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| Embraer EMB-145 AEW&C with DRDO Radar |
by Chris Pocock
The 11th Aero India show at Bangalore last week was bigger than ever, as foreign manufacturers vied to offer attractive “Make In India” proposals to meet the country’s substantial defense needs. Meanwhile, the country’s own long-established aerospace company Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) showed the Advanced Hawk jet trainer that has been co-developed with BAE Systems, and proposed an Indian multi-role helicopter (IMRH). Neither project has official backing in the form of a firm requirement or orders, but at the show HAL did sign a memorandum of understanding with the government for a large new helicopter testing and production facility in the state of Karnataka.
The 11th Aero India show at Bangalore last week was bigger than ever, as foreign manufacturers vied to offer attractive “Make In India” proposals to meet the country’s substantial defense needs. Meanwhile, the country’s own long-established aerospace company Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) showed the Advanced Hawk jet trainer that has been co-developed with BAE Systems, and proposed an Indian multi-role helicopter (IMRH). Neither project has official backing in the form of a firm requirement or orders, but at the show HAL did sign a memorandum of understanding with the government for a large new helicopter testing and production facility in the state of Karnataka.
India’s fighter requirements were, as expected, high on the agenda. Saab made an aggressive pitch for the Gripen E, that included the proposed maritime version that could meet the Indian Navy’s requirement for 57 multi-role carrier-borne fighters. Kent-Ake Molin, commercial manager, said that Saab has “mobilized a robust global supply chain for India. We are not doing a copy and paste…the facility we will set up here will be new. Besides, we will bring in capabilities India has been wanting, such as superplastic forming and integration and use of software.” During the show, Saab Aeronautics head Ulf Nilsson told an Indian business daily that the Swedish company is talking about an Indian partnership to the Adani Group, which wants to build a 200-acre aerospace factory at Mundra.
A Gripen took part in the flying display, and so did an F-16, another candidate for the Indian Air Force’s yet-to-be-fully-defined requirement for a new, possibly single-engine fighter to be produced in-country. But concerns about possible changes in U.S. technology transfer policy clouded Lockheed Martin’s pitch for Indian-based production of the F-16V version of the Fighting Falcon. The American company issued a statement noting that its current proposal “was supported by the Obama administration as part of a broader cooperative dialogue with the government of India…we understand that the Trump administration will want to take a fresh look at some of these programs and we stand prepared to support that effort to ensure that any deal of this importance is properly aligned with U.S. policy priorities.”
Read the full story at AINonline