By IANS
New Delhi : The Indian Navy will soon float a long-delayed global tender for maritime reconnaissance aircraft (MRA), a top military commander said Monday.
The navy is also in talks with the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) for developing a rotary-wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to enhance its maritime surveillance capabilities, Indian Navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta said.
“We have completed our evaluations of various long range maritime patrol aircraft and a request for proposals (RFPs) should go out very soon,” Mehta told reporters here ahead of the annual Navy Week celebrations from Tuesday.
The navy needs the aircraft to replace its ageing fleet of eight Soviet-era Tupolev Tu-42s that are on the verge of completing their service life.
A four-member Indian Navy team headed by a one-star officer had observed trials in July on MRA derivatives of the Airbus A-319 manufactured by EADS Spain and the Boeing P-8A Poseidon in the US.
Since neither of MRA derivatives exists, the flight trials involved simulations on the Airbus A-320 and the Boeing-737 platforms on representative flight profiles and mission system evaluations.
Boeing has offered India a customised version of the P-8A that is scheduled to fly in late 2009 with operational capability set for 2013. The Spanish platform too is expected to be ready around the same time.
Both manufacturers are seriously examining the possibility of partnering Indian companies to jointly develop communications, data-link and identification friend-or-foe (IFF) equipment as an added sales incentive, in keeping with New Delhi’s policy of indigenising its defence requirements, officials said.
And, given the burgeoning India-US strategic partnership, the Pentagon also has pledged to make additional technical, military capabilities available to New Delhi as the P-8A enters into service with the US military.
Other bidders for the Indian Navy contract are Israel Aerospace Industries and Elta Systems with a Dassault Falcon 900 business jet derivative, Lockheed Martin with a refurbished P-3C Orion, and a Russian consortium with the upgraded Ilyushin Il-38SD.
The officials said that since the navy was more interested in longer range MRAs currently under development, it was “seriously considering” acquiring two or three of the existing shorter range aircraft as an interim measure to plug a vital operational void in patrolling India’s vast coastline.
The officials said that the navy’s existing surveillance assets are insufficient to monitor the country’s 7,516 km coastline, 1,197 island territories and the 2.01 million sq km exclusive economic zone.
Apart from the Tu-42s, the navy currently operates two Il-38 MRAs upgraded to IL-38SD standards and equipped with the Sea Dragon system, 15 Dornier 228-101 aircraft and 12 Israeli Searcher and Heron-II unmanned aerial vehicles. Another three upgraded IL-38SDs are expected to join service by end-2008.
As for the rotary-wing UAV, the navy chief said this would be based on a helicopter that the HAL was manufacturing.
“I had personally initiated this project, based on a running helicopter that the HAL has indigenised. We chose HAL because we believe it can deliver a machine better than any other in the world,” Mehta added.
While he was not forthcoming with details, it is learnt that the new machine is based on the Lancer light attack helicopter the HAL has derived from the reliable and proven Cheetah helicopter that is in service with the armed forces.
On its part, the Cheetah is the HAL version of the French Aerospatiale Lama SA 315 helicopter that is specially designed for operation over a wide range of weights, centres of gravity and altitude conditions.