise with the PLA Air Force in the near future.

On the fire power demonstration at Pokhran ranges codenamed Vayu Shakti-2010, he said this would be the largest ever air force exercise aimed at showcasing the IAF's prowess and capabilities to the nation to which defence attaches from foreign nations have been invited.

The exercise would have a total of 105 aircraft, including the potent Sukhoi fighter jets pounding simulated targets in the Rajasthan deserts to demonstrate its precision, speed and lethality, he added.

Hello snake boy! Long time no see! How are you?

and thanks joly and snaky for the info. Didnt see the SLAF site had all those badges on display.

On the indian defence exhibition thingy, that golf buggy looks funny. Is it practical at all? two terrorists can lift it and topple it me thinks. lol

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