Boeing offering India Apaches and F-18s.

Boeing team to promote whole range of defence systems

HUMA SIDDIQUI

NEW DELHI, OCT 11: The Boeing team visiting India later this week will bring to the table AH-64D helicopters, along with the F-18s on which talks are already on. The mission is expected to also discuss unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) X-45A and P-8A for the Indian Navy, on which the US-based defence aircraft manufacturer recently carried out tests.

According to highly placed sources, the Boeing team that is expected to be here on Thursday will be making presentations to the government on several other defence systems other than civil and military aircraft.

The Indian Navy has expressed interest in Boeing-737 P-8A multi-mission maritime aircraft — the aircraft that Boeing is developing to replace the ageing P-3C Orion platform.

Sources said that this interest has already been communicated to a high-level team from Defence Security Cooperation Group (DSCG) chief Lt Gen Jeffrey B Kohler, that was recently in India.

The P-8A is perhaps one of the systems that India has expressed interest in which even the US does not have yet and, according to officials, will be fully operational and delivered to the US Navy only by 2013.

In fact, the P-8A was cleared by a US technical review board to proceed into the design phase very recently.

The P-8A matches the operational profile jointly mandated to the Indian Navy’s Russian Tupolev-142 long-range reconnaissance planes and IL-38 maritime patrol and anti-submarine warfare aircraft.

Washington’s offer for at least 12 P-3C Orions would match the same profile, though the P-8A will have superior intelligence-gathering equipment and ASW capabilities.

According to sources, the recent clearance by the Indian government to buy civilian aircraft from Boeing worth over $6 billion could perhaps get a favourable response.