The Indian Air Force (IAF)’s Request for Proposal (RfP) for 60 Medium Transport Aircraft (MTA), estimated at around Rs 1 lakh crore and issued on Wednesday (August 12), highlights the growing logistics burden of operating an unusually large number of different aircraft types across the service.The MTA programme seeks to replace the IAF’s legacy Antonov An-32 fleet with a platform capable of carrying between 18 and 30 tonnes. Its eventual induction, however, will add another type to a transport fleet already spread across a wide range of platforms, a pattern mirrored in the IAF’s fighter arm, where an equally complicated mix of combat aircraft and support ecosystems prevails.Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.The MTA RfP has been issued exclusively to domestic companies, including Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), Adani Defence, Tata Advanced Systems and Mahindra Defence, which are expected to partner with foreign original equipment manufacturers to compete for the programme.The tender envisages 12 aircraft being supplied in fly-away condition and the remaining 48 manufactured in India, with the programme mandated to achieve 60% indigenous content in a phased manner, in keeping with the government’s broader Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative and push for greater self-reliance in defence production.But irrespective of which platform is ultimately selected, its induction will create another long-term support commitment for the IAF, as no aircraft is ever acquired in isolation. Each new type requires its own pool of trained air and ground crews, specialised equipment and tooling, maintenance procedures, technical manuals, simulators, software support and a whole lot else.Engine dependency too is an especially critical and enduring commitment. The aircraft’s powerplant has to be supported, overhauled and supplied with critical components throughout its service life, potentially tying the IAF to a foreign manufacturer and its technology base for decades. The same applies to avionics and other major systems, which require their own upkeep, upgrades and technical support for as long as the platform remains operational.All of this creates a continuing financial commitment that can endure for three or four decades, with each additional platform type increasing the cost of sustaining the wider fleet. The burden becomes particularly acute when several relatively small fleets have to be supported simultaneously, each requiring its own personnel, equipment, inventories and industrial arrangements.The scale of that financial burden is reflected in the IAF’s remarkably diverse transport fleet, which spans six principal aircraft types sourced from the Soviet Union, Russia, the US and Europe, as well as overseas licence-produced models. These include Boeing C-17 Globemaster IIIs and Lockheed Martin C-130J-30 Super Hercules aircraft, Ilyushin Il-76 heavy lifters and An-32s, European Airbus C-295 tactical transports and German-origin, HAL-built Dornier-228 utility aircraft.But this diversity does not end with transport aircraft alone. Added to them are Brazilian Embraer-based ‘Netra’ airborne early warning and control platforms, under-development Airbus A321-based electronic warfare aircraft and a burgeoning helicopter fleet drawn from multiple domestic and foreign sources.Also read: Too Many Four-Stars, Too Little Clarity on Who Commands the CommandersTogether, these diverse fixed and rotary wing fleets underscore the extraordinary breadth of aircraft types the IAF operates and needs to sustain.The acquisition cost of an aircraft is only one part of the financial equation. Far higher and less visible are the recurring costs of sustaining the fleet throughout its service life. The scale of that burden is already reflected in the IAF’s revenue expenditure, which has risen from around Rs 47,523 crore in 2024-25 to Rs 55,000 crore in 2025-26. Much of this spending goes towards keeping an increasingly varied aviation inventory operational, even before another transport aircraft such as the MTA is added.“The platform price figures in defence budgets, parliament and the media,” said a two-star IAF veteran, “but its logistics tail does not attract much attention because it is spread over decades.” That bill, he added, requesting anonymity, only grows over time as fleets multiply and age, requiring ever greater spending on sustenance.The IAF’s An-32s, inducted in July 1984, and its Il-76s, inducted 11 months later in mid-1985, illustrate just how long that logistics tail can become.The An-32 is an especially telling case. Although acquired from the Soviet Union, it was developed by the Antonov design bureau in Kyiv, then part of Soviet Ukraine, specifically for the IAF’s requirement for a rugged transporter capable of operating from high-altitude and hot-weather airfields. After the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, its design authority and much of its industrial expertise consequently ended up in independent Ukraine.That dependence became particularly evident in 2009, when India signed a $400-odd million contract with Ukraine to overhaul and upgrade 105 of its An-32s. Forty aircraft were to be modernised in Ukraine and the remaining 65 in India using Ukrainian kits, technology and technical assistance. The programme was intended to extend their service lives by another 20-25 years.But the arrangement subsequently became entangled in geopolitics. The Russia-Ukraine conflict after 2014, starting with the war in Crimea, disrupted the flow of Ukrainian modification kits and technical assistance, delaying the Indian portion of the programme. Till recently, only 55-60 of the original 105 An-32s had been upgraded – 40 in Kyiv and 15-20 at the IAF’s Kanpur depot – highlighting how even an aircraft operated by India for decades can remain vulnerable to events thousands of kilometres away when its design authority, specialised technology and support chain lie overseas.Moreover, the advent of the MTA is unlikely to make the An-32 disappear quickly either. A substantial number of the upgraded aircraft are likely to remain in service well into the 2040s and possibly beyond, leaving the IAF to operate the aging fleet alongside the new MTA for several more years.The new MTA will, therefore, not immediately eliminate an existing logistics commitment; it will, for a considerable period, add yet another one.The IAF’s transport fleet is only one manifestation of the Force’s wider fleet-diversity problem.This challenge becomes even more formidable in the IAF’s combat squadrons, where successive generations of Russian, French, British and Indian fighters have created a labyrinth of engines, avionics, weapons systems, maintenance regimes and global supply networks that must all be sustained simultaneously. Every new fighter inducted to enhance combat capability also expands this logistical maze, adding another long-term dependency that must be funded, managed and sustained for decades regardless of changing budgets, governments or strategic priorities.Also read: The Costliest Delay in Indian Military HistoryCurrently the IAF operates Russian Su-30MKIs and MiG-29s, French Rafales and Mirage-2000Hs, Anglo-French Jaguars and indigenous Tejas fighters. More fighter types are likely to follow, including the Tejas Mk2 and fifth-generation Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft, while another 114 Rafales remain under consideration, a substantial proportion of which are likely to be built domestically under a technology-transfer arrangement.India has also initiated efforts to co-join France’s Future Combat Air System, a sixth-generation fighter programme. Indian military planners argue that such participation could bring important technological benefits, but it would also potentially add another aircraft family and industrial ecosystem to an already crowded combat inventory.And that is the larger problem.Every new platform solves one capability gap for the IAF while creating another long-term logistical obligation. After all, platform diversity may make the service more formidable on paper, but unless accompanied by greater fleet standardisation, it will also make the force progressively more expensive to sustain.The danger is that the IAF could eventually field an impressive transport and fighter fleet, but one whose growing diversity makes it increasingly difficult – and increasingly costly – to keep operational.This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.