Three IAF instructors take the Hawk line at RAF Valley

Three Indian Air Force Qualified Flying Instructors have joined RAF Valley on Anglesey to teach Royal Air Force pilots on the BAE Hawk T2. The IAF Media Coordination Centre called it "a historic first in India-UK defence cooperation" and "the first deployment of Indian QFIs to the UK." The posting is for two years. The team is led by a squadron leader. The instructors stay under IAF command while they work to RAF training orders.

RAF Valley is home to No. 4 Flying Training School. Nos. 4 and 25 Squadrons fly the Hawk T2 as the last jet before students move to an operational conversion unit. The IAF uses the same Hawk family in the final stage of its own fighter pipeline. Shared type knowledge is the practical reason the exchange works. The political reason sits in the 19th UK-India Air Staff Talks in New Delhi, after which, in February, the two air forces agreed to deepen instructor swaps.

The direction of the exchange has reversed

Britain stood up a rudimentary air force in colonial India in 1932. Indian officers have since trained in the UK for decades as students. Sending Indian instructors the other way, to teach RAF fast-jet pupils on a Welsh airfield, is the piece that had not happened. Three British military academies already host Indian officers as instructors from the other services. Valley is the air piece of that pattern.

Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh met Jonathan Powell, the UK national security adviser, in April on regional security. The Valley posting is smaller than those talks and more durable. Instructor tours create habits that outlast a single exercise. They also expose RAF students to IAF procedures on an aircraft both forces already fly.

Valley shares its runway with Anglesey Airport. The Hawk T2 replaced the older T1 on the advanced syllabus. Students arrive from the Beechcraft Texan T.1 basic jet. Mountain and maritime work is done on the Airbus Jupiter helicopter. The Indian officers are on the Hawk line, not the helicopter line.

What two years is for

A QFI tour is long enough to see several student courses through. It is short enough that the IAF can rotate talent home before promotion boards. The IAF statement spoke of professional excellence and interoperability. The concrete test is whether Valley's course reports, two years from now, treat the Indian instructors as a normal part of the staff. If they do, the next swap will not need the word "historic."

For today the fact is simpler. Three IAF pilots are on the line at Valley. RAF pupils will fly with them. That had not been true on Friday.