New Delhi [India], October 3 : Responding to Elon Musk's recent assertion that "drones are the future of warfare, manned aircraft are not," Indian Air Force (IAF) Chief, Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh on Friday, emphasised that manned platforms will continue to play a crucial role in combat operations in the coming future.
Addressing the press conference on the 93rd Air Force Day celebrations in the national capital, the Air Chief noted that multiple advanced fighter programs across the globe -- often dubbed sixth-generation projects such as the U S Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program -- are all being developed as manned aircraft.
"At the moment, there are three or four major programs which are going on in the world, which they are calling the Sixth Gen Aircraft Program, NGAD, other different names. Now, all of them are manned. The importance of man, as of now, as I can see in the foreseeable future, is not going to fade away...
While acknowledging the growing role of unmanned systems, the IAF Chief underscored that these platforms would operate under the control of manned fighters.
"There will be unmanned systems. But those unmanned systems have to work in collaboration with the manned system or have to be controlled by a man. So the relevance of fighters will remain in the years to come. Elon Musk is a businessman," he explained.
He added that the tech billionaire's comments must be viewed in the context of business interests.
"He will talk about it like that because he himself is running a business. His cars, now you see how many of them are there on the road. I'm talking about just a simple car. When it comes to war fighting, I don't think we can just say that the next generation will see only unmanned by the end of their tenure. It will not happen like that. So manned platforms will remain," he said.
Apart from this, when asked about the S-400 Triumf air defence system, AP Singh praised the performance of the Russian-made air defence system, calling it a "good weapon system," while hinting that more units could be inducted in the future.
"Obviously, that has done good. So, there's a requirement to have more such; there is no limit to numbers that you can buy. Again, I'm keeping quiet on what the plan is... It has proved to be a good weapon system. We have our own system also developing, so we will take a call on that," he said.
Notably, India had signed a multi-billion-dollar deal with Russia in 2018 for five units of the S-400, out of which three have been delivered, and the rest are likely to be delivered by 2026.
Apart from this, dismissing Pakistan's claims of shooting down Indian fighter jets during Operation Sindoor, calling them "Manohar Kahaniyan" (fanciful stories).
Singh said there was no evidence to support Pakistan's claims, while India had shared images of damage caused to Pakistani targets. He added that such claims were made only to save face and mislead their public.
"If they think they shot down 15 of my jets, let them think about it. I hope they're convinced about it, and they will cater for 15 less aircraft in my inventory when they come to fight again. So why should I talk about it? Even today, I won't say anything about what happened, how much damage was done, how it happened, because let them find out..."
"Have you seen a single picture where something fell on any of our airbases, something hit us, a hangar was destroyed, or anything like that? We showed so many pictures of their places. However, they couldn't show us even a single picture. So their narrative is 'Manohar Kahaniyan'. Let them be happy, after all, they also have to show something to their audience to save their reputation. That doesn't matter to me," Singh said.
Following the 93rd Air Force Day celebrations, the IAF also released a video clip focusing on Operation Sindoor.
India launched 'Operation Sindoor' on May 7 as a decisive military response to the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack in which 26 people were killed. The Indian Armed Forces hit terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK) through precision strikes in May this year. India repelled subsequent escalation by Pakistan and pounded its airbases.