..:: India Strategic ::.. Defence Industry: Boeing ties with Indian suppliers for P8-I Maritime Aircraft

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Editorial

Boeing ties with Indian suppliers for P8-I Maritime Aircraft

By Gulshan Luthra

Published : December 2009

New Delhi. Boeing has tied up with four Indian companies to source some electronics equipment from four Indian companies to meet part of the offset oblicgations to sell eight P8-I Multi-mission Maritime Aircraft (MMA) to the Indian Navy.

Dr Vivek Lall, Vice President and country Head for Boeing Integrated Defense Systems (IDS) told India Strategic that Boeing was on schedule to meet its deadline for supplying the aircraft to India by 2013 and that it would fully meet its commitments in terms of timeline and offset obligations.

Boeing had recently signed agreements with three Indian public sector companies and one private sector company to source some avionics and electronic equipment but he gave no details except saying: Boeing has released purchase contracts to the Electronics Corp of India Limited (ECIL), HAL Avionics Division, Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and Avantel Softech Limited.

Equipment and software from the Indian supplliers will be taken to Seattle, where the world’s largest factory makes Boeing's commercial airplanes, for integration with the systems supplied by US companies.

The US$ 2.1 billion deal, signed after a global tender, entails 30 per cent offsets commitments for the Boeing, envisaging that much worth investments back into India and some Transfer of technology (ToT).

Boeing however is supplying only the aircraft built on a modern Boeing 737-800 platform, and Harpoon Block II anti-ship/ submarine missiles. The onboard combat systems supplied by other companies are part of the deal but are being acquired through the US Government under its Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programme.

The P8-I deal is a package of the Boeing 737-800 hybrid aircraft, Raytheon’s advanced AN/APY-10 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) for tracking ships, submarines and small coastal vessels even on high speed, Northrop Grumman’s Electronic Warfare Self-Protection (EWSP) suite, BAE Systems countermeasures dispenser system, Smith Aerospace’s Flight and Stores (or Weapons) Management System, and GE-SAFRAN’s powerful CFM 56-7 engines.

Besides the crew, the aircraft can have up to seven operator consoles to tackle various threats.

Official sources indicated that the initial payment in accordance with the contract towards its implementation had also been made by the Indian Ministry of Defence.

Notably, India will be the first foreign country to get this sophisticated technology, and nearly around the same time when the US Navy, which has paid for its development, gets it. The aircraft is under test now.

Significantly, according to Dr Lall, a distinguished Indian origin aerospace expert settled in the US, although the onboard technologies are the most sophisticated developed so far, there is scope for future technology insertions due to the aircraft’s open architecture.