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1/2/08

The Tribune: Indian Navy may go for European aircraft - by Girja Shankar Kaura


For the complete report from The Tribune click on this link

Indian Navy may go for European aircraft - by Girja Shankar Kaura

The Indian Navy, which is all set to float the long-delayed global tender for maritime reconnaissance aircraft (MRA), seems to have narrowed down its choice to the offering from the European consortium of EADS.The Airbus A-319 version had emerged as the favorite in the race. This despite the Pentagon pledging to make additional technical, military capabilities available to New Delhi as the P-8A enters into service with the US military. It seems the price, at which the EADS would be arming the Indian Navy with the eight MRAs, is almost US $ 400 million less than the price offered by Boeing. Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Sureesh Mehta had recently said: “We have completed our evaluations of various long-range maritime patrol aircraft and a request for proposals (RFPs) should go out very soon”.The other initial bidders for the contract had included Israel Aerospace Industries and Elta Systems (Orion) and a Russian consortium with the upgraded Ilyushin Il-38SD.

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