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| An Indian Air Force Hawk Trainer Aircraft |
By Vivek Raghuvanshi
NEW DELHI — BAE Systems and India's state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) are considering establishing a joint venture to co-produce variants of the Hawk trainer, upgrade the Jaguar aircraft and establish a partnership focused on logistics and producing spares in India.
T. Suvarna Raju, HAL chairman and managing director, said, "We are in active dialogue with BAE Systems for exploring long-term opportunities to provide upgrades and logistics and spares support solutions for both Hawk trainer and Jaguar combat aircraft [which are already license-produced by HAL] for a worldwide market."
HAL and BAE have also decided to showcase a static display of the Combat Hawk in the Aero India air show in 2017, Raju added.
Dave Corfield, head of Hawk India, Military Air & Information, BAE Systems, said, "Our goal is to combine our strengths with HAL’s to co-develop and co-produce a more capable version of Hawk for use in India and also to export from India to the worldwide market. A joint study by BAE Systems and HAL has indicated significant market potential for this class of aircraft. This more capable version of the Hawk is the Advanced Combat Hawk, or 'Dream Hawk,' combining improved maneuver performance with laser designation, precision smart weapons and state-of-the-art synthetic training."
An Indian Air Force official said they have not considered ordering the Combat Hawk.
Read the full story at DefenseNews