su-30 MKI

A test pilot has this to say about the pride of the IAF

"The Aviators who fly her love her, but the ones who fly against her wish they never did... Many call her the eight wonder... They believe she parallels none in the sky... None when she Strikes, none when she escorts, none when she Intercepts... Beacuse she does not merely guard the skies, she dominates the battle space... the Sukhoi 30MKI is every fighter pilots' dream machine.. she may have the ruggedness of the russian airframe and the finess of the western avionics, But she belongs only to the Indian airforce.. Modernised and customised to serve as a strategic weapon "

Now those are some awe-inspiring words and believe me i have seen this machine fly as close as 200m above the ground.. of course it can;t do the cobra manouver at that altitude, but whatever little it could was breathtaking.. so much so that it created a vacuum around us n we lost all track of time. I will never forget that Aero India show in 2005, I happened to be in b'lore just by chance, having met with an accident and hence delaying my departure to delhi. Looking back now i thank God that the accident was minor and i got to see aero india too.

Apart from the Su 30 spectacle i also got to see the new Russian Mig 29 OVT or rechristened as the Mig 35 which flauted its new thrust vectoring system to impress the IAF. The gripens,rafales and F15s too made their presence felt. I saw the sea-harrier perform for the first time, they're an ageing fleet and India is desperately waiting for the 16 Mig 29K with INS Vikramaditya, wish the Russians wud send it sooner, greedy lot that they are. (The 3rd pic is of the mig 29K painted in IAF colors)

I'll verify that quote about Su-3o, it gets a little overboard by calling it the 8th wonder and about it being only being with the IAF. AFAIK Russia sold a lot of su-30s to china too, but ours is an improved version called MKI. Only issue is China is already mass producing the model that russia gave it. Its gonna be there primary fighter whereas India will use Su-30 as its premier a/c and as a user of the last resort.