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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.
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