Four months before the first three aircraft were formally received at Palam, an Indo-Soviet team took the An-32 to Agra, Walong, Along and Ladakh to find out whether it could meet the IAF’s unusually demanding requirements.
The Indian Air Force formally received its first three Antonov An-32 aircraft at Palam on 10 July 1984. The anniversary is usually marked as the beginning of the type’s service in India. The more interesting story, however, had begun four months earlier.
In February 1984, Wg Cdr P Rajkumar was detailed by Air Headquarters to lead the An-32 induction trials. His ten-man team included Gp Capt ‘Dada’ Ghosh, Bandi Sundar and two Army officers. Ghosh and Sundar had already completed their conversion training at Kyiv. Rajkumar, by contrast, had not even seen the aircraft when he was given the assignment.
There was reason for caution. An earlier evaluation conducted by Wg Cdr Ajit Lamba in 1976 had raised concerns about the aircraft’s stalling characteristics and short-field performance. These were not peripheral issues. The An-32 was being considered for operations from short, rough and high-altitude airfields, where handling at low speeds and performance after an engine failure could be decisive.
Rajkumar, therefore, decided to concentrate personally on the areas that concerned him most: behaviour at the stall and controllability following failure of the critical engine during take-off. The more mission-oriented flying would be carried out by Ghosh and Sundar, who were already qualified on the type.
The Soviet team arrives
The Antonov Design Bureau team arrived in Delhi with two new An-32s. One of the aircraft carried extensive flight-test instrumentation.
The Soviet contingent included three test pilots, Yuri Vladimirovich Kurlin, Katchienko and Risnitski, the last from the certification agency. A navigator, maintenance personnel and a senior designer completed the team.
The An-32 was powered by two AI-20D turboprops, each rated at approximately 5,180 shaft horsepower. The installation of these powerful engines, mounted unusually high above the wings, gave the aircraft the performance for which it would become known.
Following an initial meeting at Vayu Bhavan, the trials team moved to Agra. Rajkumar first flew two familiarisation sorties and carried out circuits and landings. An Antonov test pilot remained in the right-hand seat.
He then began the stall programme, testing the aircraft in several configurations and flight conditions. The results were satisfactory. The more demanding test involved feathering the critical engine at rotation speed. Rajkumar occupied the left-hand seat and asked the Soviet test pilot beside him to shut down the engine at VR. He announced the intended engine failure over the radio before take-off.
The air traffic controllers, he recalled, thought they were mad.
The aircraft required “a boot full of rudder” and nearly half-wheel deflection towards the live engine. It was demanding, but controllable. Its single-engine performance was also found satisfactory. The two principal concerns arising from the earlier evaluation had been addressed.
A demonstration at Agra
The trials at Agra also produced a display that remained firmly lodged in Rajkumar’s memory.
After a paratrooping demonstration, Kurlin and Ghosh took the aircraft up for a display flight. Kurlin first approached at about 500 feet with the left engine feathered. He carried out a teardrop turn and returned with the right engine feathered instead.
He then disappeared from view, reappeared at high speed at about 1,500 feet and performed a complete barrel roll. As Rajkumar later wrote, it took the observers several seconds to close their mouths.
The demonstration was spectacular, but the real test of the An-32 lay elsewhere. The aircraft had to prove that it could operate from the Advanced Landing Grounds of the North-East and the high-altitude airfields of Ladakh.
Mechuka, Tuting and Walong
The team moved to Jorhat for landing and supply-drop trials. Ghosh and Sundar handled much of the dropping work, while Rajkumar and Kurlin concentrated on landing performance. Mechuka and Tuting presented no major difficulty.
Walong was different.
Its dirt strip was only about 800 yards long. A 600-foot hillock stood at its southern end, while the Lohit valley lay to the north and east. Otters and Caribous could land in one direction, take off in the other and turn into the valley. The much larger An-32 could not simply imitate their profile.
Kurlin made several dummy approaches from both sides. The team concluded that the established procedure used by the smaller aircraft could not be replicated safely. Rajkumar was prepared to call off the landing. Kurlin was not.
The Soviet test pilot took the problem as a personal challenge. He proposed landing in one direction and taking off in the other. Rajkumar made it clear to the Antonov team that a landing at Walong was not an IAF requirement.
Before departure the following morning, the team received a message from the AOC, Air Cmde KD Kanagat. The AOC-in-C Eastern Air Command, Air Marshal P P Singh, had directed that no chances were to be taken.
The aircraft was kept light. It carried only four tons of fuel, with Kurlin in the left-hand seat, Ghosh on the right, Rajkumar in the jump seat and the navigator at his station. Kurlin made three approaches from the north-west, following the river valley before turning towards the strip. Once satisfied that the landing was possible, he committed to it.
At round-off height, he unlocked the propellers. The An-32 struck the ground with what Rajkumar remembered as a “terrific bang”. Kurlin braked hard and brought the aircraft to a halt well before the end of the strip. The crew was received by a party of Gurkha troops, who presented Kurlin with a kukri and served tea.
Rajkumar, meanwhile, was watching the windsock.
The wind had begun to rise. The take-off would now be downwind.
Between the river and the cliff
Kurlin taxied the An-32 to the foot of the hillock and lined up for departure. A rock cliff on the northern bank of the river lay ahead. As the aircraft accelerated, stones thrown up by the wheels struck its belly with a noise Rajkumar compared to machine-gun fire.
At 190 kmph, Kurlin selected a 30-degree flap setting from the take-off setting of 15 degrees. The strip ended, and the aircraft appeared to fall into the valley. Kurlin retracted the undercarriage. For several seconds, gravity pulled the aircraft towards the river while the cliff face rushed closer.
Kurlin banked left, lined up with the valley and held the An-32 in the air until it began to accelerate. At 240 kmph, he cleaned up the aircraft and climbed away. Rajkumar later described it as a masterly display of piloting skill, confidence in the aircraft and knowledge of its performance.
“I had never seen anything like that before,” he wrote, “nor have I since.”
The Along incident
The following day, the trials moved to Pasighat and Along.
At Along, a crowd of perhaps a thousand local residents had gathered to see the new aircraft. The Soviet crew opened the rear door but did not lower the ramp or fit the supporting stay. Members of the crowd entered through the side door and began moving towards the rear. As the weight shifted aft, the aircraft’s nose rose into the air.
The crowd panicked and rushed forward. The nosewheel struck the ground with a heavy impact. Rajkumar expected the aircraft to remain stranded at Along while the undercarriage was inspected. The Soviet technicians examined the nosewheel, kicked it a few times and declared, “Kharashov.”
It was satisfactory.
The aircraft started up and flew away. Together with the punishment absorbed during the Walong landing, the incident provided an unplanned demonstration of the strength of the An-32’s undercarriage.
Ladakh, weeks before Meghdoot
The team then headed towards Ladakh, travelling through Allahabad and Pathankot.
At Allahabad, Air Marshal Denis La Fontaine, AOC-in-C Central Air Command, arrived with members of his staff and requested a flight in the aircraft. At Pathankot, Air Marshal M S D Wollen, AOC-in-C Western Air Command, asked to fly to Leh.
Kurlin and Rajkumar took the second aircraft to Thoise, which then had a pierced-steel-planking runway of about 2,000 yards. It presented no major difficulty. The timing is notable. The Ladakh trials took place in the first week of March 1984. Operation Meghdoot would be launched on 13 April.
At Thoise, an Army brigadier arrived at the tent occupied by the trials team and demanded to know who they were and why a group of foreigners had been permitted into the area. Rajkumar showed him the official trial directive, but the brigadier remained until the aircraft departed.
Only later did the reason for his concern become fully apparent. Preparations for the occupation of the Siachen Glacier were underway, and the presence of Soviet personnel near Thoise naturally raised questions about operational security.
The An-32 was thus being tested in the very region where its ability to carry men and supplies at altitude would soon become strategically important.
“Long and useful service”
The final debrief was held at Vayu Bhavan on 13 March 1984.
The audience included the Vice Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal J R Bhasin; the Deputy Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal J W Greene; Air Marshal Wollen; and AVM S K Mehra, the Assistant Chief of the Air Staff for Operations. Several other senior officers were present, along with the Antonov delegation.
Rajkumar, then a wing commander, presented the results and gave the An-32 a clear endorsement. He ended with a prediction:
“The An-32 will see long and useful service in the IAF.”
The first three aircraft were formally received at Palam on 10 July 1984. The IAF would eventually acquire 125 An-32s from the Soviet Union between 1984 and 1991. The type could carry approximately 7.5 tonnes of cargo or about 50 passengers. More importantly, it could do so from airfields where runway length, altitude, surface condition and temperature imposed severe restrictions on conventional transport aircraft.
Eight squadrons over four decades
The An-32 spread through the transport fleet in stages.
No. 12 Squadron was the first unit associated with the type in 1984. Nos. 43, 48 and 49 Squadrons followed during 1984 and 1985. No. 33 Squadron received the aircraft in 1986, operated it until 1992 and returned to the type in 2000.
No. 19 Squadron operated the An-32 from 1988 to 1990, before handing its aircraft to No. 33 Squadron. No. 25 Squadron converted in 1993, while No. 11 Squadron operated the type between 1996 and 1998.
In all, eight IAF squadrons have operated the An-32: Nos. 11, 12, 19, 25, 33, 43, 48 and 49 Squadrons. The aircraft has also served with the Paratroopers Training School and the transport training establishment at Yelahanka.
The initial induction equipped four squadrons within a little more than a year. Further conversions followed as the fleet expanded and aircraft were redistributed between units. The An-32 was not a short-lived addition to one corner of the transport force. It became one of its principal working aircraft.
The cost of demanding service
That history also carries a heavy human cost.
The Bharat Rakshak compilation currently records 19 An-32 accidents and serious occurrences. At least 12 were fatal. The known toll exceeds 140 aircrew, passengers and other personnel. The locations are revealing: Kishtwar, Mechuka, the Shivaliks, Palam, Ludhiana, Delhi, Arunachal Pradesh, and the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal.
The causes and circumstances differed. Aircraft were lost during approaches, paradrops, mountain flying, over-water sorties and operations from remote airfields. Some accidents arose from technical failure, some from weather or terrain, and others from combinations that remain difficult to reconstruct.
The induction trials do not explain away these losses. Nor should the risks inherent in military transport operations be used to avoid examining individual accidents critically. They do, however, show the task for which the An-32 was selected.
The aircraft was expected to operate where runways were short, surfaces rough, terrain close and margins narrow. It was tested at Mechuka, Tuting, Walong, Thoise and Leh because those were not exceptional destinations. They represented the work the aircraft would be required to undertake repeatedly.
Forty-two years after Rajkumar’s presentation at Vayu Bhavan, his judgment has not been belied. The An-32 did see long and useful service in the Indian Air Force. It also saw demanding service and paid a terrible price for it.
My thanks to Air Marshal P Rajkumar for preserving and sharing this remarkable first-hand account of the An-32 induction trials.
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