JON LAKE AND TIM RIPLEY
BAE Systems hopes that India will decide "before too long" on buying at least 66 Hawk LIFT trainers, according to Sir Charles Masefield, BAE Systems Group marketing director.
The deal has been on hold since earlier in the year, when Indian defence ministry officials were implicated in a corruption scandal unrelated to the Hawk buy.
Masefield describes the India deal as "very important" to the company's long-term strategy in the trainer market because the very low costs of the production line in India could help to drive down the price of future variants. "We could actually single-source Hawk components from it," he says. Sixty-six aircraft is only an initial figure, according to Masefield, and once set up the Indian line could run for 15-20 years.
BAE Systems has no intention of closing down its own production line in the UK: "The strategy for the UK is to built 20-24 aircraft a year – that's what we think the world market will support."
India needs the aircraft initially to replace the Hawker Hunters previously used in the fighter lead-in training role but retired without replacement some years ago.
Directly
Since then Indian pilots have transitioned directly from the PZL Iskra or HAL Kiran to the Jaguar or Mirage OCUs, or via the MiG-21 to Soviet front-line types, resulting in high accident rate.
The first batch of Indian Hawks would be UK-built, the second assembled in India from BAE-supplied kits and the third batch locally built by HAL. The aircraft would be broadly similar to the Mk 115 used for Nato flying training in Canada. The aircraft would incorporate some indigenous equipment, including the secondary inertial navigation system, the radios and the ILS.
"Anyone buying fighters needs trainers. You can't put inexperienced pilots into supersonic aircraft," says Masefield. The proposed supersonic trainers are no competition for the Hawk, he believes, because they will not be available for at least another eight years.
Source: Flight Daily News
