Indian Air Force gets future ready, scripts ‘unmanned force plan’
The IAF has also worked out an acquisition roadmap for the unmanned force.
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VELANKANNI RAJ B
The Indian Air Force (IAF) is getting future ready, scripting an “unmanned force plan” for the next three to five years about 30 to 50 units of small to large UAVs for specific combat roles.
The move to put a structure to the scattered use of different kinds of drones is in sync with global development of unmanned air forces several countries are actively pursuing.
Ukraine has gone ahead and established the world’s first Unmanned Systems Forces, a dedicated branch for unmanned and robotic warfare which it’s using decisively to sustain battle against Russia.
The IAF has also worked out an acquisition roadmap for the unmanned force. For the short term, the IAF will be procuring MALE (medium altitude long endurance) UAVs that fly at an altitude of 10,000 to 30,000 feet for extended durations of time.
Likewise, for the medium term, the Force will go for HALE (High Altitude Long Endurance) UAVs that operate at altitudes above 30,000 feet and have extended range.
“We have already on paper envisioned Indian Air Force’s unmanned force plan, in which we are looking in the next three to five years, about 30, 40, 50 units of all nature, between small, medium and large UAVs,” said Air Commodore (Operations) Sandeep Singh at FICCI’s seminar on “Weaponised Drones: Opportunities and Challenges.”
This unmanned force paper was written by the IAF in 2013 before the UAVs emerged as strategic assets to redefine battle engagement, the Air Commodore stated in his speech delivered at the FICCI event on Friday.
The IAF has opened a school of Unmanned Aerial Systems at Bhatinda. It will basically look into all domains, for carrying out R&D, interact with the academia and the industry, besides offering the test range and help handhold the industry to achieve what is needed, he said.
The operation requirements broadly would be to go off base, have long capability to reach deeper inside the enemy territory, Sandeep Singh told the gathering of armed forces personnel and industry representatives.
He invited the industry to join hands with the IAF in its effort for indigenous procurement of different kinds of UAVs that operate in GPS denied or EW contested environments and for counter-UAV systems that can neutralise frequency hopping drones.
Like in other ongoing global conflicts — Russia-Ukraine, Israel-Hamas and Iran-Israel and US — and in Operation Sindoor, drones were key to the offensive launched from both sides.
Giving a sense of the proposed unmanned force, the Air Commodore also stated that the IAF is looking at flexibility to operate from anywhere and with minimum human resources.
“I should have a flexible mobile system that goes and deploys anywhere, under a tree, mount, deploy and get back… So a small man team is what I’m looking at from the Air Force point of view, which delivers, remains concealed and deploys from anywhere and can be controlled from elsewhere ,” Singh informed.
A 100 km long drone corridor close to Hyderabad is also coming up that will offer every guidance and solution needed for it.
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Published on July 5, 2025
