India to spend $1.45b on boosting air defence

NEW DELHI—India plans to buy 40 Hawk trainer jets for its air force from British Aerospace (BAe) in addition to 66 purchased for 1.45 billion dollars in 2004, officials said Wednesday. The air force is in a hurry to acquire more trainers to ready rookie pilots for 126 new fighter aircraft India is set to acquire for more than 10 billion dollars later this year.
“The deal (for the 40 trainers) is now as good as done,” a senior air force commander told on condition of anonymity. Other military officers said the Indian navy has separately demanded another 17 BAe trainers and the two proposals could be converted into a single contract. “At 850 million rupees (21.8 million dollars) apiece, the tender for the air force alone will be 872 million dollars,” the air force official said.
Senior officials at Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL), India’s largest aircraft manufacturer, said the planes would be built under licence at a state-run facility in the southern Indian city of Bangalore after the deal is cleared. Formal clearance for the acquisition of the new 40 trainer jets is expected later this month, air force officials in New Delhi said.
The HAL officials asked not to be named and the company declined official comment. “We’re monitoring the situation and if the Hawk deal should happen then we will be delighted to support HAL in fulfilling that order,” BAe spokesman Guy Douglas told by telephone from London.
“We are long-term partners with HAL,” Douglas said, referring to a March 2004 contract for 66 trainers which BAe won despite stiff competition from France and Russia. Military aviation industry sources, meanwhile, said BAe was in talks with HAL to jointly build Hawks in India for export.
“The talks are in their initial stages. It also makes sense for us to investigate the prospects because there’s an opportunity in such a joint venture,” another BAe official said, declining to be named. India this month approved a billion-dollar purchase of six transport planes from US-based aviation giant Lockheed Martin and is likely to hand out a two-billion-dollar contract for eight naval planes to Seattle-based Boeing.
India’s million-plus military has become a massive arms buyer among emerging nations with the technology-hungry air force alone projecting a need for equipment worth 50 billion dollars in the next 10 years. The air force is impatient to replace its Soviet-era MiG-21s, dubbed “flying coffins” due to frequent crashes.
India will invite international bids to supply 312 light military helicopters and plans to acquire 18 more choppers in a separate global tender, air force chief Fali Major announced on Wednesday.
“The Indian air force plans to acquire two more squadrons (12 units) of attack helicopters and a squadron (six) of heavy-lift choppers,” Air Chief Marshal Major told reporters in New Delhi.
“Along with the attack and the heavy-lift helicopters, a global tender would be floated jointly with the army within three months to acquire 312 multi-role light helicopters,” Major said.—Agencies