Somebody made fun about the idea of having an engine from one country for our Air Force, the air-frame from somebody else and electronics from somebody else. One of my colleagues on this side tried to make use of the idea of marriage. I will tell him that this is not an era of feudal marriages. At least in the field of technological development, not only international but continental marriages must take place. Even today we find this. For instance the Boeings in which most of us must have travelled is a plane whose air-frame and other equipment from the United States and the engine in it, the Rolls Royce engine, comes from the United Kingdom. There is nothing wrong there. I do not understand why we should have this type of inhibition. About the idea of development of capabilities of Mach H in HF 24, we want to give a trial to this Egyptian engine. What is wrong therein ? Here is a friendly country; it has the possibilities of developing engine. We have got the possibilities of developing our air frame. What is wrong if we marry the ideas ? If we are afraid of this idea, we have no place in the modern world. If ever we want to prepare the nation for national security in the modern concept we must completely clear ourselves of these wrong ideas.
It is not a question of engagement. Possibly engagements sometimes have to wait for maturity too. I do not want to go into that aspect now. Apart from that, there was one main criticism from Mr. Dandekar. I must say it was a very useful speech and a constructive speech. I liked that speech. He said that our Indian Air Force consists of varieties of machines. I would like to explain why it is so. The Air Force has to play different roles. Sometimes people have got some wrong ideas about them, it is not that Shri Dandekar has got those ideas. The Air Force planes have got different roles in the sense that it has to have fighter planes for interception role; it has to have fighter planes for the ground support role: they have to have plane for transport purpose, for reconnaissance purposes, for bomber squadrons, for helicopter purpose, training purposes and so on. These arc the different roles for which we have to have different planes. You cannot afford to do without these. When the Air Force took its birth, it had naturally to depend upon the supply that it got from the other countries. And beggars are not choosers when one has to get it from somebody else. It is not one’s own capacity to purchase. Sometimes the political reasons also come in our way. Sometimes you like ‘ A ‘ plane of `1.3’ country, but even if one is prepared to pay for it, the political attitude of ‘ B ‘ country comes in our way, whether they want to give it or not.
I entirely agree that there should be standardisation. The main theme of the hon. Member was that there should be standardisation in the types of planes that we have, so that our problems of maintenance and supply become a little more rational. I entirely agree with that view. But when we are trying to get more and more planes, what are we getting them for ? We arc not getting them to add to the already existing varieties. We are getting them to get the existing one replaced, some obsolete things, as he himself mentioned, such as the Toofanies, the Vampires and the Mysteres of which he made fun saying they are mysteriously obsolete planes or something like that. The Mysteres are getting old and we will have to replace them. That is why we are trying to get some good planes from the United States of America; if we get them, we will certainly try to replace them.